The Fall Festival is my favorite fellowship event of the year.
We hold this event every October as a kind of alternative to Halloween. Whereas Halloween is focused on evil, gore and fright, the Fall Festival is focused on God’s provision, God’s people and God’s love for us.
There are two things I really enjoy about the Fall Festival. First, the variety. Of course, we eat. Like many churches, we rarely host an event without a meal. But the lunch aside, the fall festival features games, children’s activities, the cake walk and other interesting and fun things.
The other reason the Fall Festival is my favorite annual fellowship event is that it is longer than most of our other fellowship events. The Fall Festival has a very leisurely pace to it, and it allows all who are present a little more time to hang out and get to know each other more deeply.
Fellowship has been a part of the Christian experience since the very be-ginning of the church. The original Greek word for fellowship is koinonia, and it means a great deal more than people gathered together in the same place at the same time. In koinonia, we experience a great connection with one another through shared experience. People at football game have fellowship, but they probably don’t have koinonia. Koinonia is what makes Christian fellowship special. What connects us is our shared faith in Christ, and we celebrate that as we come together over a meal or another event.
The Fall Festival is also a great event to which you can easily invite people. I encourage you to do so. There are a number of ways to do so. If you at-tend the 8:30 service, head home, meet your guests and bring them to the Festival. If you attend 11:00am worship, invite them to join you or to meet you after the worship service.
The Fall Festival is a great day in the life of our church, and I don’t think we should keep this joyful experience to ourselves. Invite a friend as we share in some koinonia!
Blessings,
Pastor John
