MAVUNO CHURCH - MY STORY

Source: www.mavunokampala.org

Now now now...... I was not planning on publicly saying anything about the Mavuno flyer controversy but a post on my Facebook Time line made me realize that I have a responsibility - I am the 'face' of Mavuno for most of my friends and family. The reason I was not going to say anything is because if this poster had come out a year ago I'd probably be the first one to have ridiculed it.... and one thing for sure, no matter how many times Pastor M. would have gone from one media house to another I would not have seen things any differently, I had already made up my mind that Mavuno is for the un-serious Christians. I lived in Nairobi West and I never ever attended any of the services at Mavuno which was next door. I mean how is it that the Worship Leader encouraged people to go nurse their hangover in church?? Huh?? Never mind all this was hearsay.... Still, didn't he know that church is for those of us who have 'got it together' especially on Sundays? Church was the place where we were supposed to be on our best behaviour and appearance? I guess it is human nature to demonize what we are ignorant about.... or maybe that was just me. So anyway, I decided to tell my Mavuno story, not so much to 'defend' the Church but to tell the other side that the media is not making noise about; that side that screams: Mavuno Church is about T.R.A.N.S.F.O.R.M.A.T.I.O.N!

So fast forward to today.... I am now Mavuno damu. I keep thinking God has such an incredible sense of humour! The church that I considered un-serious has been my school of faith! It was not until I began worshiping there that I realized Mavuno, like many Pentecostal churches, has its target group (http://www.mavunokampala.org/#/about-mavuno/our-target) and that explained alot why they did things differently. I love my former church (not Mavuno) and whenever I am in Nairobi that it is where I worship from. That is the pulpit where I gave my life to Christ and that is where I first got the courage to serve in church and for those and many other reasons, it will always be a special sanctuary for me. But then, by no one elses fault but mine.... while there, I was more of a Sunday Christian; don't get me wrong I still really tried to keep within morally acceptable standards most of the times. I honestly (I know it sounds foolish) thought that I needed to be perfect and when I'd sin I would be so hard on myself..... I thought it was by my own strength that I needed to keep on the straight and narrow..... didn't understand the grace of God. That is why I preferred to put my church friends in a box labelled 'Sunday life', that way I never interracted with them during my 'normal life' hence they would not get to know that I (also) sinned, now not anymore.... not after meeting real people with real issues and encountering a real God! God needed to take me out of my comfort zone, all that was familiar to me..... to experience Him afresh! Until I came to Mavuno, I had never really known what it meant to include God in everything you do, every breath you take. I never understood what it meant when people would say God spoke to them, surely who ever heard God's voice and is still alive? I never knew how to totally trust and depend on Him..... to let go and let God. I was also delighted to be informed that I was put on this earth for a divine purpose and encouraged to pursue it (http://www.mavunochurch.org/new/content.php?id=38). When I do not work towards it, am letting the entire body of Christ down. Mavuno helps you prepare for eternity but also encourages you, in the mean time, to be useful doing what God put you here on earth for in all excellence...... we call it turning ordinary people into fearless influencers of society (http://www.mavunochurch.org/new/content.php?id=50). I used to wonder why many 'celebs' used to go to Mavuno till I realized that it was the other way round, Mavuno makes celebs and not the celebs that make Mavuno.... encouraging people to be excellent at what they do to make a difference in the six sectors of societal focus, i.e. church & mission, media & the arts, economy & business, health & the environment, politics & governance, education & family! Did I mention that the marriage enrichment group I keep referring to in this blog is a Mavuno Church initiative? After going through 10 weeks of Ndoa our marriage was never the same again! Hun and I have known how to pick our battles, how to fight fair, issues to do with complete transparency, how to handle in-laws as well as finances..... establishing the family altar.

Well.... about the flyer, one blogger - Wanjiru Kihusa (http://www.wanjirukihusa.com/blurred-lines-my-take-2/) got the words right out of my mouth, including the title. I must confess that when I saw the pic of the white girl with very tiny shorts and read the words on the flyer, my jaw dropped. You see I was raised up in an Anglican church and by very strict parents. Sex was soooooo 'sinful' that we never ever talked about it. When I was in my pre-teens, I once read in a newspaper about a girl that had been 'raped', didn't know what that meant.... I asked my mum and she told me I'd find out when I grew older. Imagine that, such important and relevant information to a growing teen was with held. That is how much of a taboo 'sex' was. So YES the flyer startled me, made me abit uncomfortable when I saw it. That said, I was not for one second worried that the blurred lines session would be on how to twerk it the Miley Cyrus way! If how I'd grown and still growing spiritually was anything to go by, I trusted that the content of the lesson would definitely be spiritually uplifting. Infact I was so glad that someone was bold enough to talk to the teens about the difficult subject of sex and especially within the christian context while most of us would rather shy away from it. Unfortunately while we do that, our teens continue to be misled by the media that continues to glorify sex and this technology age that we are living in doesn't help much!! 

I have now come to terms with the fact that the poster was never meant for me..... neither was it for anyone in my generation or earlier. The truth is this generation is overly exposed to sex, what is shocking to us is their everyday world. I am certainly sure that back in the day cooking oil adverts had no sexual innuendos and there was no kissing in cartoons either! 

Different Times. Different Generation. Different Problems. Different Strategies..... that's my take.Like