The recently formed Zimbabwe Indigenous Interdenominational Christian Council (ZICC) is calling on all political actors and churches to come together for a meeting to pray for the nation and its development.
Speaking to Spiked Online Media in Harare on 29 January 2020, Reverend Andrew Wutawunashe, the ZICC Secretary-General called on Zimbabweans from all walks of life and the entire Christian community to converge at the giant National Sports Stadium on Saturday 1 February 2020 for a national prayer meeting to start from 8 o’clock in the morning until one o’clock in the afternoon.
President Mnangagwa will attend the prayer meeting at the invitation of ZICC. The meeting will run under the theme: “Joining hands, hearts, minds and voices together in Christ to serve build and strengthen our nation.”
The theme is drawn from Nehemiah 2vs 18 which says “Let us arise build and strengthening ourselves for his good work.”
There will be several performances lined up including Vabati VaJehovah and Family Voices.
Some three months ago the grouping whose patron is Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi asked Reverend Andrew Wutawunashe, the founder of Family of God Church to facilitate a meeting with President Mnangagwa.
A meeting was held with the President Mnangagwa where the churches raised a number of issues among them the recognition of indigenous churches so that they play a role in the nation building.
The indigenous churches also said they wanted to be regarded as a voice in the same way they did during the liberation struggle.
“We had churches like mapositori, Zion, Zaoga FIF and others who assisted in the liberation struggle,” Rev Wutawunashe said.
“Another issues raised was that while the traditional churches and missionaries were given land for free during the colonial it was not the case with the indigenous churches who have to go through bureaucratic red tape to buy land.
“So in that regard a call was made to empower the indigenous churches.”
Rev Wutawunashe said the indigenous churches despite being sidelined commanded huge following for instance in the case of Zion which has over 500 000 members across the country.
“So the voice of the masses should be heard in nation building and this is why the indigenous new church council was formed.
“On national discourse the churches believe we should move away from legitimacy issue because even the Supreme Court ruled that ED is the President. So now dialogue depart from saying he is illegitimate because by doing so we will set a bad precedent and perpetuate trouble for the next winning candidate.
“Dialogue should start by affirming President Mnangagwa as the President to that we can move forward with nation building,” Rev Wutawunashe said.