HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

[bobinfaith]

Dear brothers and sisters;

Last Sunday during the message I shared a brief history of our first Thanksgiving in America and throughout God's nations.

At the beginning of the 17th century, 1608, an English church called the Separatists was one of the early forms of the Baptist church. They were growing but it was not wise to meet together because of England’s many restrictions on the freedom of religion. They ordained a minister by the name of John Robinson and with his two church leaders, William Bradford and William Brewster, migrated to Amsterdam.

At first, they were getting settled but after a time they fell into economic hard times, their children were marrying into Dutch families and started wearing wooden shoes, adapting to Dutch cultural, and they were losing the English language. So, in September 1620 Elders Bradford and Brewster led some of the Separatists to sail for a new world on a ship called the Mayflower.

Reverend Robinson’s church became the beginning of the Pilgrim Fathers, or simply the Pilgrims (which means a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.) In 1621 the Pilgrims arrived at Cape Cod, in present day Massachusetts. But Reverend John Robinson never joined them in America, and later died in 1625. There was poor nutrition and housing during the harsh winter.

But the native tribes that lived around the Pilgrims, came to them in peace, taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, where to fish and hunt. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims shared their first meal with the natives, known as the first Thanksgiving holiday.

In 2 Corinthians 9:10-15, 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 13 By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. 15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

At Christian Forum Site we want to wish you and your families Happy Thanksgiving, not just today but every day.

God bless you all!

 

[thenami]

Just som more history, cut and pasted from history.com.

On October 3, 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.
The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington’s suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event.
Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country’s fortunes on this day in 1863.
The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, moved Thanksgiving to November’s third Thursday. In 1941, however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress’ insistence that the fourth Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration, as the official Thanksgiving holiday.