For years American missionaries brought Christianity to Africa. Now African Christians say they want to export their own brand of ecstatic worship and moral discipline to the United States, a country they believe has lost its fervor.
"The United States has become very slack, so God is making us bring worship and praise to them," Rev. Samuel Sorinmade said at the North American convention of the Nigeria-based Redeemed Christian Church of God, or RCCG, which runs through Friday at the Rosemont Theatre.
Christianity is growing faster in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world, and the number of African Christians coming to the U.S. is also rising. The largest African Pentecostal church, the RCCG counts 82 parishes in the United States, including two in Chicago: Jesus House on the North Side and All Nations Assembly in Lincolnwood.
The church emphasizes biblical inerrancy, the power of the Holy Spirit, divine healing and prophecy. It warns against disobeying church authority and a worldliness leaders see as rampant in the United States.
Leaders of the RCCG dream of a day when one in four people worldwide are members. Although most of its 5,000 parishes in 80 countries are predominantly Nigerian, in Africa the church has attracted residents of Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Zimbabwe, among other countries. In the U.S., African-Americans, Latinos and Caucasians occasionally join in the church's boisterous, music-filled services.
Worshipers expect nothing less than miracles in their evangelism and at the
conference, which will culminate in an all-night Holy Ghost service Friday
modeled after events in Nigeria that organizers say draw millions of ecstatic followers.
"By the time you are going back, it will be like a dream when you think of all the problems you used to have," Rev. E.A. Adeboye told a crowd of 2,700 men, women and children Wednesday night as they rose to their feet, reached to the sky and shouted words of praise. "After this convention you are going to sing a new song."
Adeboye, a former mathematics professor, spearheaded the church's growth beginning in the 1980s.
His church "is a miracle center," said Tosin Lofinmakin, a public health official who came to the conference from Washington, D.C., and said she has seen the disabled walk after church services.
Founded in 1952, the RCCG is one of several African churches in the U.S., said Jacob Olupona, a religion professor at the University of California at Davis who has studied the topic.
The African Pentecostals, he said, are characterized by their use of music and dance in the liturgy, their belief that prayer will solve problems, and their attempts to adapt Christian values to African beliefs and ways of life.
"The African mind is one that believes in the existence of witchcraft and evil in the world and the effect of magic and medicine," said Olupona. "The Pentecostal church counteracts the forces with the power of prayer and the word of God."
Olupona said African indigenous religion--such as the traditional faith of the Yoruba people--has become stronger among African-Americans than among modern Africans. "It's part of the Black Nationalist phenomenon" in the U.S., he said.
Ethnic ministries are also found within American churches with a large African presence, particularly the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbyterians. These mainline groups hope to prevent more defections to Pentecostal churches, Olupona said, which are often considered more sensitive to the Africans' needs.
For the last 10 years, members of Jesus House, a RCCG church located in a refurbished store at Montrose and Kedzie Avenues in Chicago, have hoped to meet the needs of anyone drawn to the spirit.
Last Sunday more than 400 people reveled in the church's three-hour service, most of them Nigerian immigrants who danced wildly in the pews and formed conga lines to the raucous music of a seven-piece band. But there were also a smattering of African-Americans, Hispanics and whites.
Amid the Africans dressed in splendid robes and headdresses was Monique Jones, 28, a secretarial worker from the South Side.
"It's my second time here, and I just love it. They really know how to praise the Lord," said Jones, who was brought to the service by a Nigerian co-worker. "The music is what got me. It feels like you're going back to your African roots."
Members of the congregation actively promote the church to friends, neighbors and co-workers. The church posts fliers throughout Chicago and hosts several picnics a year in an aggressive effort to evangelize.
"I extend my gospel to all the people I work with. I ask them to turn back to God," said Jimi Kafisanwo, 50, a hotel bellman who said he has persuaded four of his co-workers to join.
Wale Akinosun, the church's associate pastor, said the church's music is also a big draw. "The sound is a bit African and a bit R&B. But it gets people dancing and celebrating, which the Lord loves to see."
Heather Harris, 21, a bank teller who just moved to the North Side from Indianapolis, was given a flier for the church last week.
"The first song brought tears to my eyes," Harris said after the service Sunday. "I love the way they worship. They actually prayed for God to show up before we started. I haven't really been thinking about God too much lately, but I could feel him in that room."
While the church calls itself a place of all nations, and some Americans have indeed joined the church, it remains primarily a gathering place for African immigrants, where they can mourn their dead, baptize their children and teach the new generation the traditions of old.
"I find so much love, so much comfort in this place. It makes me feel like I'm home in Nigeria," said Foluke Irukera, 32, an accountant from Schaumburg who came to the U.S. in 1995. "Being a Nigerian center isn't the aim of our church, but that's what it has become for many of us. You miss the feeling of your home church."
A group of teenagers at the Rosemont Theatre agreed it was important to hold onto their culture, but like most second-generation immigrants they sometimes chafe at their parents' strictness.
"I like to stick to the ways, but sometimes I stray," said Dare Adewole, 14 of Detroit. "When I go to parties and I dance with a girl--the way they dance is not something the church would want for us."
Temitayo Akindele, 12, also of Detroit, objects to the rules about dating. "They think you shouldn't get a boyfriend till you're looking for someone to marry. I don't like it."
But they would never give up, they said, the classes, the services and the promise of miracles.
"Nigeria is a more holy church-going nation," said Temitayo. America, she believes, has a lot to learn.
"People in America have grown too comfortable," Akinosun said. "The very things your missionaries taught us about God, you have forgotten. Now it's time for us to bring it back. It's our job now to teach the teachers."