Download the 10 fun & meaningful Thanksgiving church celebration ideas
Fill out the form below to schedule a demo or call our sales team at
469-564-3922
-min.webp)
Thanksgiving is, of course, an important cultural holiday, but it can be much more than that! People can celebrate Thanksgiving in uniquely Christian ways that orient our gratitude and celebrations toward the good gifts of our heavenly Father. Celebrating Thanksgiving in this way makes the holiday more than simply a time to get together with friends and family around good food.
It’s important for local churches to not simply treat Thanksgiving like any other holiday, but to recognize its spiritual value. The Bible is full of Scripture dedicated to giving thanks, especially in the Psalms. Whatever churches can do to help their congregants infuse the spiritual posture of gratitude into their celebration of Thanksgiving will go a long way to helping Christians give God the glory on Thanksgiving.
But what are some practical ways that churches can help make Thanksgiving a more reverent, worshipful day? Let’s look at 10 simple ideas for how a church might help people worship this Thanksgiving season.
What ways might a church structure its weekly worship gatherings, or perhaps hold a special Thanksgiving Day church service, to help people glorify God in their Thanksgiving celebrations? Let’s walk through five Thanksgiving church service ideas that may work well in your context:
1. A Thanksgiving prayer service
Around the Thanksgiving holiday, a lot of people are traveling to visit family, and filling out volunteer spots on the worship team or in the kids’ ministry space can be especially difficult. On top of that, one of the primary ways we can express gratitude toward God as Christians is through prayer.
Both of these factors make a Thanksgiving Sunday prayer service an appealing idea. In this kind of service, you may have a more stripped-down singing time followed by groups of families circling up around the room to walk through various prayer prompts together.
Prayer services in general can help build community within the congregation and can be a breath of fresh air for people who showed up expecting another typical worship service. And a Thanksgiving weekend prayer service can be especially powerful if it is focused on gratitude and thanking God for his goodness.
2. Thanksgiving testimony time
A great way to engage church members in a worship service is to bring back a once-common feature of the weekly worship service: testimony time. This can be especially impactful around the Thanksgiving season.
What does this look like? It’s simple! At some point during a worship service, perhaps between the last song and the sermon, a worship leader can open up the floor to anyone in the congregation who wants to share about how God is working in his or her life.
A Thanksgiving testimony time could look like congregants sharing reasons they are grateful for God and their church family. A church leader can walk around the sanctuary with a microphone and provide people the opportunity to express gratitude toward God or each other, and, in turn, everyone will be encouraged.
3. Gratitude offering
Giving tithes and offerings is an important part of Christian worship. Of course, Christians can be generous with more than just their money, but being generous with our money is also very important! Giving financially is a tangible way we can love our neighbors and our broader community, and loosening our grip on our money can help remind us that it is not our savior or our god.
Around the Thanksgiving season, your church may want to consider organizing a special “gratitude offering” that is specifically dedicated to giving out of an overflow of gratitude for the good and gracious gifts of God. Additionally, perhaps your church could consider making it so that gratitude offering goes to address a specific felt need within your broader community, rather than toward keeping the lights on at the church.
4. Interactive worship with Scripture
As was briefly mentioned before, the Bible is filled with Scripture that remind us of the grace and mercy of God and that call us to express our gratitude for how God loves his people and all of his creation.
Another powerful feature of your worship service during the Thanksgiving season could be time set aside specifically for Scripture readings that help tune congregants’ hearts to the posture of gratitude and thanksgiving that is the spirit of the season. Thanksgiving kicks off “the holiday season” in earnest, and even as Thanksgiving approaches many people may be so busy that they forget the reason for the season. Time set aside to read Scripture aloud in the worship service can be a refreshing feature of the worship service that helps people look to God in gratitude.
5. Thanksgiving-themed sermon
Thanksgiving-themed sermons are not nearly as popular as Easter- or Christmas-themed sermons, and this makes sense, right? Thanksgiving is a cultural holiday first, whereas Easter and Christmas are Christian holidays first (even as they are also cultural holidays). However, if you want to lead your church toward a more spiritual and eternal posture in its celebration of Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving-themed sermon or sermon series would be a really great idea.
Perhaps your sermon could focus on a New Testament passage that calls people to celebrate God’s faithfulness. Or if you want to explore a series on the topic, you could build a series of sermons for Thanksgiving around a variety of psalms that demonstrate what godly gratitude looks like.
Fall is a great time for churches to engage with their surrounding communities by offering events that may serve as outreach opportunities to do ministry beyond the people who typically gather on Sunday mornings. When you’re considering Thanksgiving ideas for your church, all kinds of Christian fall activities may come to mind. Here are just five ideas for Thanksgiving at church, specifically outside of the Sunday service and for the broader community.
1. Thanksgiving potluck
Whenever someone thinks about Thanksgiving, food immediately comes to mind. A popular church activity around this holiday is the annual Thanksgiving potluck meal.
Many people travel this time of year to visit family around the country and may miss out on seeing their church family over the long weekend. A church family Thanksgiving dinner, especially one open to the community, can be a great way to create space for church members and attendees to celebrate the holiday with their church family before they head out to celebrate it with family members far and wide.
2. Fall festival with games
A lot of churches host fall festivals around the Halloween season, but perhaps your church may want to consider not competing with other churches by offering a similar event later in the fall season.
A fall festival hosted by a local church closer to Thanksgiving could offer a wider variety of games and activities that engage the spirit of Thanksgiving in a way that a fall festival earlier in the year may not. A fall festival could be a great way for a local church to serve and celebrate neighbors and others in the community who otherwise may not show up to a church building.
3. Showing gratitude day
Another event that could be a great ministry idea for a local church is a day dedicated to showing gratitude and appreciation for the local community. Christians are called to love and minister to their neighbors, and taking a day around the Thanksgiving season to address needs in the community surrounding the local church is a great way to show the love of Christ to people who do not know him.
4. Thanksgiving craft fair
Craft fairs are always a hit in the fall and holiday seasons, so hosting a craft fair at your church around Thanksgiving could be a great way to minister to people in your community. Churches that love their communities should celebrate people in their communities, and a local craft fair can be a really neat way to celebrate the gifts and talents of people who live and work near the local church.
Of course, providing a neat setting to browse and purchase crafted items is a wonderful service in itself, but also ministering to the artisans through the craft fair is a tremendous ministry opportunity.
5. Thanksgiving movie night
Want to serve parents and families in your community around the hustle and bustle of the Thanksgiving season? Host a movie night at the church with a family-friendly movie that celebrates family, gratitude, or other themes related to Thanksgiving. Or, if you’d like to go a step further, make the event a “Parents Night Out” to give parents the chance to get some time to themselves amidst the busyness of the season, dropping their kids off for a fun and safe night watching a movie with other children.
We don’t have to leave Thanksgiving to turkey, football, and family get-togethers. Christians and churches can celebrate Thanksgiving as a spiritual holiday in ways that highlight the importance of gratitude and serving our communities in the love of Christ.
Whether you organize a Thanksgiving worship service, community service opportunities, or other Christian fall activities, make the most of the Thanksgiving season at your church.
