Sunday- Pentecostal Church

Sunday, Sara and I went with her flatmate Rainbow to his Pentecostal church in Seapoint (it took two minibuses to get there!). Since Sara and I have Religion in Africa together, we were excited to see our readings in action. The thing that surprised us the most is that it seemed like, though the church was 95% Black, all the church leadership seemed to be white (and FEMALE, an even bigger peculiarity). I’m not sure if this is recent since, historically, most of African Pentecostalism was a response to limitations on Black leadership and African traditions in European churches. The church was PACKED like a minibus taxi, which, as a reminder, looks like this:

Everybody was in the pews shoulder-to-shoulder and when we stood up, we had to stagger slightly. Even before church, everyone was crowded around the doors waiting for them to open to storm in and get a good seat (think 9:30 Club on Girl Talk nights). Most of the songs were about celebration, which was nice and upbeat. Then they switched to singing/praying in tongues (which sounds like gobbleygook, but I think is supposed to be ancient languages), which admittedly through Sara and I off a bit. They also spoke a lot about praying in tongues, though I still don’t totally understand the concept. They said that the Bible says when ‘we’ speak in tongues we are speaking to God. I’m not sure if the Bible says that, or what that would mean for non-tongued prayer, which they also used plenty. When the pastor started the sermon, she asked everyone who didn’t have a job and wanted one to stand up...which was practically half the church. And not just the young recent-grad folks, there were plenty of couples with young children where both partners stood up. It was really staggering. She then promised them that today they would get their CV (resume) in order and tomorrow they would have a job. I’m not sure how I feel about that sort of promise, but the reaction was really striking. People were in tears and jumping up and down, and some even pulled their CVs out of their bags. The message was all prosperity gospel, and I found it a bit confusing theologically, but there was a big emphasis on ‘real’ Christians being rewarded immediately, in this life. The service was about three hours-pretty exhausting-but fascinating throughout.