Rick Lee James explains why First Church of the Nazarene marks Thanksgiving before Advent begins. The new liturgical year starts with Advent, not January 1, and focuses on expecting Jesus's coming and incarnation.
Chapters
We give thanks to you as your blessings fall like rain for your endless love and the sacrifice you gave. We give praise to you. Now with grateful hearts we sing. For your faithfulness, Lord, we bring this offering. We give thanks. We give thanks. We give thanks.
We give thanks. That's a song called "We Give Thanks" written by my friend John Nicholas. And those of us here at First Church of the Nazarene probably remember John because his dad was pastor of this church for many years. And John John's been back and did revival music for us in the past. Just a really great guy. That's from his new— it's not really an album, I guess you call it a worship experience that he produced for Lifeway Worship. We are in kind of Thanksgiving mode around here at the church over the next couple of weeks. We are going to be thinking about what it means to give praise and thanks to God and what it means even to give thanks even in difficult circumstances.. So I am excited about the next couple weeks. Thanksgiving is one of those unique— it is not a Christian holiday in the sense that it is not celebrated worldwide in worldwide Christianity. It is unique in that it is an American holiday, and yet it is very important as a part of our faith culture here in the church in the States. So as we come together, we just want to give thanks to the Lord for what he has done. But for us, it sort of is a marker of the end of the old church year. The new church year begins with Advent. And I know a lot of you may think, "No, the new year starts in January." Well, that is actually not true. When it comes to the Christian calendar, the new year begins with the first Sunday of Advent. And so as Thanksgiving ends here in a couple weeks, as we get through that time that we celebrate here in the States, we actually begin anew again. We are going to be looking at what it means to expect the coming King, what it means for the King to be coming into the world, what it means to have Jesus coming upon the scene. Then it begins taking us through the entire cycle of the church year all over again. So I am looking forward to the coming days that we have. I am looking forward to being able just to give thanks to the Lord for all the things He has done. I am looking forward to singing some of my friend John's music. Here. So thanks so much, and I hope that you'll be able to join us. We're located at 901 East Home Road here in Springfield, Ohio. You can follow us online at homeroadnaz.org. And I'm Rick Lee James. You can follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames. So hopefully, hopefully we'll see you soon. Thanks so much for, for watching this short segment this week. God bless and continue to give thanks.
