Mavuno Church celebrates its 10th anniversary with food and fun

Last Sunday, Mavuno Church celebrated its tenth anniversary with a huge celebration at its capital campus at Mavuno Hill City in Athi River.

The huge, picnic-styled music festival dubbed “The Lockdown” saw some of the biggest names in the local entertainment industry such as Neema Ntalel, Kanji Mbugua, Chris Adwar and The Villagers, Webi, Amos and Josh, Anto Neo Soul, DJ Sadic take to the stage.

The event drew many celebrities, whose fans got the opportunity to interact with them and, of course, take a selfie to commemorate the occasion.

In what turned out to be a gratifying family affair, the congregation was treated to fine banqueting as they enjoyed watching some of the most popular artistes performing on stage. The event saw hundreds of people flock the Mavuno ground for a joint morning service, followed by an afternoon of festivities.

The crowd was also treated to fun games such as pool foosball, bowling, camel riding, bubble ball fighting and cycling.

As the artistes took to the stage to perform, they all emphasized one theme: commemorating the church’s 10 years of existence. It’s never a birthday party without cake and there was plenty to go around. An exceptionally touching moment was when Pastor Mureithi and his wife, Carol, exchange cake on stage.

The performances were captivating. Upcoming talents like Shem and Recapp really won over some fans with their electrifying performances.

By the time Mike Onen, Webi, Neema and Kanjii came on stage, the crowd was already worked up and singing along to every tune.

The Kubamba Crew were on hand to provide little interludes of dancing and their comical skits made for pleasant crowd interaction.

HOW IT BEGAN

Mavuno Church was formed sometime in 2005 when a few pastors were commissioned by The Nairobi Chapel to set up a church in South C, off Mombasa Road. They had only a handful of followers to start off with as a congregation, not to mention the seemingly insurmountable issues of finding and securing a suitable venue for the church.

Eventually, the church secured a spot at the South C Sports Club, and this was where the story of a congregation that would grow beyond Kenyan borders started.

Today,  the church has evolved into one of the country’s most vibrant congregations. After a short stay at the Sports Club and later at the Bellevue drive-in space, those at the helm decided to take a leap of faith and buy a piece of property in the little-known Mavoko Township, where Hill City came to be.

Notably, the church managed to put behind it the he problems securing a suitable location and now boasts a number of campuses in Africa and Europe: it has congregations in  of  Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi and Germany. Yes, there’s a branch in Berlin the capital of Germany.

NOT CONTROVERSY SHY

Mavuno Church has not shied away from raising or addressing controversial issues. Indeed, many probably still remember the infamous poster for the youth church series titled “Blurred Lines”. It generated quite a bit of criticism from various quarters, with many of the older folk feeling the church had gone too far.

But the church stood its ground, with Pastor Mureithi Wanjau taking to different media platforms to explain that the church was only taking a realistic approach to issues affecting society, and that  turning a blind eye to them would  not make them go away.

The church says it endeavours to tackle the issues affecting society without fear; Senior Pastor Wanjau often refers to it as “a real church with real issues”.