By: Jan Lim
On the 23rd of December 2018, Evangel Tabernacle gathered its family to « Celebrate Christmas Simply ». The meaning of Christmas sometimes gets lost amidst the hustle and bustle of gift giving, loads of shopping and Christmas carols…
so our senior pastor set the tone of the party right with a timely message,
reminding us that Christmas is all about Jesus.
The Messiah’s arrival came along with a unique birth, a unique name and a unique ministry.
A cool dance and a choral performance proceeded afterwards in line with this beautiful message.
Unlike previous years, we decided to do things differently and have a simple yet hearty Christmas brunch together. The different cell groups gathered around their respective tables to enjoy a spread of beef with broccoli, chicken hamonado, jackfruit curry with shrimp and signature lechon (of course everyone took note of the names of the dishes as the menu often came out as one of the quiz questions).
Amidst the heartfelt chatter over brunch, several cell groups started brainstorming possible questions that could come out during the quiz and strategies to take home as many prizes. Yeah, this is one competitive family.
Brunch was followed by Pastor Lily’s infamous quiz, and two other games requiring the different teams to muster out as much artistic and cognitive ability as possible.
After being tasked to decorate one’s table with any available resources lurking around, all 53 tables engaged in a song battle. The objective was for each team to find a Christian song containing a word given by Pastor Lily and sing it together.
If you were fortunate, you’d get something as simple as “you” or “praise”; if you weren’t, you had to wreck your brains finding a song with “rose of Sharon” or “Dios” inside.
The celebration concluded with the appreciation of the church’s leaders and of course,
you won’t have a Filipino Christmas without the warmth of hugs, presents and heartfelt greetings.
