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Every year a communitywide Thanksgiving church service held in my home town. The various churches rotate hosting the event, and a local pastor is selected to deliver the message. Sometimes there is a communitywide choir, and one of the church music leaders will conduct the group. Another church may provide special music. This service represents a chance for everyone to come together, put denominational differences aside, and give thanks to God for our many blessings as a community.
While this is a great tradition . and an uplifting worship service. individual churches might also wish to conduct their own program to celebrate this holiday of thanks. Celebrating Thanksgiving as a church can include much more than a traditional worship service or a skit performed by children and youth to depict the first Thanksgiving.
What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving as a church than to give back to others! This might include providing a Thanksgiving meal for the needy and those who are alone on the holiday . Many churches do this, and while the meal is a blessing to those who attend and are served , those who serve are also deeply blessed In conjunction with Thanksgiving, many churches collect canned goods and other food items to create food baskets for the needy.
This would also be a good time to conduct a free clinic to winterize cars for single women. Hold workdays to help the elderly and shutins with raking leaves and other fall chores, such as cleaning gutters, storing summer lawn furniture, and more . Thanksgiving would also be a good time to collect winter coats for the needy. A women's group in our church purchases shoes each fall for school children who are in need. One of the highlights of their Thanksgiving season is seeing the children's faces when they don their new shoes .
Teenagers might offer a free car wash or dog wash for senior citizens. Children might create Thanksgiving greeting cards to send to the elderly and shutins. Men might offer to take a fatherless boy to a ball game, hunting, or even to a movie.
CORPORATE WORSHIP and THANKSGIVING
Many churches sponsor a congregationwide Thanksgiving meal that is held prior to the holiday. Usually the turkey is provided and prepared by church members who have kitchen experience, and the other members bring side dishes and desserts to complete the meal. A program of entertainment. group singing , special music by various groups in the church, or even a devotional. may or may not be part of this meal . This may just be a time for people to come together, bless the food , and fellowship together and enjoy one another. This would be a great time to create a video of church members expressing what they are thankful for, and then play the video at the beginning of the worship service the Sundays before and after Thanksgiving day. or every Sunday in November. November would be a great time for churches to learn new hymns or worship songs that have a theme of praise and thankfulness
If a video isn't your congregation's style, ask a couple of church members to give a 2 to 3minute testimony about something for which they are thankful for each Sunday in November. Include notes in the church newsletter and bulletin about thankfulness and counting your blessings. Create banners to hang in the church that express thankfulness or bear scriptures of thanksgiving.
Develop a doorknob campaign . Church members go doortodoor in your community , placing a doorknob hanger on each front door that conveys a message of Thanksgiving. It could say something like "May God Bless Your Household This Thanksgiving" the members of First ABC Church of XYZ would like to wish your family a Happy Thanksgiving and remind you to "Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." Psalms 106:1 KJV. A church in our community did this one Christmas and tied a heartshaped wooden ornament to each hanger. For Thanksgiving, this would work equally well, or you could attach a small cross.
Whether the celebration of Thanksgiving has its roots in the church is debatable. While the Pilgrims did come to the Americas to exercise religious freedom , the holiday itself was the brainchild of a poet and editor named Sarah J. Hale and thenPresident Abraham Lincoln. Nonetheless, the day has been set aside for the citizens of our nation to give thanks for their bounty and blessings. And this is an appropriate time for churches to celebrate and express thankfulness, also.Related：
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