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The Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, a Lecturer at the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, has asked Ghanaians to use the Christmas and New Year Season to reflect on being kind to others.

He said at the individual and collective levels, people should pay attention to the “next good,” which he explained as the ability to identify challenges and make the needed commitments to solving them.

Rev Opuni-Frimpong, who is also a former General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, said this in a message copied to the Ghana News Agency on Friday.

“We will do ourselves a lot of disservice to come out of the Christmas and the New Year Season without paying serious attention to the Next Good both at the individual and societal levels,” he said.

“The Next Good is the ability to discern the future of a people, identify the challenges and make the needed commitments to move into the future ready to make the sacrifices.”

“Issues about public discipline, good governance, peace and national cohesion, citizens’ responsibilities, sustainability of the environment, generational hope etc. must be given attention in our national conversations towards the Next Good.

He said as the world marks the Christmas and the New Year, which were moments of celebration and reflection; “one of such dimensions that ought to occupy our reflection is paying attention to the Next Good”.

Rev. Opuni-Frimpong pointed out that God, who had sustained creation and the universe, pursued the ‘Next Good’ through the birth of Christ in love, grace and mercy and that the whole Christmas celebration was God’s plan to bring redemption, salvation and peace.

He called on churches to prioritise their spiritual, moral and social witnesses beyond having high numbers in congregations and building cathedrals, among other things.

He said families must consider quality relationships and avoid the challenges that contemporary technologies were presenting and pay attention to savings to meet the needs of aging.

“Let us enter the future with hope while paying attention to the Next Good,” he said.