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How can a Christian Perspective Help Me Enjoy Thanksgiving? · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schweinfeller Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the Middle Way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology at the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are going to address the topic of Thanksgiving.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Since we are at a time of year when we are thinking about this topic, we wanted to consider how can a Christian perspective help me enjoy my Thanksgiving?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Whether we go to church or not, most of us, I'm sure, would agree that it is good to be thankful rather than be ungrateful or dissatisfied.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Many of us, however, may not consider how a Christian experience can add to our ability to celebrate the holiday.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So as we explore this topic, I'm pleased to be joined by my friend and colleague, Dr.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: David McKinley, who is a senior pastor here at Central Schwankfelder Church.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show, David.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Drake.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now I've known you for many years, but I was wondering if you could share with uh our listeners a little bit about your growing up experience, and then also about uh the Thanksgiving that you celebrated in your household.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you for the question.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um I am the youngest of five children of uh my mother and father, and uh was raised in a small uh three-bedroom home in uh southwest Missouri, about 90 minutes south of Kansas City.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I remember our Thanksgivings being opportunities for the whole family to reunite.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my grandmother uh would come over, my siblings who had gone off to college or had uh gotten married and moved away, they would come back, and of course, it would be a large traditional meal with turkey and all the trimmings and desserts galore, and it was a full day of just being together, visiting and interacting with each other.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we would watch the football game, but it would be more about uh connecting with each other, and it was many happy memories over Thanksgiving growing up.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they they do celebrate Thanksgiving in uh Kansas?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: They do.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: They do.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Any special traditions that you had in the McKinley household uh growing up?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one one tradition is I think probably a a lot of Christian families practice is uh going around the table and stating what you're thankful for.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And each person would give, say, a 15-second presentation of what they're thankful for, whether it be for their health or whether it be for their family or whether it be for some great blessing that God had given them over the last year.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: But that's something that I remember specifically is the opportunity to testify or to express their their gratitude for what had happened over the previous year.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: With all the people around the table, I guess this went on for some time then, didn't it?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so this would occur after the blessing, uh after the dinner had uh begun.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: So and children were asked to give thanks uh as well as uh as well as the adults.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: This was uh everyone uh was to share why they were grateful to God.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell You said grateful to God, and I know that you had a Christianity in your background uh growing up, but uh could you tell us uh specifically how you became a Christian during your growing up years?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: What was that experience uh like of uh giving your life to Jesus Christ?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was raised in a Christian home.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: We attended church.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my mother specifically was responsible for uh knocking on my door as a young person, as a teenager.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dave, time to get up, get ready for church, and we would attend church.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Worship was an important part of my life.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, attended services weekly.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember also some influential people in the community.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Take, for instance, there was an older woman named Bernice that would hold uh a good news club in the basement of her home.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this is affiliated with Child Evangelism Fellowship.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Bernice would uh teach us the stories of the Bible and teach us about Jesus and his love for us and what he did for us on the cross.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that good news club met every Tuesday afternoon after school, and it was there that I learned about Christ's love in a very real and powerful way.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to that, uh I remember watching the film Jesus of Nazareth.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think that that was uh produced, came out in around 1975, but that was a very powerful film, and I remember seeing Jesus on the cross and just feeling uh intense sorrow for why he had to die such a miserable death, but not stopping there, but also understanding that he died because of my sin, and he died so that I could be forgiven, and that it was important for me to ask forgiveness of my sins and to make a public profession and to be baptized.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, those were important elements to my faith growing up.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I I think in reality there were times of where my faith would ebb and flow, there were times that I uh moved away from God, there were other times that I drew clo closer to God, experienced a call into the ministry, but uh it those formative years uh I think laid the foundation of something that would um you know last throughout my life up until today uh and was none other than uh the transformative power of of God's Spirit uh through the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned that uh film uh Jesus of Nazareth.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I remember watching that uh that too.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: That was a powerful film.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And uh coupled with uh growing up experience, I could see how that would be that would be very powerful and uh leading to uh to conversion.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Just since we're talking about Thanksgiving, um, did you see your Christian um conversion or your your turning to Jesus as uh affecting you, at least as far as being more thankful, in those uh those early years when you gave your life to Jesus?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I realized that there was nothing in my life that I had earned or that I had experienced because of my own good deeds or my own luck.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe in luck.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that God orders our lives and he gives everything uh that we have, and every good and perfect gift comes from him.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think though that in all honesty, it it took years uh of maturing uh and and growth and reading the scriptures to help me to realize just how everything is attributed to God and his mercy and his grace uh and how he works in our lives and how there's nothing that we can claim for our own, but we've been given everything.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that early on it was as profound as it is today.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, uh the Christian faith I think makes folks more grateful uh for what they have and who they are and what they're becoming.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and certainly that's the case for history too, is and I know you're a a lover of history and know that the pilgrims uh gave thanks.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um you've studied this, and uh were they thankful just because they made it across the Atlantic, or was there something special about their Christian background that helped them to be more thankful?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my understanding of the early pilgrims uh that they left England uh and many of them, if not all of them, were nonconformist.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: They were congregationalist, and so they were uh reacting against uh the rule of England and the Church of England in particular.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: You go back to people like uh John Bunyan, who spent time in prison because he wouldn't uh preach or teach from uh the book of prayer that was being uh promoted in the in the the Church of England at the time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh other people like John Owen, who was a nonconformist, um, although uh he taught at uh at Oxford, I believe, uh he uh was a great advocate of um the uh autonomy of the local church and the autonomy of of uh of Christians.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the pilgrims, in my understanding, they came to this country looking for a place to practice their faith as their conscience dictated.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and that has been uh a theme of many religious groups that have come to this country.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Our own Schwankfelders uh came to this country uh because they wanted a place that they could worship as their conscience dictated.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have that in common with the pilgrims.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that uh annual uh Thanksgiving service with the Schwenkfelders is the longest continuous running Thanksgiving service in America today.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: But there are some specific things about that uh service.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um perhaps you could share with some of the listeners some of the things that uh uh the Schwenkfelders commemorate for their Thanksgiving service.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: The third Sunday uh in September, or the Sunday closest to September 24th, is what we know as Gedechnastag, or the uh d day of Thanksgiving, uh a day in which we as Schwankfelders celebrate a solemn meal of bread and apple butter and water uh to remember what our forefathers went through when they came over uh and made that trek across the Atlantic and suffered greatly, not only the environment uh of travel back then, but also fleeing Silesia, uh a place that they could no longer practice their faith as they chose to come to America so that they could uh worship and practice uh the teachings that they had appreciated and which are very uh I would say very mainstream today, but back then they were not.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you were not uh either Roman Catholic or Lutheran and you were living in Silesia at the time, uh your practic your religious practices were frown frowned upon.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so coming to this place and and giving thanks for a safe passage, and even that must be qualified because there were those that died on the on the trip over.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um the conditions were very bad, their water supply had gone sour, their uh food supply had dwindled, and so coming to uh Penns Landing uh was a time to give thanks to God for his uh safety and provision.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the uh Bible has a number of passages uh that speak about uh Thanksgiving.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Could you tell us some of uh your favorite ones that are about Thanksgiving?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think of Paul's words in, I believe it's uh 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, uh, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: That uh that teaches me as a Christian that uh I have reason to thank God uh in any and every situation that I find myself.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always to give thanks uh to the Lord for his goodness and his grace.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh other uh passages such as uh oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good, is his loving kindness endures forever, that's repeated throughout the Psalms.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that also you know uh should govern our attitudes uh of how we should give thanks.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Bible teaches that God is is the giver of all things that are good, and so it makes sense for followers of Christ uh to pause and to give thanks when uh Jesus spoke of of the uh of the ten lepers and only one returned and gave thanks uh for his healing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so it it is a basic Christian lesson to give thanks to God.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: So finally, uh I'm wondering if you could offer some specific suggestions on how uh our listeners might be able to be more thankful from um a Christian perspective or an anything to aid being thankful at this time of year.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think um the practice of uh reflection, looking back on on your life, whether it be over the past few months or over the past year or even the past five or ten years, and uh seeing the good things that have happened in your life and to give thanks to God for the good things.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Also to see uh even in in certain situations that it may have been testing and may have been challenging, but to see how God preserved you and brought you through it and helped you, uh, regardless of what it might be, uh an illness, a family situation, maybe the uh a job ending, but to see how God provided, nevertheless.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if left to our own devices, you know, life is uh pretty hopeless and uh and difficult.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: But when the Lord is a part of your life, it gives you a perspective to where you can actually look at life in a in a in a very positive way and see that uh God is with you and that he will never leave you or forsake you.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh in practicing uh Thanksgiving, I should say thank you for uh uh being a part of uh this uh uh broadcast today.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And thank you to our listeners uh for listening to Centrally Speaking, a ministry from the Central Schwankfelder Church in Worcester, Pennsylvania.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: The Sunday morning services are the following a traditional service at 9 o'clock AM with organ and various choirs.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Our praise team leads the contemporary service at 10 35.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday School for Youth is at 9 o'clock and at 9 and 10 30 for adults.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: We warmly welcome you to join us.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Happy Thanksgiving.