Ship of Fools: Community Thanksgiving Service

Thread: Community Thanksgiving Service Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

Today, the fourth Thursday in November, is Thanksgiving Day in the US. While liturgies on Thanksgiving Day are becoming increasingly rare, it is fairly common to encounter ecumenical (and sometimes interfaith) community services an evening earlier in the week.

What happens where you live? My own community has such a service. I would describe it as a standard hymn sandwich. We had a responsive Psalm as a call to worship, a couple free prayers, OT, NT, and Gospel readings, a sermon, some testimonies by community members, a couple works of special music courtesy of a one-practice community choir, and three hymns. No non-Christian places of worship participate in the community ministry association, so it was a Christian and Trinitarian service.

Posted by Barefoot Friar (# 13100) on :

I didn't have a hand in planning the one in my community; it was hosted by the Church of God and the Baptist pastor preached. I got to say a prayer at the end.

It was not at all dissimilar to the hymn sandwich that one usually finds in low-church Protestant gatherings throughout the American South and Midwest. A few fast songs, a slow one, collecting an offering for local mission, and then the preaching. After that a slow song and then the closing prayer.

The Methodists hosted the Easter service this year, so I think we won't have a turn until next Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how I'd handle it, given that we're much more liturgical than everyone else. Probably Evening Prayer, with a couple of the optional bits left out. We don't do Holy Communion because the Baptists are closed table and wouldn't be comfortable with that.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

Thank you for asking, Olaf. I was just wondering about this since I didn't notice any discussion of Thanksgiving services.

I have also noted that few churches have regular services, but that interfaith services are commonly held at this time of year.

On most Sundays and for most festivals we have five to seven services at the church and other venues in this religious community. But on Thanksgiving we have a single large service in the school gym, attended by about 1500 people.

This year we had a 23 piece brass band which put our quite a sound. The service is quite short, about half an hour, beginning at 10:30 a.m., and most of that is taken up with the fruit procession.

For the fruit procession, everyone brings fruit and other donations, such as canned goods or other packaged food. The goods are collected by teens at the door and the fruit is brought up in the middle of the service. Six ministers in robes, assisted by twelve eighth-grade girls, collect and arrange the fruit around the platform set up at the front. The band played great music throughout, and the congregation sang traditional Thanksgiving hymns.

People then scatter to their various family celebrations.

Today volunteers arrange the fruit into boxes to give to various charities and also into gift baskets for members of the congregation who are in need. I along with others spend the day delivering them and visiting with people.

As this service has been the custom everywhere that I have been a pastor I was surprised to learn, at some point, that it isn't what all churches do. Now I realize that the more common celebration is an interfaith one - which may be better than what we do. [Angel]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

Most parishes around here will do a midmorning mass with music for Thanksgiving. Never attended as well one of the main Sunday services, but always more people than a standard daily mass. I celebrated Thanksgiving at our seminary for probably the last time ever.

Posted by uffda (# 14310) on :

My local community is truly an interfaith community, due to the presence and influence of a large university. Our clergy association hosts an interfaith Thanksgiving service each year. We have participation by the Reformed Jewish Rabbi and Cantor, the Imam of the Sunni Mosque, the Unitarian Pastor, the local Catholic Priest, and an assortment of Protestant clergy. The Baptists usually don't participate, nor do the local Russian Orthodox (ROCOR). From a liturgical point of view, the service is untidy. There is a reading from the Hebrew Scripture, the Q'uran, and the New Testament. The Cantor usually prepares music from the psalms, and the sermon rotates among the clergy. The offering goes to the local food bank. Though we have to struggle with language issues, it is a way to acknowledge the presence of God among us as a diverse community, and is a good way to demonstrate respect for one another's faith in an era of religious extremism. Our interfaith service is usually on the Monday evening before Thanksgiving which allows individual faith communities to hold their own Thanksgiving services on Wednesday or Thursday, should they choose to have one.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by uffda:
Our interfaith service is usually on the Monday evening before Thanksgiving which allows individual faith communities to hold their own Thanksgiving services on Wednesday or Thursday, should they choose to have one.

I wonder how common it is for individual faith communities to have services on Thanksgiving morning.

My impression is that it is quite rare, which surprises me because it has always seemed to be one that people attend who don't normally come, like Christmas and Easter.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

Thanksgiving Day services seem fairly common among really large churches, like your own. You'll also find a Thanksgiving Day mass at your local Catholic Church, and perhaps at the Episcopal one if they are a weekday mass sort of place. Other than that, good luck!

Posted by uffda (# 14310) on :

We have had an Evening Prayer Service on Thanksgiving Eve, for which we have an attendance of 45-50, including a smattering of visitors whose churches no longer have a Thanksgiving service.

Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
Thanksgiving Day services seem fairly common among really large churches, like your own. You'll also find a Thanksgiving Day mass at your local Catholic Church, and perhaps at the Episcopal one if they are a weekday mass sort of place. Other than that, good luck!

We're a weekday Mass sort of place, and we had a Sung Mass (with organ, hymns, and incense) at 10 a.m. preceded by Morning Prayer at 9:30. I couldn't be there, sadly.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
We're a weekday Mass sort of place, and we had a Sung Mass (with organ, hymns, and incense) at 10 a.m. preceded by Morning Prayer at 9:30. I couldn't be there, sadly.

My own friendly neighborhood Episcopal church valiantly offers a 10am spoken Mass with sermon on Thanksgiving, although it is well-established that the attendance will be one or two faithful souls. They don't even typically offer mass in Thursday. I greatly admire this about Episcopal churches, that attendance numbers are not always the most important factor when deciding whether to offer mass,

Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
I greatly admire this about Episcopal churches, that attendance numbers are not always the most important factor when deciding whether to offer mass

Yes...we tend not to worry about that at our parish except occasionally to adjust the time of a service, or to discontinue the 7 a.m. Saturday Mass because there's also a better-attended 10 a.m. one. It's important to us to have Daily Office and Mass every day (with few exceptions), so the fact that a Wednesday evening Mass has just the celebrant, server, and sacristan in attendance doesn't quickly trigger discussions of taking it off the schedule.

Posted by PRESBY DUDE (# 16035) on :

Out here on the Midwestern prairie, a good number of people still attend church the Sunday before, the night before, or even on Thanksgiving Day itself. Also, Thanksgiving is much, much less commercialized than Christmas or even Easter.

A majority of families will pray before the Thanksgiving Day feast, even if it's not their usual custom to "say grace" before every family meal. Even many non-religious families will go around the dinner table and relate what they're thankful for. To some people, this little annual ritual may seem "cornball", but I unashamedly like it.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, our church ignores whatever the liturgical calendar may decree in favor of a full-scale Thanksgiving observance at Sunday worship.

Some of the Thanksgiving hymns hail from England's Harvest Festival:

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come (always!)
We Plow the Fields and Scatter (less often than some years ago)
For the Beauty of the Earth
Now Thank We All Our God
Let All Things Now Living
We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing

The latter Dutch hymn is very often used at Thanksgiving in the USA, although the words
don't relate specifically to the holiday.

Following the service, the church sponsors a large carry-in Thanksgiving dinner, extremely similar to the ones that most American families eat on the Thursday itself. For Brit readers, a typical Yankee Thanksgiving meal is comprised of-----

roast turkey, dressing (stuffing), cranberries, mashed potatoes and turkey gravy, sweet potatoes, green (French) bean casserole, scalloped corn casserole, another vegetable or two, deviled eggs, hot rolls or cornbread, a few salads, a relish tray with dips, and many desserts--especially pumpkin pie and pecan pie with whipped cream. (For most Americans, Thanksgiving Day is incomplete without pumpkin pie.) After the church dinner, we prepare heaping plates of food to be taken by deacons and other volunteers to the homes of ill or shut-in members. These folk mustn't be left out.

Some British friends once asked me to explain Thanksgiving Day to them. I was glad to do so, because to me it's the "nicest" American holiday---reasonably unspoiled and full of great food, family time, and even some Judeo-Christian gratitude to God. Yes, the feast itself, the TV parades, and the ever-present football often take control these days. However, many Americans still remember their Creator as the "Giver of every good and perfect gift", either in church services or at home.

I love the annual feast, but I'd never skip going to church around Thanksgiving either!

Posted by Inanna (# 538) on :

My Catholic church has what is informally known as a "Pie Mass" on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. People are encouraged to bring two pies - one to share together afterwards, and the other to be taken to a local shelter. We usually end up with about 150-200 pies that are then used for the Thanksgiving meal at the soup kitchen the next day.

Mass uses the Thanksgiving readings (the tenth leper coming back to thank Jesus was the gospel this year), and usually musical selections including Song of Thanksgiving, We Give you Thanks, and We Come to Your Feast. Prayers focus on our gratitude for God's gifts in our lives.

It's a lovely service, and, of course, there's lots of pie afterwards!

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

Good to see you posting again, Inanna!

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

We do have a Thanksgiving Day service in our paish, but the attendance is erratic. It usually gets about a dozen, but this year it was only 5. Some of the regulars were away for the holiday. We had what seems to be the three usual hymns with us:

'We gather together'

'We plough the fields and scatter'

'Now thank we all our God'

I was really disappointed at how few local churches now have a Thanksgiving Day service. The doctrine of 'its a day for the family' seems to militate against some churches celebrating it. Some have given over trying to compete with the distractions.

The local ecumenical service has been hijacked by the Non-Denom Fundies, so the mainline churches and those of us with weak stomachs have taken to avoiding it.

PD

[ 28. November 2012, 05:18: Message edited by: PD ]

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PD:
The local ecumenical service has been hijacked by the Non-Denom Fundies, so the mainline churches and those of us with weak stomachs have taken to avoiding it.

That described my town exactly, up until about five years ago.

To end the problem, we put a temporary moratorium on pastors preaching. Instead, a selection of several laypeople were chosen to offer non-political testimony, in accordance with a theme. People were chosen from an assortment of churches, not just the non-denom fundie ones.

Believe it or not, this made a big difference. We have gotten to a point where a preacher is selected again, but it took a while.

The change in format really helped to reclaim the community service, and now the non-denom/Mainline/Catholic balance has been restored.

With music, we have two non-negotiable hymns (Come, Ye Thankful People, Come -and- Now Thank We All Our God). A third hymn is flexible, based on the host church, choir director, musicians, and other musical talent available.)

[ 28. November 2012, 22:07: Message edited by: Olaf ]

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
With music, we have two non-negotiable hymns (Come, Ye Thankful People, Come -and- Now Thank We All Our God).

Funny that "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" has been mentioned several times here. We have it in our Thanksgiving songbook but never sing it. Maybe it is because the same tune with different words is a popular Christmas hymn (Watchman Tell us of the Night).

Our most popular Thanksgiving hymn is "For Peace and for Plenty."

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Funny that "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" has been mentioned several times here. We have it in our Thanksgiving songbook but never sing it.

It works well for November: the Thanksgiving-Church crowd loves it because they hear it as a harvesting/earth's bounty sort of hymn. The weekly church crowd can understand more deeply the actual harvest about which we sing. Thus, it is liturgically quite suited for November, and that special time between All Saints and Christ the King.

Posted by Try (# 4951) on :

In my neck of the woods there is a "community service" in the evening on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. This service is not an interfaith service, but it is very broadly ecumenical, with representatives from all of the Trinitarian Christian churches in the central and eastern parts of my town. That means a denominational mix ranging from Salvation Army to Catholic, though, this being Ohio, Lutherans and Methodists are the big players. I suspect that if we mainline Protestants invited local non-Christian religious groups to participate, that would come at the price of the evangelicals, and probably one of the two Catholic parishes, dropping out. The service is always hosted by the Episcopal parish because we have a central location and a large sanctuary. I do not know about the other local churches, but our priest makes a point of saying that this is the ONLY thanksgiving service that we will be putting on. The fact that while lower-case thanksgiving is a Biblical imperative, Thanksgiving as a public holiday was established by the secular government, probably has something to do with this. We are not an everyday weekday mass sort of place in any event.

There was an organist provided by Second Presbyterian Church, and a choir and choir director provided by the Lutherans. This is also constant, because it is generally agreed that these are the best organist and choir in town.

The liturgy has been different at each of the two services I have attended. The first was a standard Protestant hymn sandwich with a 30-minute sermon by the Episcopal priest (who only gets 10 minutes on Sunday mornings). The second service, this year's, was a festival of 7 Thanksgiving Lessons and Carols based on the traditional 9 Lessons and Carols Advent service. This worked out well- it gave all of the participating clergy a speaking part, and gave the congregation a chance to sing more of the old standards. The Disciples of Christ pastor gave a 10-minute homily, which is probably for him a rather short sermon. Nonetheless it was a public triumph for him- he had been without a call for over 10 years! The last time I had talked to him he was (IIRC) a social worker for a local child welfare agency.

All in all, I think that the lessons-and-carols format worked out better then the hymn sandwich.

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

As far as I know there is no downtown Atlanta interdenominational Thanksgiving service -- the suburbs may be a different story. Our downtown parish (not a daily weekday) traditionally has a 10AM Thanksgiving Day eucharist and 40-50 folks show up. The liturgy itself is spoken but with the usual old favorite hymns.

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