Gossiping the gospel, AIC mission to the West, Baptists in boots

Notes from a Common-place Book: On Pork-pie Hats, Nigerian Evangelists and Baptists in Boots - an interesting post on a variety of topics. A chance encounter while buying Sunday newspapers after church leads to "gossiping the gospel":

As I walked out, only one of the young people was still hanging about, a man/boy wearing a yellow pork-pie hat. We spoke in passing, the typical “how’s it going,” and I walked on towards my truck. He called out to me as I passed, saying “so you didn’t go to church today, either?” I stopped and turned around, because I understood what he meant, and took it as a high compliment. I was in faded jeans, although my shirt was tucked-in, which is not always the case. I gather that he assumed that I had not done the “Easter-thing” because I was not suited-up.

And on reading the papers he finds a couple of articles on what missiologists are pleased to call "contextualisation" -- an African independent church evangelising the West, and cowboy churches in Texas. The last reminds me of a song sung many years ago by Liberace, the King of Kitsch, about a Rhinestone cowboy.

I found it well worth a read, so go over to Notes from a Common-place Book: On Pork-pie Hats, Nigerian Evangelists and Baptists in Boots and read the full story.

See also Neopentecostalism in Africa, and abroad: Khanya for more on the African independent churches aspect of it.