"Is anybody here baptised?" cries the preacher. "Amen!" roars back his flock as it sways to a hypnotic drum beat, part of a push by African Catholics to win back believers seduced away by the fast-growing Evangelical movement.

Hundreds in Gabon have responded to the call of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a movement born in the United States in the 1960s, and leading a month-long campaign in the west African country to bring "lost sheep" back to the fold.

At the rail station in Owendo, on the outskirts of Libreville, it is not a priest but laymen and women who take turns on stage to sing the Lord's praises to a devoted audience.

"God loves us," cries an elderly woman with her arms high in the air, raising a cheer from a dancing, chanting crowd -- the scene a far cry from the austerity of a traditional Catholic mass.

Alain Franck, a rail worker heading home after a day's work, can barely believe his eyes.

"You say these are Catholics? Well I say. To see them you would think they're 'born agains'," he said, in a nod to the Protestant Evangelicals making converts across the continent.

"But if the pope is happy with this, well that's great!"

"Some say the Catholic Church has fallen asleep," said one young follower who gave her name as Orianna. "So we are out in the street to say we are here! With the Renewal, we can sing, and dance."

Outside the two prayer tents at Libreville station, two "mamas" are there to welcome newcomers.

"We have to get rid of this notion of God as a policeman... The Church is not all about forbidding sins and sadness," said the Renewal's coordinator in Libreville, Claude Mitoukou.

"'Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find'," he said, quoting from the Bible.

Christians make up some 80 percent of Gabon's population, with around two thirds of them Catholics.

But Evangelical Protestant churches have been making gains, as elsewhere in Africa.

Mitoukou says his message has been getting across, loud and clear.

"Many people who had strayed from the path have come back to us, because they can relate to the way we worship and pray, and to our more personal relationship with God.

Orianna and her fellow Charismatics are fired up against the Evangelical movement -- and its sometimes controversial preachers.

One of them, Nigeria's TB Joshua -- who claimed to work miracles and raise the dead -- was thrust into the spotlight this month when at least 115 people died in a collapse at his mega-church in Lagos.