International Maranatha Christian Church is the newest addition to Gardner's faith community

Emilia Cardona, The Gardner News
·2 min read

The Maranatha Christian Church will celebrate its official move into the former Gardner First Congregational Church building at 28 Green St. with its first open worship service this Sunday, Nov. 19, at 8 a.m.

The United States president of Maranatha Christian Church of America, Pastor Ronildo Scherrer, plans to lead the first service. There will also be a video message from the worldwide president of the church, Pastor Gedelti Victalino Teixeira Gueiros.

The Maranatha Christian Church has an international presence, with 5,000 churches in Brazil and hundreds more in Canada, the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Weekly Sunday Bible School is broadcast in Portuguese online with live interpretations in six different languages, including English and Spanish.

All are welcome to attend the service; many local leaders, former First Congregational Church members, and leadership plan to attend the first service of the new church on Sunday.

The church's pastor, Donald Pelto, has worked with several Maranatha Christian churches in Massachusetts for six years. The pastor currently leads service in a Framingham church and plans to transfer to the new Gardner location in the new year. He said all pastors, deacons, workers, instrumentalists, and others are volunteers.

Pelto said he knows the closure of the First Congregational Church is a big loss for many people but he is eager to receive anyone who wants to continue to worshipping in the same church building and to be a part of the Maranatha Christian community.

"I'm really excited for us to be in this community because we understand the very important history of this church in Gardner," he said. "When we saw that it was closing, we thought God still has a project for the people there."

The following Sunday, Nov. 26, at 9 a.m., the New Gardner Maranatha Christian Church plans to host the organization-wide International Service Trumpets and Feasts. This event is broadcast worldwide and translated into 10 other languages.

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Gardner's Maranatha Christian Church's first service is Sunday, Nov. 19.