community fest.

this weekend. oh my GOSH. this WEEKEND.

I know I sound absolutely dramatic, but seriously guys, it was probably the most exhausting thing I've done in years. Legitimately.

We had the first ever local "community fest" - an event put on by all three main churches in town (yes, my town is 14,000 people and there are only about 5 total churches) - which is something that has never happened before ever. Anyway. I volunteered to help out with the food portion of the event. 

Friday night was the skate outreach - we were expecting 500 - 1000 people. And we received the latter. Free food, music, raffles, and people. Saturday (from 3-10) was the family fest. This time around we had carnival games for kids, bounce houses, people had donated tons of clothes for others to go through for free...there were a few medical people there to give general exams and all that jazz. On top of all this, everything from the previous night was present. Food, music, raffles, and the word of God. And everything was free. 

I was a hamburger wrapper for the weekend. I wrapped probably close to 1000 hamburgers...our team separated a good 6000 paper plates...opened hundreds bags of chips, and distributed thousands of bottles of water.

There were probably a good 5000 people who passed through our festival this weekend. That's over a third of my town....insane. 

The Lord definitely worked on the hearts of some of the people who came. We weren't focused on the thousands coming to the Lord, we just wanted to reach one. And that happened. 

It's amazing to me how quickly the body of Christ came together to put on this fest. It was wonderful to see the three churches - all sound doctrine, just very different teaching styles - work together for the first time ever. Pretty cool.

Sunday was even cooler though, because we had church in the park.

All of our pastors cancelled church for the week and we met in the park's amphitheater to worship.

Pastor James - he's from San Diego - preached. It was really quite wonderful. The work was worth it, for sure, even if I'm still catching up on sleep.

what did you do last weekend?