As the title says, this is part 3 in the series on Leading With Gratitude. If you’ve missed Parts 1 and/or 2, I encourage you to read them too as they each contain valuable information. Here’s a very quick summary: 

• Part 1 talks about how we can choose to see life with our eyes and mind focused on gratitude. Even during challenging and painful times, it’s possible to find reasons to be grateful. Seeing life this way changes how we go about ministry, business and relationships.
• Part 2 focuses on the kinds of motivation that are prevalent in our world and the effects they often have on moving ministry or business forward. Using gratitude in the form of expressing appreciation for specifics; specific things people do, abilities they have and how they use them in a specific situation, or something specific that a person experiences about the day. 

This blog now turns attention to some specific ways to implement gratitude in a faith community’s ministry or into a business. I have used parts or a version of most of these. They have each helped to build people and the ministry of the faith community I was serving or my current business.

Here’s a simple idea to try every day or at least a couple times a week on specific days. In the morning, send out a text message or an email to a member of your faith community or someone who you work with and say thank you to them for something. Be specific so you’re genuinely thanking them for something. I’ve done this with several people. Often, they called me back or sent a text or email reply indicating their surprise and appreciation for my short message and saying that it brightened their day in some way. 

Thinking about those kinds of things first thing in the morning changes the tone of your day too. Giving specific thanks to people within your faith community on a regular basis can be a whole ministry. When considering a ministry like this, remember that there are always a few people in a faith community who do a lot of things. These are the 20% of the people who do 80% of the work. These days it could be 10% who do 90% of the work. These are the ones who serve on committees, volunteer, help with the children or youth, sing in the choir, etc. Thank them, support them, give them words of appreciation for the specific things and ways they give of themselves, including showing up for meetings. 

But what about all the rest of the people? The ones who show up for worship, the ones who sit quietly in the back of a meeting and don’t share much of anything. How can we do things to appreciate them, to spread appreciation and thanks out to everyone in the faith community?

One idea is to highlight a family or two in your monthly newsletter or other publication. One purpose would be to let people know who they are, but also to thank them for some specific way they participate or how their presence enhances the faith community.

Another idea is one that was implemented in a congregation I served.  A member of the congregation who worked with wood was asked to create a nice-looking box with a hinged lid and a slot in the lid.  Engraved on the front side were the words, Gratitude Box. Pieces of paper and two pencils were placed on a stand next to the box which was located in an area people passed through just before entering the worship space.

People were encouraged to use the pieces of paper to write down the name of someone or something they were grateful for, then fold the paper, and put it into the Gratitude Box.  Each Sunday, when the offering was received during the service (prior to COVID), the Gratitude Box would be brought forward along with the offering plates and set on the altar as a way of thanking and praising God for what people shared in the Gratitude Box

Since reading Shawn Achor’s book, Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement Happiness and Well-Being, there’s one thing I would now do slightly differently with the Gratitude Box idea. In addition to reminding people not to sign these pieces of paper, I would encourage them to share their gratitude for individuals within the congregation, not just things or events in their lives. The reason is that one of the ways to magnify the whole idea about gratitude is to get the people within your faith community who are positive people but don’t openly share much to have a way to share their thanks too. This is a way to create an expanding circle of gratitude within a congregation.

 An example of how this already happens in many congregations is with the people who send out a greeting card to other members for their birthday, anniversary or in sympathy for a loss.  In addition to this group of people sending cards, they could be encouraged to put paper into a Gratitude Box on the Sunday nearest someone’s birthday or anniversary. or thanking God for comforting those who mourn. Remembering members with these cards is a great ministry.  Encourage and give thanks to these faithful people. Let others know that this ministry exists. These are some of the people who often get overlooked when others are recognized. Highlight the people who are doing that.

 The beauty of ideas like these for spreading gratitude throughout a faith community is that gratitude is a powerful force, not simply a tool. It’s a force within a community, even within a business, that helps elevate everyone within that organization. In , Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement Happiness and Well-Being, Shawn Achor talks about what happened within JetBlue, the airline company, when they got coworkers acknowledging each other and the leaders acknowledging the people who worked there at all levels, from the janitor, the part-time people, all the way up to pilots and executives. The levels of employee performance engagement as well as customer loyalty all increased. He writes,” Specifically, for every 10 percent increase in incidences of recognition, JetBlue saw a 3 percent increase in retention and a 2 percent increase in engagement…”

Retention is so hard these days. Most mainline faiths are losing members. And yet if we did something as simple as this idea of recognizing people individually, thanking them, being grateful for everything they do, that has the power to retain people, to get people more engaged in a business, but also in a faith community. Gratitude is a very powerful, positive force for ministry going forward and drawing new people in, but also for retaining the people we have and helping them be more engaged.

Those who have been fans of HGTV will likely remember a very popular show called Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines. They now have their own show and possibly channel on streaming TV. Some years ago, while they were still on HGTV, someone asked Chip, what’s excites him about what he’s doing. Chip Gaines replied,” I just like to take things that others deem unworthy and make them worthy.”

Jewish and Christian scripture tell us that’s what God does with each of us. God sees us who other people may see as unworthy and by grace and love makes us worthy. That means that’s what we are called to do with each other as well. Showing thanks, giving genuine praise and being grateful for the things about other people is a great way to do that. 

When I had the Aflame Ministry radio show, which is still available on all major podcast platforms, I always ended the show talking about gratitude. I asked each listener to find 10 things every single day to be grateful for. It could be a flower you see. It could also be someone who is a member of your faith community for what they do. Send them a note, a text message, an email. 

Say thank you. Not just once every 10 years but find people to thank every day. Every day find 10 specific things or people that you’re grateful for every day. Add to that one way of sharing God’s love with someone. One way of sharing God’s love with someone is by saying,” I’m thankful for who you are. I’m thankful for the things you do. Specifically, I’m thankful for…”

Expressing our gratitude and appreciation is a way of sharing God’s love. It’s a powerful thing to do, even for little things, because those little things matter. They matter to us when somebody says thank you to us, and it matters to other people too.

Gratitude is a powerful and important part of leadership. As women (and men) of faith in leadership we have the privilege and responsibility of not only daily expressing our gratitude to God, but to and for other people and the specific ways and things they do that are helpful and enhance the experience of daily life and the work of the faith community. The more we choose to see life and other people through eyes of gratitude, the more we will see to be grateful for. The more we share our gratitude with our family, the people we work with, people in our faith communities, and those in the wider community, more people will not only hear but also experience the message of God’s love and grace through us and the people of our faith communities.  There’s so much power and potential in having gratitude as a central value in our leadership, more even than this series of blog posts describes. Leading with gratitude starts with us and the choices we make in how we see the world. Those choices, as Barry Neil Kaufman says, will create the world we see. 

How are you choosing to see yourself, your ministry, the people around you; family, friends, co-workers, members – the world? If you haven’t been choosing to see the world through a perspective of gratitude, the wonderful thing is that we get to make new choices about this every day, and even multiple times each day.  We each have the power to choose.  My choice is gratitude – even when and especially when things are tough.  What’s your choice?

God’s peace, God’s blessings. Until we meet again.