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Journal Of African Instituted Church Theology
Holy Spirit Church, Kenya
The Holy Spirit Church of East Africa is one of the Kenyan family of ‘Roho’ (Spirit) churches that trace their origins back to an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 1926 and 1927. This happened at the Friends (Quaker) mission of Kaimosi in western Kenya. The new spiritual movement led people to reveal the sins of others and to encourage open repentance. These practices so disturbed most of the Friends missionaries and the African church elders that they drove the ‘People of the Spirit’ away from the church. Those who left formed the churches of the Holy Spirit.
Members of the church remove their shoes, and wear white robes during worship to signify purity and equality before God. Their main services are preceded by processions of witness through the towns and countryside, each congregation being led by its own flag. For many years members of the Holy Spirit Church declined to greet other people by shaking hands, believing that their purity might become contaminated through contact with others who were sinful or unclean. These days the church is more welcoming, and has relaxed a number of its practices in a desire to communicate the gospel more effectively in modern society.
(Click to see a larger scrollable version of this photo.)
The church is currently led by Archbishop Isaac Mugodo, and a team of eleven bishops. It has spread into many districts and towns in Kenya, and has branches in Tanzania. The church runs small business and HIV and AIDS programmes for church members and the community, and is a partner with a UK church, Cottage Lane Mission, from Ormskirk. Holy Spirit Church is a member of the Organization of African Instituted Churches, Kenya Chapter.
In the photos below the members worship with dancing, prayer and singing to the beat of percussion instruments.
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