20th May, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

In Sydney, the multicultural Christian community held a night to express their thanks to their adopted country of Australia while elsewhere in the city a church held a thankyou service to honor the volunteer and professional firefighters who worked in their area.

In Mackay, Queensland, a festival was held at the showgrounds with activities stopped each hour so doctors, teachers and nurses could be publicly thanked.

“Obviously God is touching (the National Day of Thanksgiving)", says co-ordinator Brian Pickering. “Here in the national office we don’t organise any events whatsoever - we just cast vision and provide resources - so it just shows how much the church in Australia has picked it up and run with it.”

In Perth a church put on a morning tea for traffic wardens who help schoolchildren cross the road. Even as far away as Norfolk Island, government officials were honored in a public ceremony of thanks.

Such was how this year’s National Day of Thanksgiving was celebrated in communities across Australia. Only the second time it has been held, the National Day of Thanksgiving is aimed at encouraging all Australians to take time out to give thanks, both to God and to each other.

Brian Pickering, national co-ordinator of the National Day of Thanksgiving, says that while it’s hard to ascertain exactly how many people took part “there were probably - and we’re being on the conservative side - at least 600 communities that would have taken part in the day”.

The figure represents a 300 per cent increase on last year’s inaugural event and included events in every state and territory. These included breakfasts, worship services, morning teas in hospitals and schools, baskets of muffins delivered to doctors and dentists surgeries, public barbecues, concerts and festivals.

In addition 90,000 thankyou ribbons were handed out and a similar number of Thanksgiving Day cards were sold.

This year’s event was focused particularly on thanking people working in the areas of education and healthcare.

Pickering says he was delighted with the response to this year's event.

“Obviously God is touching it,” he says. “Here in the national office we don’t organise any events whatsoever - we just cast vision and provide resources - so it just shows how much the church in Australia has picked it up and run with it.”

He says that through events being organised by the churches, growing numbers of non-church goers were being involved. “The church is reconnecting with the community.”

In one illustration of how the community at large was getting behind the event, 98 per cent of free-to-air television stations ran community service announcement to advertise the day.

“That’s helped to get the day known better by ordinary people within the street whereas before - last year - it was only known by people within the church," says Pickering. "I think possibly a lot more people outside the church know about it now.”

The day has won some high level endorsements, including that of the Governor General, Major-General Michael Jeffery, Prime Minister John Howard and Labor leader Kim Beazley.

HIGH LEVEL ENDORSEMENT: National Day of Thanksgiving patron John Anderson speaks at Southland Christian Centre in Melbourne's Hopper's Crossing. The event was organiseed by Catch the Fire MInistries. PICTURE: Courtesy of Catch the Fire Ministries.

Speaking at an National Day of Thanksgiving event held at Southland Christian Centre in Hoppers Crossing to an audience of around 800, Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, said that like everyone else, he needed to be reminded of how fortunate Australians are.

Anderson, who is a patron of the day, described Australia as a wonderful country to live in and said that Australians “should not forget or become blind to that which is good and worthwhile and important”.

“(W)e should be deeply thankful that we have this very great blessing of a system of government which responds to the clear Christian principle that everyone matters, all are entitled to be protected by the rule of law regardless of creed, of background, of gender, of wealth, of colour - that there should not be discrimination, that stability and freedom should be maximised,” he said.

He said Australians should give thanks to our forebears “who with clear Christian conscience sought these freedoms for us often at terrible costs to themselves”.

Other prominent speakers at National Day of Thanksgiving events this year included Labor MP Kevin Rudd and Professor Graeme Clark, inventor of the bionic ear.

Pickering, meanwhile, says that for him, the highlight this year was the way in which the church has recognised the opportunity the day provides to reconnect with the community.

“We can’t do much in organising events throughout Australia and we really are relying on the church. To have 600 communities just pick it up and run with it...and express the heart through the things that they did, shows me that I think it’s something that’s going to spread right across the nation.”

~ www.thanksgiving.org.au