GIVING THANKS

THANKSGIVING

Large bowl

6 pens and pack of index cards

CD player, laptop and projector

Opening Song:  Ultimate Adventure

Computer and powerpoint with Bradford proclamation

Announcements – no AWANA next week, Store on 12/7 (2 weeks)

Have children sit in front with their handbook leaders in small circles.  Have a pack of index cards, 6 pens and a large clear bowl. 

In Children’s Church I like to teach the kids that there are 4 kinds of prayers. 

• Please prayers – what do you think those are?
• Sorry prayers – “                      “
• Praise prayers – can you think of what these are?
• And finally, thanks prayers.

Most of the time we only do please prayers – we ask God for things we need.  But God loves to hear the other 3 kinds of prayers too.  He loves to hear us tell him what we have done wrong and we are sorry.  He loves to hear us tell Him how amazing He is – that’s what praise is.  And he loves us to thank him for what He has done for us.

Next week is Thanksgiving, and we mostly think of it as a day with lots and lots of food!  Sometimes we have family with us, and it’s a fun, happy day.  But when our country started way back in the 1600s, thanksgiving was a very different celebration.  When the first European settlement came to America at Plymouth Rock almost 400 years ago, the first governor’s name was William Bradford.  Most of you know that these early settlers suffered a great deal when they arrived here.  The winters were very cold – not like the winters we have been having lately.  Many people didn’t have enough food and became week.   Many got sick and died.  Of the original 102 people who arrived, only about 50 survived those first 2 years.  But in that second year, things began to change.  And so in 1623, Governor Bradford issued an official proclamation, calling everyone in the whole colony to a day of just for thanksgiving.  Here is what he wrote in his proclamation (overhead version so all can read with you?):

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.
--William Bradford
Ye Governor of Ye Colony

Now let’s think - what’s missing from this Thanksgiving that William Bradford calls for compared to a traditional Thanksgiving in America?

 

Does he say anything about a big meal? 

Did they all get together for a football game? 

Was there a big parade in NYC to kick off Santa coming to town?

Thanksgiving is to be a day to give thanks to God for all his blessings.  And they were to get together for 3 whole hours to do this!  And I think that 3 hours was just fine, because they were very very grateful!

So tonight, since we won’t meet next week, we want to do just what William Bradford urged those people to do, to stop and thank God for all his blessings.

So we are going to think of as many ways as we can of reasons to thank God.

• Maybe you can thank God for being healthy, just like the Pilgrims did.

• Or maybe you can thank God for the soft bed you have to sleep in every night where you are safe.

• Or maybe for the family God has given you who love you and care for you.

• Maybe you can thank God for being a God who loves the world or who made this amazing and beautiful world

I’m going to ask you to get in a circle with your handbook leader, and talk about what you can thank God for.  Leaders, I want you to write down one reason for thanksgiving that your kids tell you on each index card and I will give you 3 minutes to write down as many blessings as your handbook group can think of.

(3 minutes)

Okay, here’s how we are going to do a real Thanksgiving tonight.  Instead of asking your leaders to just read out the things we are thankful for, we’re going to tell God!  So leaders, please get your group’s cards and come forward. 

I am going to begin the prayer and when I stop, I am going to ask Bonnie to come up and read out the things her group has told her as a prayer of thanks, and as you read them, put them in the bowl.  And when Bonnie is done, I will point to Mr. Mika who will come up and read what his group has said as a prayer of thanks and we’ll give these prayers of thanksgiving until we’re all done, okay?

So leaders, we’ll start with Bonnie and then Ken, and when Ken is done please come up with your cards and read them as a prayer of thanks to God.   And clubbers, I want us all to hold hands while we pray.  I’ll start.

Loving God, tonight we want to have a Thanksgiving just for you.  So as we read out the things we are thankful for, be hear what we have to say and be pleased with our thanks.  Here are some of the things we are thankful for…Amen.