Fall Family Fun Day

I normally post Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night.  Last Thursday night, I was 'radio silent.'  We had a big project going on that occupied my time and by the time I settled behind the computer, my eyes were heavy, and I headed to bed.  I'll tell you about what we had going on that required a lot of organization and planning tonight.

We attend a small country church outside of Jennings.  On any given Sunday, we'll have between 25-30 people - hardly a mega-church, more like a family of different people drawn together!  The demographics of our church represent a common issue across our nation in that we're aging.  We aren't being replaced by a large populations of active, involved young people willing to pick up the torch and serve.  To serve our community with good, wholesome family fun, we decided to put on Fall Family Fun Day on Saturday with all welcome and everything free.

We began praying that God would send us families that we could love on and minister to.  We launched a social media campaign to advertise the event and made up banners that we put up around town like at the Feed Store and community bulletin boards.  Of course we invited family, friends and neighbors.  We also made up signs, copying the Burma Shave roadside advertising done in the 20's, beckoning travelers with "Fun Jumps," "Free Sno-Cones," "Free Pony Rides," "Free Hot Dogs," and the last one a big arrow with the word HERE on it near the entrance of the church.  We erected the signs on the main road both north and south of the church.

The day finally arrived!  The event was scheduled from 10AM - 2PM, so we got there at 7AM to begin setting everything up.  It was a beautiful, blue-sky day with highs only in the 70's.  We were so busy, the following photos were mostly taken before the crowd showed up, because there was no time for photo taking with all that needed to be done.  We had a registration table and passed out tickets as we had door prizes that congregants made/bought to be given away including homemade pie, $25 gift cards, homemade gifts, local honey, toys, crafts, etc.  We offered prayer and information about the church and passed out tracts.  Popcorn was popping, sno-cones were being made along with hot dogs and drinks.

The wind was gusting at 20 mpg, so we were a little worried about the fun jumps.  Fortunately, they were anchored down securely with stakes and kids bounced with reckless abandon inside the bounce houses.  Games were scattered around and smiles and laughter were in no short supply!

Since our church is small and elderly, neighboring churches like East Ridge Baptist Church in Lake Charles (who sent their youth group), Immanuel Baptist Church in Lake Charles (who brought horses for pony rides), and Bethany Baptist in LeBleu Settlement who all arrived to help out.  It was a blessing to see the family of God helping out one another.  Kids got a kick out of the pony rides, being led around the church property in a slow walk.  You should have seen their faces, some riding time after time.

We had a sound system set up playing music and every hour we'd call the kids and adults to a central area for the door prize giveaways.  Each hour we had fun sermon illustrations where the Gospel was shared and we prayed with our guests.

We had over a hundred people in attendance, not counting the volunteers and church members.  When it was done, we gave thanks that we were able to pull this off.  We hope we were able to be a blessing to kids and adults in our community.  We give thanks to God and all the glory goes to Him!

Years ago, I followed a blog by Herrick Kimball called "The Deliberate Agrarian."  In THIS POST, Mr. Kimball laid out his Agrarian-Style Economic Self Defense Plan.  In this beautifully written essay, he laid out his plan.  The #7 item in his plan (the last but not the least in his list) stated the following:

Find community and get involved. Get yourself into a small rural church where folks care about and will help each other. Country people look out for and help each other. That’s always been the case. It’s not going to change when times get bad. But they won't be paying your mortgage for you.

And that's what we found at our little church (Cornerstone).  People love one another and pray for one another.  They bring food when you are sick.  Fresh vegetables are grown and brought to services and given away on our way out.  The Word is taught and a strong spirit of Christian charity is practiced.  Herrick was right!  I hope you can find the same!