Many houses of worship began streaming religious services in 2020; Christian televangelists have sermonized to a distributed “congregation” for decades. But as Vincent Owino reports, livestreaming preachers like Jeffter Wekesa have flourished in Kenya, where plentiful internet access gives them a pulpit—or at least multiple phones and webcams—from which to serve a hungry global audience.
This is how Wekesa spends most nights, preaching in front of a congregation of people spread around the country, and as far as Saudi Arabia and the United States. He prays that they’ll find jobs, spouses, business success. He tells small prophecies: This one will soon buy a car, that one will travel abroad to find greener pastures. He heals the sick by asking them to touch the ailing body part as he prays. This is the work of many modern evangelical preachers — and like TV and radio before it, social media has become a tool to expand a ministry’s reach.
The difference with Wekesa’s church is that it exists only in the virtual realm. Its physical presence sits entirely within his apartment. He rarely meets a congregant in person. On this April night in Nairobi, after three hours of preaching, Wekesa culminates his session with a request for offerings. Audience members can send him funds through the mobile money platform M-Pesa, PayPal, or TikTok’s digital gifting option. In a given month, Wekesa makes between 100,000–300,000 Kenyan shillings ($786–$2,358) from donations, well above the average income in Kenya. “As I’ve spoken, so shall it be,” he concludes. “God bless you. I will see you again tomorrow, and your life will never be the same.” Then he clicks off the livestreams and the LED lights.
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