Christians worldwide hold Sukkot celebrations linked to ICEJ’s online Feast in Jerusalem

The Corona pandemic may have prevented thousands of Christians from attending the ICEJ’s annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration here in Israel in early October, but our innovative online Global Feast spawned hundreds of Sukkot gatherings and watch parties in dozens of countries worldwide, drawing more Christians than ever before into marking this joyous biblical holiday together. 

The ICEJ’s virtual Feast featured seven daily live broadcasts to large audiences on GOD TV, Daystar, Vision Norway and other Christian TV networks worldwide. Over seven thousand Christians from 107 nations also accessed the Feast online, along with hundreds of churches around the globe who hosted Sukkot celebrations and watch parties linked in to our live Feast broadcasts from Jerusalem. These Sukkot gatherings drew crowds ranging from small groups in underground churches in China and Iraq to several thousand in large churches in Bolivia and the Ivory Coast – which means the total audience for this year’s Feast could easily be in the hundreds of thousands.

“When we first started celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles forty years ago, there were very few Christians worldwide who knew about Sukkot,” said ICEJ President Dr. Jürgen Bühler. “But forty years later, there are millions of Christians around the globe who have discovered this biblical festival and are building sukkahs and waving the four elements. And many of them tuned into this year’s Feast from Jerusalem, which allowed us to reach our largest audience ever. So the irony is that during the Corona crisis, this biblical holiday has caught on with more Christians than ever before.”
 
This year’s roster of Feast speakers included Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Wilson and Jentzen Franklin from the USA, Enoche Adeboye (pastor of the largest church in Africa), Younghoon Lee (pastor of the largest church in Asia), Renê Terra Nova (pastor on one of the largest churches in Latin America), Mats Ola Ishoel (pastor of the largest church in Russia), and popular South African preacher Angus Buchan. 
 
Normally, the Feast draws over 5,000 Christians from 100 nations up to Jerusalem, even in years of conflict and terror when regular tourism to Israel is down. But Corona forced the ICEJ to take the Feast online this year. Yet, the silver lining is that our largest audience ever tuned in for a truly Global Feast.