Street Church: How A Church Boy Is Using Pop Culture And Social Media To Spread The Gospel
At a time when many of Nigeria’s youths are losing interest in organised religion – if conversations on social media are anything to go by – Street Church is doing a great job of not just taking the church to the hood, but also bringing people back to church.
There is a new group of preachers in town, and no, they are not using bells or megaphones. they are using design, hashtags, and wit.
Street Church, a Nigerian faith-based Twitter handle, has gained traction on social media, mainly because of their unique style of content creation, which they use to spread the gospel.
It’s tricky to put out content that is funny, inspirational, and fundamentally Christian all at once, but Street Church appears to be doing that so well.
For instance, 2nd Corinthians 11: 14 which says “but I am not surprised, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” is compressed to a phrase as incisive as “Weyrey dey disguise.” Again, who would think that the expression “E shock you?” could be drawn from the book of Psalms 126:1 which says “When the Lord turned us around, so that we enjoyed a good life in Zion again, we thought that we were dreaming?”
In God we trust, others we go verify!Shine your inner eyes my padi. 👀 pic.twitter.com/NKjAz9ro26
— Daily Devotional (@streetchurchh) March 17, 2021
In essence, Street Church is like the New Living Translation of the Bible, but in pidgin, and for the streets.
Christianity in Nigeria has been practised in a fairly conservative fashion for over a century. Orthodox denominations – such as the Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches – as well as various offshoots of Nigerian pentecostalism, carried out evangelism in a style that worked for previous generations, but simply doesn’t resonate with the active youth population. In many ways, the emergence of Street Church is timely, as it presents scripture in a format that a younger demographic can easily connect with.
The brain behind Street Church is a young man named Tobi Oreoluwa. The son of two evangelists – Pastor and Lady Evangelist Oreoluwa, ministers at Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) City of Mercy, Ikorodu – Oreoluwa grew up in the Ojota area of Lagos, where he learned how to be street-smart from assisting his mother in attending to customers at the shop where she sold groceries. As with many other children of clergymen, he learned about God and the Bible from watching his father preach and joining the rest of the family in prayer sessions twice every day.
According to him, he had to “stay sharp” so that street urchins wouldn’t take advantage of him. Combining the knowledge of God and awareness of hood politics, he managed to stay out of trouble, and graduated from the Federal University of Technology, Akure.
Oreoluwa, who currently worships at a Lagos-based church called The New, is a full-time entrepreneur, and currently runs three businesses: Alaga Collections (a furniture company that focuses on African print, launched in 2017), Harliners.ng (a boutique barbershop based in Yaba, launched in 2020) and Tasolo.ng (an outfit that focuses on branding t-shirts and merch, launched in 2019).
In an interview with Neusroom.com, Oreoluwa reveals that Street Church was born out of a personal conviction to spread the gospel.
“It started out as yearning for a personal experience with God. I found out that I got used to the Bible and somehow was ‘looseguarding’, so I decided to challenge myself by changing my devotional style, as omo-ope that I am, I started infusing street sayings and slangs into my Bible readings.”
Street Church’s unusual brand of evangelism began only a few months ago, but for Oreoluwa, the seed had been planted much earlier.
“I started it (writing the gospel in pidgin) out for myself”, he says, when asked how it all began. “But at some point, I started putting it on my Instagram stories for a period and I was getting DMs from my followers. They also started seeing the scripture in a new light and could relate to it. This was in 2018 or 2019. This year, I got a nudge in my spirit to push it a notch higher, to reach a wider audience as there were a lot of people like me seeking God in a more personal way, something close to home for them. Na so we start for February o.”
The major reason why Street Church has been successful with its message is the mode in which the content is delivered. It is relatable, it is accessible, and no words are wasted. On the question of what inspires the use of colloquial language, Oreoluwa says: “Na God dey run am o. Everything we are looking for is in the Bible, so the most important thing in the equation is to ensure that God leads as we read. We pray, brainstorm, pick inspiration from everyday culture and put it into ‘God’ use.”
When asked how he maintains the balance between what is “cool” and what is fundamentally Christian, Oreoluwa replies, “truth be told, God is the coolest, and he has given us the inspiration to reach a generation, so we just do what we are told. We dey follow who know road, so nothing do us or the people wey dey follow us. Sho get?”
Street Church’s content has been well received on social media, with many Twitter users commenting on the organic nature of the brand’s growth.
“Status updates on my WhatsApp are filled with Street Church posts”, says Ajibodun, a Twitter user.
Status updates on my WhatsApp is filled with @streetchurchh screenshots…
— Ajíbọ́dún (@mojibodun) March 17, 2021
Bibire Salihu, a lawyer, makes reference to the use of language.
The organic growth of street churchh shows that were we taught in the languages we are comfy with/in, we would understand far better….but look at our people doing anyhow https://t.co/oSJ8KnQ34N
— Yves St. Bibire (@tysalihu) March 17, 2021
“What Street Church is doing with the Bible is incredible”, says Naijasinglegirl, an author and blogger.
What @streetchurchh is doing with the bible is incredible
— NSG (@Naijasinglegirl) March 17, 2021
Femi Falodun, CEO of ID Africa, has stated on multiple occasions that Street Church “is his favourite social media handle at the moment”.
New-found fame can be overwhelming, but for Oreoluwa, his joy is that the gospel is reaching more people.
“It feels good to see that a lot of people are getting blessed daily by what we put out”, he says. “The acceptance in such a short period of time is heartwarming. We get messages from within and outside the country on a daily basis, people call us to say ‘thank you’ to the team for the daily inspiration. Honestly, we are still trying to get a hang of it, but the growth, oporrrr. It wasn’t something envisaged to happen this fast. Street Church is a movement, and our primary assignment is to bring people back to the love of God through diverse creative expressions, so keep an eye on us.”
Street Church recently launched its merchandise, producing t-shirts and bags with gospel texts in pidgin printed on them. When asked what new projects lie in store, Oreoluwa remarks, “This one ehn, na God get the big picture o, our own na to dey follow. Just stay close to us, we have some creative projects already in the works, and some more to come in the future. God go give us double-six and una go see am.”
At a time when many of Nigeria’s youths are losing interest in organised religion – if conversations on social media are anything to go by – Street Church is doing a great job of not just taking the church to the hood, but also bringing people back to church.
There have been attempts to make Christianity a lot more appealing for young Nigerians: in 2017, Nathaniel Bassey went viral with the Hallelujah Challenge. The Lifepointe Church (the “young adult” expression of the Elevation Church), led by Godman Akinlabi and Idris Belo-Osagie, has tried to draw in the youths, with an approach that involves a “buddy system”, helplines and playlists. On its website, the church describes its objective as “creating vibrant experiences that point to God.”
Since 2017, The Tribe, a youth-focused church with parishes in Lagos and Abuja, has also tried to reconnect the younger demographic with Christianity, making use of online devotionals, worship playlists, workshops, engaging content and events that aim to draw out the creative side of its members. The pastors, Ferdinand Adimefe (who shepherds Lagos) and Jesse Dan-Yusuf (who ministers in Abuja) have encouraged conversations across several topics, from NFTs to Poetry.
Street Church complements these efforts, and then takes them a step further, by churning out content that is as inspiring and hilarious as it is edifying. When it comes to making the gospel more appealing, Street Church may just have sparked an evangelical revolution.
