This Sunday’s worship service will focus on Thanksgiving also as we look ahead to the holiday next week.

Dear Congregation,

I very much enjoyed sharing the church’s annual Thanksgiving potluck with you last Sunday! I think it’s a very nice tradition, not only because of the great food, but because of the opportunity we had to sit down family-style to a festive meal and talk about holiday plans, traditions, and our daily lives.

This Sunday’s worship service will focus on Thanksgiving also as we look ahead to the holiday next week.  The altar will be decorated with harvest fruits and vegetables; we’ll sing the familiar Thanksgiving hymns, and reflect on the words of the scripture lesson, Deuteronomy 8:7-18. That passage gives Moses’ words at the end of the Israelites’ forty-year journey in the wilderness when they’re finally about to enter the Promised Land. Verse 11 states, “Take care that you do not forget the LORD, your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.”

“Remembering God” is the sermon title I’ve chosen, because I think that’s something at which we could all do better, myself included. We do take a lot for granted.  Sometimes we may think that remembering is something we just do in our minds—remembering appointments, remembering people’s names, remembering to brush and floss!

But remembering is also done with the actions of our lives. Moses’ advice to those who worship God and who have received so many blessings from God is that we are to remember God by keeping his commandments. You may want to brush up on the Ten Commandments and/or their essence distilled in Jesus’ Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Challenging ourselves to be intentional about living each day in ways, small and large, that show that we do remember God through loving actions for our neighbors, near and far, is the “Thank You” that God desires.  Actions really do speak louder than words!

Thanksgiving Blessings to each of you!  

Pastor Candy Thomas
Interim Pastor
Christ Congregational United Church of Christ