The workshops included an overview of the health situation in Liberia, highlighting the top 10 causes of morbidity and mortality. Then participants discussed church health ministries, and formed an engagement strategy as well as action plans. The curriculum employs the WCC Health-Promoting Churches model, developed between 2017 and 2020 as a concept for mobilising and equipping churches as healing communities. The model is anchored by a church-based health committee, which is a multidisciplinary and diverse team charged with planning, coordination, reporting, and championing health activities in congregations. Health-promoting churches are animated through health education, practical action, advocacy, and public witness. Participants in the workshop learned about the theological and historical grounding of health promotion; how to analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and stakeholders; tools for monitoring and evaluation; and the model’s scope of operation on three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced. This guides the churches to start small, build confidence, and grow—instead starting very ambitiously and failing. Dr Mwai Makoka, WCC programme executive for health and healing, noted the urgent need to advocate for, and demonstrate the impact of community-based and community-driven health promotion initiatives in Liberia. “Churches remain a reliable structure for grassroots community mobilisation in Africa, with great potential for acceptable, effective, and sustainable health promotion initiatives,” he said. "Churches possess three religious health assets: ideas that can give people conviction, legitimacy, and willpower to personal and community transformation; practices that can inspire people to care for each other and be active agents of change in their communities; and structures that can provide leadership, resources, collective identity, and purpose to social movements.” Liberia Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Christopher Wleh Toe bemoaned the crisis of drug and substance abuse in Liberia, especially among the youth, and appealed to the workshop participants to be primary change agents in their communities, and to put into practice what they learnt. On her part, Christian Health Association of Liberia executive director Patricia Kamara welcomed the Health-Promoting Churches model in Liberia as its implementation will complement the work of church hospitals and drug supply services. The two workshops were attended by 30 participants each, who came in teams of 3-4 people from the churches, and included pastors, youth, and women leaders and health workers. Each team developed an action plan to implement upon return to their churches, and will be accompanied closely by the Liberia Council of Churches and Christian Health Association of Liberia. The participants expressed great appreciation for the workshop, calling it a seed that has been planted in them, which they will nurture to grow. | 
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