Gratitude in Community

The calendar page has turned to November. Thanksgiving plans are being made, and the Christmas season approaches. This is the time of year most of us naturally turn our attention toward gratitude. And with good reason. Not only do we celebrate Thanksgiving; but we are entering into a season of gift giving, and everyone knows you say thank you for a gift.

I must admit, gratitude is something that I work at cultivating. I’m a natural cynic and complainer. I once had a quote on my wall reminding me, “Be good at being grateful” and another sign that read, “Gratefulness enables the heart to tell a better story.” I need those reminders. By God’s grace, these days those reminders often come beautifully through practicing gratitude and appreciation in community.

Over the last year and a half, Daily Connect has become a large part of my weekly rhythm. It’s a place I encounter an abundance of gratitude and appreciation—in my life and in the lives of others. The movement from one spiritual practice to the next increases my gratitude and sense of well-being.

There are two moments at Daily Connect that especially focus on gratitude. The first is when we share what we are thankful for in a small group. My relational circuits are switched on as I share and as I listen. I find sharing gratitude out loud is powerful. The other opportunity occurs as we begin Immanuel Prayer. We are invited to enter an appreciation memory that leads to an awareness of and connection with God. In his Forming course, David Takle writes of appreciation, “When we do this often, we train ourselves to see the goodness of the Kingdom all around us, and we train our heart to trust Him more fully with our life. (Takle 2011, 26) That is a powerful motivation to engage in appreciation.

An appreciation memory is a moment we recall filled with pure gratitude. A sunset, a conversation with a good friend, a past encounter with God. It’s a moment not complicated by a negative interaction or feeling. As I begin to remember and fill in the details, my whole body engages. I smell the smells, hear the sounds. Taste the tastes. Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman, in their book, Building Bounce: How to Grow Emotional Resilience note, “There is a difference between left brain appreciation and right brain appreciation. Left brain appreciation notices that the sunset is pretty. You may even comment on it or take a picture of it on your phone. Right brain appreciation sits on a rock or a park bench and watches the sunset for five minutes and drinks in the experience. It engages with the feelings that are stirring inside, smells the aroma in the air, feels the cool breeze, soaks up the experience. Later, it revisits that experience as it shares the feelings and sensations with others." (Warner and Hinman 2020, 83)The recall of the appreciation stirs up all of those same feel-good sensations again since our right brains can’t tell time.

Mr. Warner and Ms. Hinman go on to suggest five ways to focus on and increase appreciation using the acrostic GAMES. (Warner and Hinman 2020, 85-87) I would like to share the first three for your consideration. The first word is Gratitude, for their purpose and to facilitate us cultivating appreciation, they use gratitude to mean things we appreciate in the present. The dog snuggled at your feet. The song filling the air with a great rhythm. The joy on a community member’s face as they share what they see God doing. The second word is Anticipation. This is appreciation for something you are looking forward to experiencing. The family gathered around the table. Worship on Sunday. The first snowfall. We can have appreciation for all sorts of things in the future. This anticipation is not just for the big things. It can be for something as simple as the walk I will take later today or the games I will play with my children after dinner tonight. The third word is Memories. Memories provokes appreciation for what we experienced in the past. Gazing out at the night sky last summer. A five-course dinner you had with the person you love after that horrendous week. The time you stood in front of a piece of art so beautiful you wept. Expressing appreciation in any of these ways quiets your mind and helps your body relax. It leaves you open to relationship. I love these ideas because I can use them on my own or in community.

Although significant in solitude, gratitude is powerful when experienced with God and other people. I encourage you to consider ways to include those around you in expressing and experiencing gratitude. The Thanksgiving table is a perfect place to start. Perhaps invite everyone to share one appreciation from each of the three categories listed above. Or if that seems too much, just choose one and start there. Something fun I enjoy is playing an alphabet game with children where we name something starting with each letter of the alphabet. Maybe challenge the family to share people, experiences, or things they are grateful for until you’ve named something for each letter. A couple of years ago, during the holidays, our family started a tradition of using a big poster board and writing on one side all the things that happened throughout the past year and when appropriate expressing appreciation as we did so (some events are hard, and it takes time to feel gratitude for them). On the other side we write down all the things we are anticipating in the coming year. This often brings us a lot of gratitude and joy for the good things to come. One last idea is something from Chris Coursey who tells of helping his wife get to sleep at night by taking a few moments to engage in an exercise they call 3X3X3. (Coursey 2016, 79) First each person shares three things from their day for which they are grateful. Second, they share three qualities they appreciate about the other person—it makes the appreciation more meaningful if when and how that quality was displayed is included. The last three is three qualities each person appreciates about God, again specific details help build out the appreciation. This is a wonderful exercise that can easily be adapted to share in a family setting this Thanksgiving or Christmas.

There are so many great ideas out there and I’ve linked a couple of resources below. I encourage you to discover and implement even just one idea to practice appreciation in the context of community this holiday season and watch your sense of appreciation and gratitude grow.

David Takle, Forming: Change by Grace Participant Workbook (Pasadena, CA, Shepherd’s House, Inc., 2011), 26.Warner, Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman, Building Bounce: How to Grow Emotional Resilience (Carmel, IN, Deeper Walk International, 2020), 83.
Warner and Hinman, Building Bounce, 85-87.Chris Coursey, Transforming Fellowship: 19 Brain Skills that Build Joyful Community (East Peoria, IL, Shepherd’s House, Inc., 2016), 79.