Thanksgiving is an excellent opportunity for ecumenical worship and local mission. The worship service itself may include for its offering a collection of goods for local people in need. People from across the community may wish to join together in a special Thanksgiving Day service project. In one community where I served as pastor, on Thanksgiving Day our church collected turkeys that had been cooked by people from various churches and distributed them to homes of the less fortunate.

Consider rotating services among participating congregations, with the host congregation providing the liturgical leadership for the service. Many find that the evening before Thanksgiving works well; some choose the Sunday evening prior to Thanksgiving; others meet on Thanksgiving morning.

Our Book of Common Worship (BCW) does not include a special liturgy for Thanksgiving Day observance. However, when the service is held in a Presbyterian church, the Order of Worship may follow the Service of Morning or Evening Prayer (BCW, pp. 490–523), using one of the two sets of Scriptures for Thanksgiving Day included in the addendum to the Daily Lectionary (BCW, p. 1095).

Another possibility is a celebration of the Eucharist that emphasizes joyous giving of thanks. In some Presbyterian circles, the eucharistic/thanksgiving character of the Lord’s Supper is outweighed by the emphasis on remembering Christ’s suffering. Holy Communion should include both sober remembrance and joyous thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is an excellent opportunity to underscore that this holy table sets before us a joyous feast. In ancient church practice, preparation of the Communion table included the people bringing gifts of food to the table for distribution to the needy; this would be a wonderful way to celebrate Holy Communion at Thanksgiving.

For a Thanksgiving Eucharistic service, it would be especially appropriate to invite our Formula of Agreement partner congregations—the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ—to gather with us in a celebration of our full communion (see Book of Order, Appendix C). Our General Assembly has urged that we gather with our partners in full communion for joint worship at the Table of the Lord regularly, and Thanksgiving would be a great time to do so.

A THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
The first record of a pilgrim feast was in 1621, marking an abundant harvest and three-day feast after a perilous winter. George Washington issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, but the first national proclamation of a day of Thanksgiving came from Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Six weeks before the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for a day not only of thanksgiving but also for national penitence. Consider reading a portion of that proclamation as a part of a Thanksgiving worship service. It could also be printed in your church’s November newsletter. You may also choose to include a current Thanksgiving proclamation issued by a mayor, governor, or the president.

Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
“It has seemed to me fit and proper that (our bounties) should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and voice, by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens, and I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to God, for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to God’s tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as many be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union.”

For more information, contact Sheldon W. Sorge, Associate
for Theology and Worship, at (888) 728-7228, ext. 5310, or
send e-mail to ssorge@ctr.pcusa.org.