pat loughery

Today we were missing half of our regulars folks (which would correspond directly to my wife and daughter, and my wife’s two local sisters and their families). And I’d planned to do a discussion, rather than what I’ve been doing more of lately, a combination of sermon/discussion/interaction. I really planned for it to be the same thing I do when leading a home group, to present a central topic from scripture, and then build a set of questions that allow us to discuss the issue, but get closer and closer in our personal interaction with it.

Today we did a discussion about thankfulness, looking at references to those words in the books of Colossians and Ephesians (we just finished studying Colossians and are working through Ephesians now).

So after worship and a brief teaching on Advent, we adjourned to the North Bend Bar & Grill for burgers and talk.

We used these questions as discussion starters:

Opener: What’s a thanksgiving tradition that your family celebrated?
Why does Scripture remind us to be thankful?
What’s reflected in our hearts when we are thankful?
Is it easy for you to be a thankful person?
What are you most thankful for that happened in the last year?
What’s happening in your life that makes it hardest to see God at work?

Perhaps we should have done this last weekend, before Thanksgiving, but it didn’t seem like the right time then. We had a good discussion time. It’s a little hard to hear what everybody ‘s saying when the restaurant is loud, but I thought it was a good place to have such a chat.

I also included a printed copy of George Washington’s first thanksgiving declaration, which I found at blogs4god here. I It’s a good article. I suggested that the folks read it when they got home.