The Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverend Dr Rowan Williams, on his first visit to Jamaica as head of the Anglican Communion, has urged the island's churches to establish themselves as God's extended arm to all humanity.

"We should do that by asking ourselves day by day and year by year: Is ours a community in which there are people still in need? The answer sadly is yes!," he told the congregation at Sunday's service on the occasion of the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council.

"In the Church and in the world, there is need wherever we look," he said.

He says the Church is still on its way to becoming what God wants it to be and it must work towards satisfying the needs of its constituents.

"In this way and in this way alone the Church will be able to challenge the whole world and say: God's purpose for the world is human family where there is no one in need," he says.

Physical and spiritual needs

The archbishop reminded his congregants that they should, however, address both the physical and spiritual needs of citizens.

"We need forgiveness, we need reconciliation, we need justice. As Jesus himself said, those who are hungry and thirsty for justice are blessed - and that is a reminder of how deep that need is," he says.

He also urged his flock to live within the realm of Christ's teachings as Christians cannot speak to others about the need for God unless they make Him real in their own lives.

"The Holy Spirit comes upon us as a Church so that our actions, our love, our hopes, our feelings are caught up into the action of God in Jesus Christ; so that our weak power is overwhelmed in the power of God to give and to serve," he told the nearly 8,000 congregants in the National Arena.

"And we, caught up in that self-giving love of God in Jesus Christ, we begin to understand that the hunger and the need of this world is met not simply by policies, not by words, not by documents, but by the gift of ourselves in prayer and in love," he added.

The archbishop is on the island for the 14th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council which ends on May 12. As head of the Anglican and Episcopal churches worldwide, he leads a flock of 80 million people.

Dayna Nelson and Marlon Samuda check the lighter fuel at the Anglican conference at the National Arena on Sunday.