The General Secretary of the Council Reverend Ma'auga Motu says a letter of objection has been received and will be discussed in next month's executive meeting.

He says the objection is based on using LMS because the Congregational Christian Church was formerly known as LMS before it changed its name 50 years ago.

The Congregational Christian Church of Samoa traces its beginnings to the arrival in 1830 of missionaries sent by the London Missionary Society, accompanied by missionary teachers from Tahiti and the Cook Islands and a Samoan couple from Tonga.

This Samoan church has continued to forge ecumenical relationships with other churches locally, regionally and internationally. Now it has become a transnational church with eight Districts (synod or diocese) outside Samoa: one in the USA, one in Hawaii, three in Australia and three in New Zealand. It has one congregation each in Fiji and American Samoa.

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• CCCS.org.ws
• Image: Facebook

Church general secretary Rev. Iutisone Salevao said the bank idea would include setting up a corporate plan operating under the development arm of the church. He said its operations would be fully accountable to the church and its management would be hired on skills and qualifications.

Based on a feasibility study conducted last year, Rev. Salevao said there were other issues to consider. One was concerning ‘moral assets' that if a church member defaults on a secured loan where freehold property is taken by the bank as collateral, then the church has a legal right to move in. "But will the church be in a position to enforce the rights against his or her land?"

The other concern was whether the government was going to issue the church the license to operate a bank since there's already a huge presence of foreign owned bank in Samoa. "So we have to consider if setting up another bank is in the best economic interest for Samoa."

Source

• Samoaobbserver.ws
• Image: www.google.co.nz