Eat, pray, drink: a church has opened in South Africa where you need to drink during the service

"Praise the Lord and indulge in libation" is the motto of an unorthodox church located near Johannesburg, South Africa. The Gabola Church (which means "drinking" in the Tswana language) encourages parishioners to drink during the service.

Africa is home to many unconventional churches and preachers who use various outlandish rituals to attract parishioners. For example, one preacher communicates to parishioners by spraying them in the face with insect spray, and his colleague from Pretoria gives his flock rat poison. But, apparently, the Gabola church was the first to choose alcohol as the main topic.

In the church, baptism is carried out using the alcoholic beverage that the parishioner prefers. Alcohol is also consumed during sermons. It may seem that alcohol and worship are a crazy combination. But the founder of the church, Tsietsi Makiti, claims that the mission of the parish is to shelter drinkers who have been rejected by the traditional church, and to provide a safe place for libation, where God can also be worshipped.

Tsietsi Makiti founded his church just two months ago, but it already has more than 500 members, another 2,000 parishioners have been baptized with beer and whiskey. At the moment, all parishioners are men, but Makiti plans to make the church more open.

Minors have no place in this church either. The congregation meets in an institution with the telling name "Freddy's Tavern". The owner of the tavern says that since Makiti founded his church, things have gone better. "When the church opened, crime decreased, and we received a great response from society," said the owner of the tavern Freddy Matebula.