This month’s question is:

‘Does your Church celebrate a traditional Harvest Thanksgiving?’

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The Rev Robert Pickles, minister at Fearn Abbey & Nigg with Tarbert, Tain

“The parishes of the charge comprise about 10 villages.

“This means that we are very rural!

“The total number of persons here is 3,000.

“The idea behind Harvest is to celebrate blessing and to acknowledge the doctrine of providence within the worship of the church. Providence is that: God has kept us, God is keeping us and God will keep us.

“It brings, in theory, the locals together including the farmers all of whom have a great connection with the soil of the parishes.

“In the past there has been a celebration of the Harvest of the Sea because of the coastland nature of the parishes. It may be that we will extend this to a celebration of the lambing soon as well. However, Harvest remains the monarch of the Thanksgiving in the parish.

“Have we something to say to those in urban situations etc? Yes I think we do. If Harvest is about provision and Thanksgiving then it is a necessary part of the Church’s year wherever you live and whatever you give thanks for. In daily school assemblies of old it was the teachers who sang most heartily on payday, ‘Now thank we all our God.’

“Thanksgiving like the words ‘thank you’ is disappearing. It is a way to discipline the self-centred inner person and to cause us to look out of ourselves and to bring into focus peace and justice matters.

“It does the church good to celebrate and to offer thanksgiving in a traditional harvest or in any other way and it is God’s will for us – 1 Thessalonians 5.18.”

The Rev Gordon Palmer, minister at East Kilbride: Claremont

“I’ve struggled with this over the years – keep a traditional harvest service? How else or how better to do it?

“Does harvest itself mean much at any particular time of year for those who live in cities and towns, and who are used to produce being available in the supermarkets all year round?

“Of course there is a place for recognising the bounty of God, the fruitfulness of Creation. There is a place for expressing thankfulness, for sharing with those whose physical needs are greater than ours. These we do on a regular basis –we are involved in providing support to a number of causes and charities here and overseas.

“We are involved all year round in a local food bank – donations are handed in every week, and every week food is shared with folk in need. Between that work, and the Christmas Shoe Box appeal starting soon, our traditional harvest service is overshadowed as a combined ‘we are doing this together effort’. Then, there is the more difficult issue of our Sunday children’s work being far smaller than it was in the days of flourishing traditional harvest services.

“The more traditional approach is something I find more effective in the local school context where there are more children, and where with less input than we have in our own weekly activities we don’t have the same opportunities to talk about a gracious Creator, about stewardship, about the importance of saying thank you and learning to give away.”

The Rev Bob Mallinson, minister at Dundee: Menzieshill

“During my time as minister at Menzieshill Church our celebration of Harvest has become more of a celebration of the Mission of God within the community of Menzieshill throughout the year.

“As a church, we run a distribution centre for Dundee Foodbank feeding between six and seven hundred people a year from our community as well as the neighbouring communities.

“ We also run a community allotment called the Giving Garden in which we partner with the school, nursery school and other community organisations.

“Whilst part of the work of the Giving Garden is about connecting with our community, the vision of what we do is about giving to those in need, hence all the produce we grow we distribute through the Foodbank. Therefore, as a Church our harvest celebration is very much an ongoing celebration of the Church’s mission and calling to care for our community, and those in need.

“It is a celebration in which we are reminded of the abundance of God’s provision and love for all people.

“We do as a church have a Sunday in September set aside as harvest Sunday in which we encourage folks to bring food for the foodbank, and have the harvest from the Giving Garden on display, to which we will give thanks to God for his provision.

“However, in the celebration our focus is very much on God’s mission that comes as a direct result of His provision.

“Harvest thanksgiving is not just a yearly celebration but an ongoing celebration of what it means to be a missional Church”.

The Rev Susan Brown, minister at Dornoch Cathedral, Sutherland

“Harvest here in the Highlands is probably a lot like harvest in the Borders and other rural communities – that is hands on and up front!

“In the parish of Dornoch there are still a lot of crofts and a few farms and for those whose lives are directly influenced by the natural seasons of the year, the harvest and the thanksgiving that follows is so important.

“It offers too, the opportunity for the rest of us to stop and reflect on how the food we eat comes to us.

“We are able to acknowledge, the hard work and skills of those who produce it alongside the goodness of God.

“The slow food movement and the stories of harvests elsewhere move us away from that of taking anything for granted and enlarge both the pausing and the gratitude.

“For us it has also led to the singing of a new harvest hymn.

“It begins with thanking God for those who, in all weathers, tend the land.

“It thanks God for his part in giving life.

“Then it finishes with this prayer:

“Guard those for whom there is no food For whom the barns are bare And help us as we stock our shelves To look for ways to share. We thank you God for all who work Your land throughout the world…”

(Fits to hymn 5 CH4 Tramps and Hawkers – available soon in Church of Scotland World Mission Council resources).”

The Rev Colin Sinclair, minister, Edinburgh: Palmerston Place

“Does your church celebrate a traditional Harvest Thanksgiving?

“Yes we do. Despite being a city centre church in Edinburgh with no farmers, fishermen or miners (harvest of the land, the sea and the ground) in our congregation, I think it is an important service to have each year.

“It is good to be consciously thankful and to ‘count your blessings’.

“We take so much around us for granted, not least the food on our table. Therefore to take time both to thank God, and all those who are part of the food chain that brings the world to our table, is worthwhile.

“We try and decorate our Harvest table according to some theme. For instance we may contrast the rich and the poor with one half laden and the other half almost bare.

“Harvest reminds us of our duty to remember those whose daily existence is a struggle, to pray, to give and to campaign.

“We actively support Christian Aid and Fairtrade, so instead of bringing cans of beans at Harvest, people give towards the work of Christian Aid.

“Harvest also helps us to avoid being too spiritual. It is a chance to take seriously the world in which we live and the challenges of being good stewards with all that we have been entrusted. We can be too easily detached and have a form of faith that does not take the environment, the daily concerns of living and even our own bodies seriously.

“Thank God for harvest.”