I am happy that I will witness again our church's quarterly Thanksgiving celebration starting today and it will be a three day affair to remember. When I was just a new member we are just going every year for this type of Thanksgiving celebration where each and every member is involved for offering Thanksgiving to God. Then it was decided to make it a quarterly celebration because offering thanks is written in the bible and we must do it every second if it can be possible so Thanksgiving celebrations for the whole congregation of MCGI.org was maximized into being a quarterly celebration instead of a yearly celebration.
We do have a regular Thanksgiving celebration and it is done weekly by select individuals, groups, locality, division, and regions all over the world and it is being done every weekend. When I was still a new member, me and my bother together with some of our brethren would set-up a tent at the vicinity of the main convention center and some of our friends and local church members would stay together over there to listen to the teachings of our late minister, we would pray over there, eat together, sing the songs of praise, and also of course chat when it is the time for break.
During those times, there are still no cellphones that have a capability to make you chat over the internet as Nokia phones and then camera phones dominate the scene where not everyone also can afford to buy such tech marvels that we are enjoying today. That is why when we would meet with my friend from afar, same church members that we often join together to stay with our makeshift tent, there will always be that feeling of excitement to see them again.
The whole congregation Thanksgiving type like this one is a spectacle for many church members particularly those that experienced it about more then two decades ago like I did because our late minister's way of governing and teaching the whole congregation for one thing is the one that I missed a lot because he is unique in his own way in delivering the teachings from the bible by the power of the holy spirit given to him by God. That is why every member is still holding steadfast to these teachings with our new minister leading us to stay to the path of doing good to other people for the sake of everyone's salvation for the glory of the name of God.
Also, the experience of being with lots of brethren in one place is something that I truly love to feel because it is not like when you mingle with other people where there the element of hostility is present and you can feel that. However being with so many like-minded brethren makes me feel loved and secured even though the background of each and every one of us over there are different because although we are of the same citizenship, there are regional differences, languages, norms and all that differences doesn't matter if we share the same fate and that makes it out of this world.
Now after the convention center was transformed into a venue where it can only house a few brethren at a time within the new chapel which is a closed area with A/C. Not all brethren or willing brethren can get accommodated there because of the limited capacity of the chapel. Only those delegations from other localities which are appointed to attended there will be the ones going to the new chapel and the rest of the brethren will just have to stay in their own localities and simultaneously monitor the celebration via the internet video communication routes like private Youtube streaming, etc.
There is nothing much changed in the celebration, we are now just emphasizing on how to practice the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ which is to "love thy neighbor" for the salvation of more people for the glory of the name of God. In the times that our late minister was still alive, there is a question and answer portion or part of the Thanksgiving celebration, it is a discussion where a guest will ask Bro. Eli Soriano and he will answer those questions using the bible. The whole congregation attentively listens because it is so enjoyable to listen to it because we could learn many great things from the bible, teachings that no church delivers except from our church MCGI.org. After the passing of our late minister, that Q&A portion was omitted from the itineraries of the celebration and our current minister focused more on how we would show the people how the real church works by spreading good works to other people to glorify and exalt God's name among people, good works that only MCGI.org uniquely is doing with the grace and mercy of God.
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