Presbyterian church in Sandy to host interfaith Thanksgiving service

SANDY — The Community of Grace Presbyterian Church will partner with congregations of other faiths on Nov. 15 to host its first interfaith Thanksgiving service.

Rev. Dr. Sue Coller, interim pastor for Community of Grace, has a history of working with other faiths that stretches back to her time as a pastor in Lincoln, Nebraska.

While serving there for the past 10 years, she interacted with pastors, rabbis, imams, bishops and other religious leaders to celebrate things that unite different religious groups, rather than focusing on the differences that divide them.

"We had a wonderful tradition of people from all of these different faith backgrounds coming together around the one thing that we knew we all shared, which was gratitude, the need to give thanks," Coller said.

Coller, who grew up in Utah, returned to her home state to serve in the Community of Grace Presbyterian Church in June. After beginning her service, Jordan and Julie Clements approached Coller to introduce themselves.

The Clementses, who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have attended Community of Grace at least once a month for the past three years. As the Clements spoke with Coller, the idea for an interfaith service began to take shape, based on Coller's decade of interfaith experiences.

The Clements introduced Coller to Rob Yates, president of the Sandy Utah Granite Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Coller proposed the idea to Yates, who became "excited" at the idea of hosting an interfaith Thanksgiving service.

Multiple different religions have been invited to attend the service, including Congregation Kol Ami, the Utah Islamic Center, the Utah Marshallese Church JRD, the Second Free Methodist Church, Hilltop United Methodist Church and the Sandy Utah Granite Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ.

Leaders from the different religions plan to share passages from their scriptures focused on gratitude and thanksgiving with attendees, with musical performances sprinkled throughout the afternoon.

The idea for the service came together in less than five months. While the list of participating religions is small to start, Coller said she hopes to invite more religious groups next year.

"Hopefully, this is just the beginning," Coller said. "Next year, with more lead time to plan, we'll be able to invite more faith communities in our Salt Lake Valley to be a part of this."

Coller said the interfaith service would not be possible without the Clements family's contacts with other religions based in Sandy, nor without Yates' support in organizing the event.

"I couldn't do it without them," Coller said. "I certainly couldn't do it alone. So it really is a team putting this together."

The Community of Grace Presbyterian Church, located at 2015 Newcastle Drive in Sandy, will host the interfaith Thanksgiving service beginning at 3 p.m. However, community members are invited to a musical performance beginning at 2:30 p.m. Choirs from different religions will perform.

The sanctuary within Community of Grace can seat about 200 people, and Coller hopes many can attend. Yates asked the bishops in his stake to announce the event at church the next few Sundays to spread awareness.

"I'm hoping that one of the other faith groups will say next year they'll host it and maybe they'll have a bigger space than we do," Coller said. "If we have a seating problem, it's a great problem to have."