“Singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”

Colossians 3:16

At St. Paul’s, we believe that offering grateful praise to God is one of the most important and powerful things we can do to grow in our relationship with God and in our life together as a community of faith.

Over the last several months at St. Paul’s, we have been exploring some of the ancient spiritual disciplines that have helped Christians grow in their faith for generations. Through resources like The Practicing the Way Course, we’ve seen how disciplines like daily prayer, scripture reading and quiet contemplation can help us be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.

But as we approach another Thanksgiving holiday, it’s good to remember that giving thanks isn’t just a nice thing to do when we are fortunate enough to gather with family and friends around a delicious meal. Giving thanks is an important spiritual practice that helps us grow into increasingly faithful, generous, kind, and loving people who are filled with the peace of Christ.  

In Colossians 3:12-17, Paul writes, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another…And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… Andbe thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom…singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do…do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Look how many times Paul refers to giving thanks along with everything else he challenges his readers to do as they strive to follow Jesus. It’s as if giving thanks is the spiritual discipline that is underneath all the other spiritual disciplines and virtues.  

The practice of giving thanks is crucial if we want to “let the peace of Christ rule in [our] hearts” and if we want to grow in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love. All these virtues grow as we practice giving thanks to God.

This Thanksgiving holiday, may the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and may you continue to grow in all his goodness and love as you practice giving thanks to God the Father through Jesus the Son every day of the year.

Thanksgiving Sunday at St. Paul’s
  9:00am Quiet Communion
This is a simple service of Holy Communion with lots of space for peace and quiet in which you can be still and know the presence of God.

10:30am Family Communion
Everyone is invited to join us for this multi-generational gathering of worship, prayer, and Communion. This service will include Sunday School for children ages 4 to 10, and activity tables where kids can find colouring sheets and other activities to help keep restless hands busy.

You can also join us live online over ZOOM.
Just follow the ZOOM link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/294304773