Give Thanks!
Traditionally BridgePointe gathers for a special night of worship to thank God for His good and abundant gifts. This year we are providing a guide to worship at home. We encourage you to make the space to worship at home with this guide at some point during Thanksgiving week – it will help you be more aware of the many riches of God’s grace in your life.
Give Thanks Guide 2020
Worship At Home
Before you begin:
Allow about 30 minutes to go through the guide
Prepare by grabbing a Bible, pulling up the worship playlist, and prepare the communion elements you’ll need.
Engage your children, no matter their age. Maybe they can read a Scripture, or press play on the playlist. They can definitely participate in one of the ending activities. Have patience and value their participation.
Slow down and don’t hurry. The goal of this is to spend time with God and not to check it off the list as done.
Begin with quiet
On Sundays, we pause and have a moment of quiet before we listen to the message. We encourage you to begin this time with quiet prayer and stillness before God. Invite Him to show you the depths of His goodness and ask Him to help you enjoy the presence of His Spirit with you.
Scripture & Reflection
All of God’s good gifts are an expression of His love for us. Even during a really difficult year, God has given us many good gifts.
Psalm 136 is a beautiful song in Scripture that can guide us in giving thanks to God. It was written and sung by the people of Israel long before Jesus came to earth. They used this song to look back on the great things God had done for them, especially the miracles he performed to set them free from slavery in Egypt. During this time of thanksgiving, we’ll journey through the first 16 verses of this song in a rhythm of Scripture reading, reflection, and then end with an interactive prayer, much like the Psalm itself.
Part 1:
This first part of the song invites us to praise God for who He is.
If you have children in BP Kids, invite them to recite Psalm 136:1 – it has been their memory verse this month!
Reflect on your own or with others in your home:
How has this year helped you to know God or see God in a personal way?
Be specific and connect your personal experiences with how you’ve grown in your relationship with God
Part 2:
This section celebrates God’s greatness by looking at the big and beautiful things He has made. It invites us to praise God for what He has made.
Reflect on your own or with others in your home:
Where have you seen the creative beauty of God this year?
Maybe you’ve found a favorite place outdoors, welcomed a new baby into your family, or marveled at the beauty of the night sky. It all came from God!Pray to praise God for what He has made and tell Him how thankful you are for it.
Part 3:
This section looks back on the great events in Israel’s history that resulted in their freedom from slavery. It invites us to praise God for how He has worked in our lives.
Reflect on your own or with others in your home:
How have you seen God work in your life this year?
What have you walked through this year by God’s presence, power, and peace?
Pray to praise God for how He has worked and tell Him how thankful you are for it.
Pray
Now we can model the Psalm and participate in an interactive prayer. Your response can be as short or as long as you’d like. The beauty of this prayer is that even if praying out loud is uncomfortable or unfamiliar, it helps have a language for prayer with the refrain, “God, your love endures forever.”
Just as verses 1-3 praised God for who He is, go around and allow people to praise God for who He is or tell Him how thankful you are for Him. After each statement pray, “God, your love endures forever.”
As verses 4-9 praised God for what He has made, praise God for what He has made. After each statement, repeat together, “God, your love endures forever.”
As verses 10-16 praised God for how He has worked, praise God for how you have seen Him at work in your life. After each statement, repeat, “God, your love endures forever.”
Sing
We’ve prepared a Spotify playlist for this time of worship. You can use that or play the YouTube videos below. Singing engages our minds and emotions in these truths and help us praise God with all of our beings—body, mind, and spirit.
The song “Promises” reminds us of God’s faithfulness, that He is the God who can be trusted in all of life.
And “Great Things” sings of the mighty things God has done for us, the greatest of which is freeing us from the bondage of sin and saving us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Communion
Luke 22:19-20
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus “took bread, gave thanks and broke it”, and gave it to his disciples. When we take communion, we are taking part in this meal of thanksgiving.
Jesus then said to them, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” So as we eat the bread and take the juice that represents the blood of Jesus, we remember. And as we remember, we give thanks.
Take the bread together. Take the juice or wine together.
Pray to thank God for giving us this way of remembering the sacrifice of Jesus and give thanks to God for loving us to much that he gave us His son to save us.
Activity
Here are a few activities that can help you be more aware of God’s goodness in your life. Choose one or more activities from the list below that will help you feel gratitude and express it to God.
Picture Slideshow:
Look through the pictures on your phone and create a slideshow from 2020 to show or share. It’s been a hard year, but when you look through your photos, you will probably be reminded of many good times and memories and things to praise God for.Word Cloud Art:
Populate a word cloud together from the things you are thankful for you. Use an online word cloud generator like Word Clouds. You can then save it, print out the word cloud, and display it somewhere in your home.Thankful Tree:
Collect a few branches from your yard, place them in a large vase or ball jar. Cut up small pieces of paper. Starting on Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, have each person write one thing they are thankful for each day. The daily act of remembering and naming what we are thankful for builds a practice of being more aware of God’s goodness in our lives.Thankfulness Journal:
Find a notebook or even purchase a nice journal. Begin the practice of numbering the things you are thankful for that starts on Thanksgiving and goes on daily. Or you could create a new tradition of writing in it once a year and each year, both add to it for that year and then read over previous years.