Brothers and sisters,
As I’m writing this article, we are just ten days away from our church’s annual Fall Festival on Saturday, October 26th from 4:30-6:30 pm! This year promises to be another wonderful opportunity to reach out to our neighborhood and remind them how much God loves them and how deeply we love them too.
This year, we are going to have several different areas for local children and parents to engage with. We will have our usual area for Trunk-or-Treat, with church members decorating the trunks of their cars and passing out candy to children. Trunks are always fun to do be-cause you get to interact with the kids and parents as they are coming through. And man do kids love to show off their costumes! In addition to that, we will be having our usual Best Trunk competition, as voted on by our guests—so if you sign up, be sure to bring your A game!
In addition to the trunks, we will have an area dedicated specifically to crafts. Frances Smith has a bunch of unique fall-related crafts for the kids to make, with all of them reminding the kids that God loves them very much and/or that we have so much to be thankful for! There will also be small pumpkins for the kids to decorate using markers if they’d like to!
Beyond that, we are going to have several carnival-style games set up for kids to play—ring toss, mini putt-putt, and more! Kids will win tickets that they can then bring over to our Prize Table and trade in for all kinds of prizes (or even more candy). The prize table can get hectic, but it can be fun to haggle with a kid, i.e., “Ok. You’ve got 12 tickets left. Let’s think about our options here.” Here again, you get to interact with the kids and see their personalities shine.
Finally, we are providing a meal for anyone who comes through. It’s a simple meal, but so many parents told us last year that it was perfect. They were able to come out, have a good time with their family, and not have to worry about supper that night. And after every-thing was said and done, several volunteers told me last year, “It was nice to work really hard together and then end the night sharing a meal as a church family.”
For all these things, we need volunteers. We need folks to decorate their trunks. We need folks to help Frances with crafts. We need folks to run games and work the prize table. If you can help that night, please sign up on the Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet in the vestibule this Sunday, October 20th. If you’re not going to be here this Sunday, but you would like to volunteer at Fall Festival, shoot me an email ([email protected]) and let me know. If there’s a specific area you’d like to help in, let me know.
In my mind, events like this one are important for two main reasons. The first is simply to remind the community of our presence and of our love for them. The second is something C. S. Lewis alludes to throughout his Narnia series—that God is always looking for moments to celebrate. The church, then, is called to be an institution that is looking for any reason to be joyful. Events like Fall Festival are moments like that. In a world of constant worry and tension, we can be a place that says, “Come away from all that and spend some time with us, celebrating!”
Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben