A series of worship events will start this week when an American pastor who delivered services for six years at a Somerset church returns to Bermuda for a thanksgiving celebration.

Russell Tomlinson, who pastored on the island in the early 1990s, will be the keynote speaker.

The Right Reverend Lloyd Duncan, pastor of the Greater Smith’s Hill New Testament Church of God, will host the thanksgiving celebration, which is to commence on Friday night with a social gathering at the Strykz bowling lounge in St David’s.

On Sunday, the celebrations are to continue at 11am with a service at the Midland Heights Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Hamilton Parish.

At 7.30pm on Monday, worshippers are to congregate at the same venue for a thanksgiving service marking the 61st birthday of Bishop Duncan.

“It will be a thanksgiving to God,” Bishop Duncan said.

He said Bishop Tomlinson, who is the husband of renowned motivational speaker Cindy Trimm Tomlinson, was set to deliver keynote sermons at both gatherings.

“It is going to be a major event with his presence because he is a renowned speaker who is no stranger to Bermuda — he was and still is popular here,” Bishop Duncan added.

He said Dr Trimm Tomlinson, who served in the Senate in the early 1990s, and Bishop Tomlinson, are well known in the religious community as a “power couple”.

He said the thanksgiving services would carry special meaning to him, given a recent accomplishment.

Last month he was appointed to the Covenant Keepers International Alliance by the Grammy award-winning American gospel music artist the Right Reverend Hezekiah Walker.

With the appointment, Bishop Duncan is now recognised as the official voice of the CKIA in Bermuda.

The move came after visits to Bermuda by Mr Walker in February.

Mr Walker, who has won two Grammy Awards and been nominated 11 times over the past two decades, visited the island to promote a music festival in May.

Bishop Duncan said of his appointment: “As a member of the clergy, this is a phenomenal accomplishment, to be asked by a Grammy award-winning bishop to be his voice on the island.

“It is an accomplishment I am humbled by.”