A thankful church serves God and others out of gratitude for what God has done for it. Paul serves as a model of serving thankfully. We’ll see why he served this way and we’ll learn three sources of gratitude that can motivate us and any church that wants to so to serve thankfully.

A thankful church gives out of thankfulness. We’ll see that in a group of churches who surprised the Apostle Paul with the depth of their giving. From these churches we’ll learn some characteristics of churches that give thankfully, and we’ll have an opportunity to answer the questions, “Am I a thankful giver?” and “Is my church a thankful giving church?”

A thankful church is known through thankful praying. Paul instructed the Colossian church to pray with thanksgiving. He unites prayer and thanksgiving in other passages, as well. Thanks and prayer should go together. Knowing that is the easy part. Doing it consistently is the challenge.

In this message we’ll consider five obstacles we (or our church) will have to overcome to be consistently thankful in our prayers.

Not only are individual Christians to be thankful people, but churches are to be thankful churches. It makes a big difference in the fellowship, worship, service, decision-making, and outlook of the church to be thankful. As we’ll see, Paul instructed a church that had a lot to complain about to always be thankful. We’ll look at how that is possible as we thinks about what we have to be thankful for in our church.