Mavuno Church defends ‘explicit’ poster

 
LEFT: Pastor Mureithi Wanjohi of Mavuno Church in South C after Sunday’s service. RIGHT: The controversial poster. Photo/ Denish Ochieng, NairobiNews   

 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

By Nation Reporter
More by this Author

A city church has defended its use of a poster that caused uproar on social media at the weekend.

Pastor Mureithi Wanjau of Mavuno Church on Sunday told Nation.co.ke that his church was simply confronting issues affecting the youth.

“We want to connect with teens using the language they are using. We always start with where people are in culture and we lead them to where God wants them to be,” he said.

The poster which was posted on the church’s Teenz Konnekt Twitter page was criticised for being too explicit.

It shows a man embracing a girl whose legs are raised and bears the names of controversial songs plus the title of an erotic novel that contains scenes of sex.

It appeared in an announcement of an event the church hosted on Sunday evening for the youth to speak about sex. And Pastor Wanjau argued they could only get them talking if they use their language and the titles of music they are used to.

TWITTER POLICE

But Twitter ‘police’ took it to mean the church had turned into secular sex talk centre. One Comedy central tweeted: “#Mavuno church, seriously!!!! next tutaskia u will be holding a kesha at club…”
Another, Idler Mata, accused Mavuno of behaving like an organisation other than a church.

“Mavuno is an organisation not a church!!! Those kind of posters are not depicting anything to do with a church…”

Then there were photographic spoofs. One El Chapo posted a picture of a naked man carrying a cross, running. He said: “Me: Ruuning to Mavuno Church.” Other pictures showed fictitious ushers of the church in dresses with long slits and bras only.

The idea of the announcement though received support from a number of people. Maina Kageni of Classic FM tweeted that the “truth of the matter is that Mavuno Church has dared go where the church doesn’t like to go.”

Dr Githinji Gitahi accused the critics of a holier-than-thou attitude, saying he supports the church’s “different approach to the teen question.

The emergency of evangelical churches has meant that churches which compete to attract the youth have incorporated modern music, language and other social trends to avoid looking boring. Many of the churches even have their pastors preach using power point, and have teams that prepare DVDs and blogs for sermons.