| The Tellico Village Community Church in Loudon, Tennessee, stands in the middle of a planned retirement community; therefore, a vast majority of members are senior adults in various phases of retirement. While there are many wonderful qualities of life in an active retirement community, many discover the downside of community life related to aging like the loss of life, the loss of health, and the loss of meaning and purpose. The church, in this context, must remain a catalyst for hope and joy. This study sought to explore a practical way for the church to foster joy among church members through encouraging the spiritual discipline of gratitude journaling which has been shown in numerous studies to promote subjective wellbeing.;The project invited participants to log three thankful thoughts per day for a period of forty days without repeating. Using three standard scales, subjects were tested at the beginning and at the end of the study for levels of subjective well-being---their responses were analyzed for changes following the forty-day period. As an optional part of the study, volunteers were invited to attend focus group meetings following the forty days to discuss their experience.;A statistically significant portion of participants experienced increases in positive affect, satisfaction with life, and subjective happiness as well as decreases in negative affect. Moreover, participants who indicated experiencing an emotional life event around the time of the study showed more positive gains in three of four measures. These findings suggest that the church may be able to foster joy among its people through encouraging the spiritual discipline of gratitude journaling. Paths for future study include further tracking the effectiveness of gratitude journaling among people facing emotional turmoil and studying the pro-social effects of gratitude journaling within the congregational setting. |
