Thanksgiving in Canada comes about six weeks before the same holiday in the U.S., and Thanksgiving at Tapestry Church in Richmond, B.C., comes even earlier as the congregation’s pastoral care ministry welcomes about 100 people to its family-style meal in early October.
Unable to host the full congregation of 900, “the Thanksgiving dinner is really for people who have been touched by Tap Care ministry throughout the year,” said Lucinda Tecson, the church’s pastor of congregational care. “It is a time for our guests to simply rest, be cared for, enjoy good company, and know that they’re not alone. More than that, we hope that through the warmth, hospitality, and care they experience this evening, they will also be reminded of how deeply God loves them and that they are precious to him.” Invited personally by Tecson, “some are coming out of seasons of joy and celebration, while others have walked through or are going through struggles, vulnerability, grief, or challenges,” she said.
Hosted on Oct. 2, this was the third annual dinner, set before the actual holiday to accommodate families’ own plans. The church does a similar dinner a couple of weeks before Easter.
Church volunteers prepared various main dishes, salads and desserts, adding a cooked turkey purchased from a supermarket. The church space was nicely decorated with Thanksgiving decorations.
The dinner program included a volunteer-led trivia time, testimonies from some of the participants, and communion shared by lead pastor Albert Chu.
Tina, a guest who has been attending the church for 20 years and who has also served on the hospitality team, was at the Thanksgiving dinner for the second time with her husband. What’s most meaningful, she said, was to make new friends, noticing how many older generations at the church were gone. She appreciates how new people are welcomed to serve.
Marielle, another attendee there for the second year, shared that she and her family have been at the church for a long time, and they felt they have reached a deeper level of community with the church family. They started coming to the church around 2010, and all their life milestones have been at the church.
Tecson was encouraged to see a family who attends church with two children on the autism spectrum fully engaged in the event. Normally, their family would find it hard to stay at church, as the children would keep saying ‘leave, leave, leave,’ Tecson noted. “However, tonight, they kept saying ‘stay, stay, stay.’”