Leading up to Thanksgiving and Advent (2022), it was our privilege and pleasure to host a lineup of outstanding speakers—practitioners, pastors, and experts in the psychological study of gratitude—who shared with us about gratitude. We pray these would encourage your growth in gratitude!
Gritty Gratitude
Wednesday, October 12, with Libby Germer
Stories from the frontlines of high school classrooms, where attitudes of gratitude are hard to come by.
Libby Germer grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied International Relations before marrying Kevin and moving to the East Coast for graduate school. She taught History to high schoolers for thirteen years in public schools and private schools before crying as she left the classroom to become the Principal of Church Hill Academy. A Fulbright Scholar to Greece, a curriculum writer in Yale's National Teacher Initiative, and second runner up for Richmond's Teacher of the Year, she believes that the most impressive thing she's ever done is to stay in high school forever. Libby loves nothing more than the sound of a school bell and the chance to start again with a teenager, every school day of the year. Which is especially good now that one of her sons is a teenager and the other has entered middle school. She has lots of opportunities for fresh starts and forgiveness at home!
Grateful Generosity: A Gift of the Holy Spirit
Wednesday, October 19, with David Singh
When you go to the Doctor he checks your Vitamin B or Vitamin D level to make sure you have good energy. Has anyone checked your Vitamin G level ? Your Generosity levels? This is vital for your life. Without this we can become self -centered and implode. It is only when you have a good Generosity Level that life becomes abundant.
J David Singh is the Pastor of Eternity Church. His wife Nalini works closely with him both in his pastoral work and in the outreach to different countries in South Asia. They have two married children and two grandchildren.
Grateful to Whom? And For What? - A Cognitive and Cultural Approach to Understanding the Roots of Gratitude
Wednesday, October 26, with Michael McCullough
Why do people feel gratitude? Most people have a sense that we feel grateful when other people do nice things for us, but the truth a bit more nuanced. In this talk, I will explain the thought processes that seem to cause people to feel grateful after they have received benefit from another person: It's not the size of the gift that matters, or the cost to the giver, but instead, the extent to which the gift shows that a gift-giver cares more about you than you previously thought. I'll explain some of the evidence for this claim and describe how we plan to test these ideas using in upcoming cross-cultural work.
Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on the evolutionary and cognitive foundations of social life. He is especially interested in why people trust, help, and harm each other; why people believe and do religious things; and why people care what other people think of them. His work on these topics has been funded by a variety of governmental agencies and private foundations including NIMH, the Army Research Institute, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and several nonprofit foundations. The author of several books, his most recent is The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code, for which he received the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s 2021 book award.
A World of Gratitude
Wednesday, November 2, with Jonathan Worthington
Stories from the world. As I have come into meaningful contact with God's people in places as diverse as Scotland, the Philippines, Brazil, and Uganda, God has stretched me — significantly. None of these places is like the USA, and none is like the other. In my overseas work over the past 16 years, values such as proactivity vs. reactivity, orality vs. literacy, high vs. low power distance, collectivity vs. individuality, and uncertainty avoidance vs. acceptance have bubbled to the surface. Clashes have pressed me to wonder about a bigger reality than I had known, and how God is working within it all. God has used these situations, many times confusing and always uncomfortable, to stretch me in my thinking, affections, and practice toward more sensitive ways to do global theological education (and even to interact more lovingly across sub-cultures at home). I'm exceedingly grateful to God for them, and I want to give you a window into a wider world of gratitude.
Jonathan Worthington, Ph.D. is Vice President of Theological Education at Training Leaders International (TLI). After becoming a Ph.D. in New Testament and Early Judaism (Durham University, England), Dr. Worthington has taught biblical and theological studies in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, India, Mongolia, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, Romania, Chile, and Brazil as well as in Minneapolis. He is the author of various resources for academics and the church, including Creation in Paul and Philo, More than Sovereign: In Tears, Fears, and Pain God is Sovereign, Wise, and Good (forthcoming), and 40 articles on creation, New Testament, early Judaism, cross-cultural theological education, motivation theory, missions, and empathy. With Lynsey -- his wife of 20 years -- and their two daughters, Anya (14) and Lydia (11), gratitude, both for God and his people, has overtaken them for their many cross-cultural experiences.
Giving Thanks: What Have We Learned About the Science and Spirit of Gratefulness?
Wednesday, November 9, with Robert Emmons
Gratefulness is the capacity to recognize and affirm the good in one’s life. Encircling much of what we do and who we are, its power derives from a need that is deeply entrenched in the human condition—the need to give thanks. Two decades of research has verified that gratitude generates a positive ripple effect through every area of our lives, potentially satisfying some of our deepest yearnings—our quest for happiness, for more fulfilling personal relationships, our ability to make meaning out of suffering, and our desire for a connection with the Divine. Practical tools for building gratitude reveal that life is a continual invitation to gratefulness that can be created every day and in nearly every way.
Robert Emmons, is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Davis where he has taught since 1988. He received his Ph.D. degree from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana‑Champaign. He is the author of over 250 original publications in peer‑reviewed journals or chapters and has written or edited eight books, including Thanks! How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier, Gratitude Works! A Twenty-One Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity and The Little Book of Gratitude. A leader in the positive psychology movement, Dr. Emmons is Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology. He has been Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on $20M of grant projects. His ground-breaking work on gratitude has been featured in dozens of popular media outlets including theNew York Times, USA Today, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, Time, NPR, PBS, Consumer Reports, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Today Show.
Embodied Gratefulness: Understanding the Preconditions, Practices, and Purpose of Gratefulness
Wednesday, November 16, with Nathan Walton
The discipline of gratefulness is a precondition for a life of sustained joy. Yet such joy can seem elusive in a world full of pain and brokenness. Fortunately, there are concrete steps we can take to cultivate a grateful posture and pursue practices that resist both a denialism about the world’s brokenness and the lie that God has not remained good to us. Join us, as we reflect on how people of faith can embody a way of life that consistently affirms God’s goodness and demonstrates why God deserves our gratitude.
Rev. Nathan Walton, Ph.D. is Co-Lead Pastor at East End Fellowship in Richmond, Virginia. He most recently served as Executive Director of Abundant Life Ministries, a community development nonprofit in Charlottesville, and has also served as Pastor of Formation and Discipleship at Charlottesville Vineyard Church. Nathan holds a Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School and both a B.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. His interests include pastoral ministry, theology, and community development. Nathan currently lives in Richmond with his wife, Diamond, and their two daughters, Esperanza and Vera Mae.