Date: November 24, 2019

Bible Text: Psalm 100 |

This Sunday before Thanksgiving we will join with several other churches in the greater Waterford-Lovettsville metroplex in using a shared liturgy for our worship service. All eight participating churches will use the same prayers, hymns, scriptures, and even the same bulletins. The service focuses on thanksgiving as an act of worshiping God, as opposed to the open-ended, targetless thanksgiving offered in our cultural holiday. We give thanks to God our Maker, Provider, Redeemer, and Friend, and we will do it as an extended community of believers across the area. Join us!

Notes from the Preacher…

I started the sermon this week referring to a bit by Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show" wherein he writes thank you notes to various people, things, and events. These notes are naturally snarky and usually sarcastic. I roughly recreated his notes to Daylight Savings Time, winter coat pockets, flu season, and trick or treating. You can see several clips of this bit at this link to YouTube.

In my sermon I mentioned some of the benefits of gratitude, such as reducing stress and feelings of isolation. Here is a link to an article at Forbes.com that names seven benefits of gratitude. The same article appears at PsychologyToday.com. This related article, also on the benefits of gratitude, also appears at PsychologyToday.com, here. And here are three more similar articles:

As a personal exercise at the end of the sermon, I invited people to contemplate some questions that appeared in their bulletin. Here are those exercises:

  1. When is it easy to be thankful to God?
  2. When is it challenging to be thankful to God?
  3. See how many things can you think of for which you can thank God.
    • Items
    • Circumstances
    • Abilities
    • Relationships
    • Other

Feel free to share your answers in the comments.

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