What does Tribe teach about gratitude?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on gratitude starts with a simple but demanding question: how do you stay genuinely thankful when circumstances are hard or the people around you are a mess? Brian has returned to this question from two directions. The first is memory. Looking at Habakkuk 3:1-2, he made the case that real thankfulness is not a feeling you summon on command but a practiced habit of recalling what God has actually done. Brian says, "Remembering yesterday's victories arms us with strength for today's battles." The annual Pecky Day tradition the church keeps is a working expression of that conviction, a deliberate effort to name specific moments when God came through so that faith has something concrete to stand on when the next hard season arrives.
The second direction is encounter. In the messages from 1 Corinthians 1:4-9, the teaching pushed into why Paul could genuinely thank God for a congregation as troubled as Corinth. The answer was not that Paul overlooked the problems. It was that his thankfulness grew out of something deeper than the congregation's behavior, namely a personal reckoning with God's character. The word Paul uses points to gifts that are freely given, undeserved, given without regard to whether the recipient has earned them. Brian put it plainly: unlike Santa Claus, God does not reserve good gifts for good boys and girls. That is simply who He is.
Taken together, what Tribe teaches is that gratitude is not manufactured and it is not naive. It is the natural response of a person who has kept honest records of what God has done and who has come face to face with the kind of God who gives freely. As Brian says, "God has his own pecky board. And it's our names on the palm of his hands."
Taught from Habakkuk 3:1-2 · 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 · Habakkuk 3:17-19 · Joshua 4:1-7 · 1 Corinthians 12
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 12
1 Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don’t want you to be ignorant.
2 You know that when you were heathen, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.
3 Therefore I make known to you that no man speaking by God’s Spirit says, “Jesus is accursed.” No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” but by the Holy Spirit.
4 Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 30, 2025 Encountering God’s Goodness A Wyoming pastor explores Paul's opening words to the troubled church at Corinth and asks why genuine thankfulness flows naturally from encountering God's goodness.
- December 5, 2022 Pecky Day at Tribe Brian Hunter shares how a tropical bird, a reward sign, and $900 taught his family to remember God's provision, and why Tribe celebrates that story every year.