Pidgin English as a Medium of Religious Communication in Pentecostal Churches in Port Harcourt

The relationship between language choice and religious practice in Nigerian Pentecostal Christianity has become increasingly complex as churches negotiate the competing demands of spiritual authenticity, congregational inclusion, and doctrinal formality. This study investigates the use of Nigerian Pidgin English as a medium of religious communication in selected Pentecostal churches in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, focusing on the domains of preaching, prayer, testimony, and praise singing. Ethnographic data were collected over a three-month period through participant observation at four Pentecostal churches of different denominational affiliations and socioeconomic congregation profiles, supplemented by recorded sermon samples and interviews with fifteen pastors and thirty-six congregation members. Analysis maps the code-mixing patterns between English, Pidgin, and local languages across religious speech genres. Findings show that Pidgin use is most prevalent in evangelistic preaching directed at non-regular attendees, testimony sharing, and informal prayer, while formal doctrinal preaching and institutional announcements remain predominantly English-medium. Pastors describe deliberate Pidgin deployment as an accessibility strategy, particularly in cross-ethnic congregations where no single mother tongue is shared. Congregation member interviews reveal that Pidgin prayer is perceived as more emotionally authentic and spiritually immediate than English prayer, a perception that reflects Pidgin's association with unmediated personal expression. The study contributes to the literature on language and religion in African Christianity and urban multilingualism. Keywords: Nigerian Pidgin, religious communication, Pentecostal churches, Port Harcourt, language and religion.