Happy Thanksgiving CLA Family!Do you have any family traditions that help you celebrate Thanksgiving? I grew up gathering with extended family. We’d feast on turkey, fresh garden vegetables, and pumpkin pie. Adults would gather around the TV to watch CFL football, or the kitchen table to play games, while we kids played in the fallen leaves outside. We were grateful to be together and on Sunday morning we gathered to worship in church together.
My memory only extends back a couple of decades, but did you know Canada has been formally celebrating Thanksgiving for almost 150 years in one form or another. Then, in 1957, the Governor General issued a proclamation to the nation establishing: “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed – to be observed on the second Monday in October.”
But if we go even farther back than that, in 1597, explorer Martin Frobisher gathered the crew of his fleet near Baffin Island to share communion together to give thanks for God’s protection during their dangerous expedition to find a Northwest Passage. And before that, First Nations communities have been tending to, giving thanks for and helping us understand the land that we now call Canada.
We still have so much to be thankful for, but today, specifically, I’m grateful for a history that includes worship of God as Provider and Protector, an indigenous people who pointed us toward caring for this land with faithful attention and gratitude, and an established discipline of thanksgiving which inspires us to hold, practice and continue giving thanks. But friends, we’re the ones who need to continue the practice – and it takes effort. The Apostle Paul admonished the believers gathering in Thessalonica to: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). Faithfulness is the work of those who are alive today.
This week, at our Langley Campus we will be having a Family Sunday. This is one way to expand and extend our expressions of gratitude by celebrating with all five generations together in the same space. We won’t watch football, but we’ll sing, learn, share needs, pray for one another, laugh, cry and connect. Guess what? This is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus! So, come and be fed; come and give thanks,
