Friday, October 31, 2008

Fall Festival

Well in just a few minutes I am off to help set up for our Fall Festival tonight. Today and tonight is an amazing event in the life of our church. Tonight's festivities will bring in families from all over our community. We host this event FREE to all that come. Here are the activities we will have:
Preschool Area includes- duck pond, basketball, bean bag toss, treasure hunt, tattoo area, fish pond, ride area, play area, crayon playground inflatable, 3-n-1 Train Jump, Space Station jump.

Other area includes- Picture booth, Spider man giant slide, 33 obstacle course, Nemo 5-n-1 obstacle, petting zoo, pony rides, Noah's Ark 70' obstacle course, bungee run, bouncy boxing, basketball, soccer, baseball, gladiator joust, G-Roc Obstacle Slide Combo, 6 n 1 World Sports, Sports Jump, Roaring River Slide, Plain 5 n 1, T-Ball, Cars Jump, 18 ft Slide, Dart Game, Spin Art, Bean Bag Toss, Putt Putt, Spill the Milk, Ring Toss, Skee Ball, Tic Tac Toe, Pin the Tail, Balloons, Pokey Dot the Clowns.

We will serve hot dogs, all the fixings (including slaw and chili), chips, oreos, cotton candy, popcorn, nachos, hot chocolate, coffee, coke, diet coke, sprite and bottled water.

It is a lot of fun to watch all the families come in and enjoy such a fun and safe evening.
I almost forgot the candy bag- each child is given a "glo necklace" when they register as they enter the gates, so when they get ready to leave they are given a candy bag. Last year we gave out 1,200 candy bags so we have 1,500 this year. I am praying it is just the right number (not too many left and enough for everyone there).

Several people have made comments to me this week- I know your church spends lots of money on this event, why do you do this or there is so little return from an event like this, etc. My reply is we do this not expecting anything in return. It is simply a gift to our community, no strings attached. I realize that a lot of other churches can not do an event like this- but my church can. I also realize a lot of people who pass through our gates and fill out a registration card say they attend a church. They may just say that because here in the south you realize if you put you do not attend a church, you are going to get a visit or call. However, it is my intention if they just put a church and really do not attend that if they ever do have a need or do want to explore spiritual things........ they might remember our church.

Our church wants our community to know we love families. We want to meet families needs. We want to minister to them where they are. One need is a safe alternative to trick or treating or from our community sponsored Halloween Party. We are trying to be that place. We welcome all!

One thing we are trying to do for the second year is asking people to donate cans for the Manna Ministry. Hopefully people have seen this request on our advertisement and will donate food. Our Manna Ministry is our church's food pantry who provides grocery assistance for people in our community.

I will try and post pictures tomorrow. However you decide to celebrate tonight remember we serve a Living Savior who has overcome the evil one! Satan has been defeated. I pray you help our children focus on positive characters for tonight and your family celebrates together!

1 comment:

Triathamom said...

Neat post! It is so exciting to see how FBC is all about families.

I can't wait to hear how it all goes tonight! I know it will be amazing!

Talk to you Monday!!! Get some REST this weekend after tonight's festivities!