In western Kenya, Quaker worship finds its own loud rhythm

At the Friends Church in Cheptulu, a choir drives a local hymn forward with instruments while congregants, most of them women in white dresses, dance and clap. The scene in western Kenya resembles a Pentecostal service far more than the hushed gatherings that define Quaker worship in the United States.

The meeting house carries no cross, no painting and no sculpture of Jesus Christ — imagery common in most Christian churches. Quakerism traces its origins to 17th-century England, where George Fox, uneasy with the Anglican emphasis on ceremony, founded the movement after describing a voice that led him toward a personal relationship with Christ, understood as the Inner Light.

Worldwide, the Religious Society of Friends counts roughly 400,000 members, about half of them in Africa and most of those in Kenya, where American missionaries introduced the faith. Quakers in the United States hold to the Inner Light but avoid loud worship and preaching, preferring to wait in silence for individual messages from God. In most Quaker houses of worship there is no clergy, pulpit or altar, and no singing, chanting, incense or candles.

Kenya took a different path. When missionaries from the Friends United Meeting in Indiana reached the hilly town of Kaimosi in 1902, they brought a version of Quakerism built around slow hymns and evangelism, and invested in schools and hospitals that drew many local converts.

Thomas Amalemba, 90, was born to a Quaker father and a Salvation Army mother and recalls when the music was slower and unlike the modernized sound heard today. "The old people when we go to the church service, we feel uncomfortable," he said.

Senior pastor Kennedy Shiverenje, whose grandfather was the first pastor of the Cheptulu church, said the music had to suit its setting. "We needed to capture the youth and re-energize the elderly so that our service is vibrant," he said. He doubts silent, unprogrammed worship would have taken hold among the first converts. "If you just brought an unprogrammed service where people sit silently, I'm not sure people would concentrate," he said.

Over the years, Kenyan Quakers added tempo and modern instruments to draw young people who once found the services dull. Rose Oside remembered the older style with amusement: grandmothers sang so slowly that a single song seemed endless, and they would not clap, let alone play African drums. Catherine Ikalakala, a Quaker for nearly 50 years, recalled that young people once avoided the church for its slow singing and drifted to faster congregations — until a keyboard was bought. "So they used to go to other churches and so we bought a keyboard that has brought all these young people to church," she said.

At a recent Sunday service in the century-old Cheptulu church, young people led praise and worship. Even when older women led a hymn before a baby dedication, a young Quaker man on the keyboard guided their tempo.

Evangelism is not practiced by Quakers who follow silent worship, who believe growth comes through self-convinced followers. The Friends Theological College in Kaimosi now has more than 400 students on campus and online. Its principal, Robert Wafula, said the training ensures congregations receive the correct message, and has helped elsewhere, including Rwanda, where the government closed 70 Quaker churches in a crackdown on untrained pastors.

Wafula said pastoral ministers matter especially in a world where political friction threatens peace, noting that Quaker doctrine, rooted in peace, has proved useful during ethnic tensions and postelection violence in Kenya and in regional conflicts. "Quakerism has spread peace across East Africa, for example in Rwanda and even in the Congo, where Quakers are participating in peace-building through the major groups," he said, adding that a pastor from the college works at a peace centre in Rwanda.

The college also houses a Quaker archive that includes an old Bible in the local Maragoli language used by early Quakers and the first converts. Linet Mmbone, an assistant librarian, said researchers saw that young people needed a reference point and began recording early Quakers and collecting material such as notes from early yearly meetings. "Because we don't want to lose our dignity as Quakers, we want to go back to the roots and conduct our services the way the early Quakers used to do it," she said.

With the missionaries gone, the church has made changes to keep growing, and some have unsettled older members. Shiverenje said the mission was initially funded by donors, but locals must now raise money for programmes. Amalemba accepts that change matters, but warned that the emphasis on giving in church creates a sense among congregants that they are buying blessings.