Reverend Shadrack Lekoana of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa recently delivered another successful skills development training at Castle Kyalami to more than 100 Pastors from various religions in collaboration with the Scientology Volunteer Ministers.
Determined to resolve conflicts within different religions, Rev. Shadrack Lekoana has made it his life’s mission to bringing peace amongst religions and has now brought together more than 3’000 different leaders from different Churches all over South Africa to be trained on an impactful Skills Development program known as the “Tools for Life”.
The Interfaith Empowerment Seminar held at the Church of Scientology in Midrand was attended by over 100 pastors, bishops, reverends and other religious leaders who converged at the Church for an impactful development seminar as well as promoting peace amongst religions.
The workshop opened with an impactful speech by Reverend Lekoana emphasizing the importance of religion in society. “It is a tragedy to see what society has become under our neglect. Most of the time we are too focused on membership and proving who is right and who is wrong and so much so that we have neglected out duties in the community! Religious unity can be more than a dream. We are all gathered here to be empowered with skills to help our communities with. So let us learn with the purpose of helping our people”.
This was followed by intense training on subjects such as conflict management, social and spiritual counselling, how to tackle drug abuse, education and many more covered by the Scientology Volunteer Minister’s Tools for Life Skills Development Program.
Sandile Hlayisi, from the Church of Scientology who conducted the training with the reverend said “In earlier seminars, many commented about the remarkable unity amongst pastors and priests of various faiths when they are at the Church of Scientology. We love working with pastors, ministers and priests of all faiths and religions.”
” We may be from different faiths but we all live and are affected by the same societal issues. It is vital that we focus on how we are going to work together to assist in solving the high crime rate, GBV, substance abuse and many other social issues that have plagued our country for far too long now. We can’t waste our time in arguing with each other. We have much work to do”. Added Hlayisi.
Mr. Ditle, an elder and member of the Church Council of the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa (URCSA) attended the religious workshop for the first time. He expressed his extreme gratitude and said “I have been with the Uniting Reformed Church for a long time but today was my first time at the Church of Scientology. It was a fantastic experience. Our churches today lack strong leaders and for a long time I have asked myself why this is. Today I got my answer. They sometimes lack the practical knowledge to handle social situation so they don’t know what to do but they do have the passion to help.”
Hlayisi promoted that this can be remedied with the Tools for Life skills development program authored by L. Ron Hubbard.
One of the leaders of the Churches Women’s Ministry, Ms. Mthethwa also expressed her opinions and said, “It was a fun seminar and I learned a lot. I will definitely tell the leader of the Women’s Ministry about this training and encourage her to attend. I want to get more women to this seminar!”
Bishop Mnisi, National Deputy Secretary of the South African Christian Ministers Council (SACMIC) who was also present said “The Tools for Life have the potential to change my community! Apart from being active in the church I also run a non-profit organization that does projects with the local youth. With this knowledge we can go far. Our youth today have a lot of problems. We all know them, unemployment, drugs, crime, overall hopelessness, you name it. There are no effective programs out there to change this, because nobody can handle the underlying cause of all these problems – the mind-set! But this program can!”
A community leader and church leader who travelled all the way from Sedibeng was also very delighted to have been present at this very special occasion. She said “these courses are what we all need to change the course of this country’.
In closing, Reverend Lekoane expressed his dream to the various denominations present at said “It is such an honor to see all of us getting along and realizing that working together is actually more beneficial than working against each other. The word of God says that we are destroyed because of lack of Knowledge, now it is time to equip ourselves with knowledge so we can bring back life into our communities”.
He further affirmed his goal to train as many churches as possible on the Tools for Life program and he is not planning on giving up on his dream of seeing religious peace and unity.
