It goes without saying that Texas is known for having a lot of churches. It's also well-known that some Texan churches are ginormous (Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church, the largest church in the USA, is located in Houston). There are a few huge ones around the DFW Metroplex, and one of them near our apartment was hosting a family-friendly harvest festival this evening. Since it was free and it sounded fun, I decided to take Nolan.
The first sign that this was going to be different than any other church festival I had been to before was the sign itself. It was a custom-printed banner, full color, and large enough to attract traffic going both directions. There wasn't any paint or paper covering up last year's date and time. This was brand new, printed just for this occasion, and will end up in tomorrow's garbage.
The second sign that this was going to be interesting was the semis dropping off equipment and rides this morning.
If those two signs weren't enough to convince me, then the traffic controllers waving overflow parking into an adjacent lot should have done the trick. And it did.
After Nolan and I parked, at the gate we were each handed a custom-printed plastic bag bearing the church's name (Freedom Life). The greeter instructed me to use my included "campus map" to get a layout of the fair. The "campus map" was printed on heavy, glossy card stock. This wasn't from an outdated Xerox machine.
So just what was there for us to do? There were approximately 12 bouncy house variations, an over-sized boxing ring, a "wipe out" type course, a survival boot-camp course, a mechanical bull, a zip line (not kidding. It was seriously a zip line), those oversized inflatable balls that people roll around in, a trackless train, a petting zoo, and pony rides. There were games, photo booths, ridiculous amounts of candy, refreshments, several food vendors in trucks, face painting, and a balloon animal "artist." Here's a few pictures as proof:
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| View of some bouncy houses |
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| Petting zoo |
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| The younger kids' area. There were also separate toddler and teenager areas. |
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| Nolan loved this bouncy ship. |
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| Probably because of the slide at the end. |
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| Somehow, Nolan managed to pick up this bunny. |
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| Somehow, Nolan managed to hold it nicely. |
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| Nolan and a scared-to-death chick. |
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| Balloons always mean there's a good time to be had. |
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| Some of the games. |
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| The main food area with some attractions in the center. |
Nolan and I had a really good time (of course... there was tons of stuff to do and we didn't have to pay for it) and we're both stuffed from candy. We both enjoyed completing the boot camp course and I was happy with my yummy cup of hot apple cider.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure how beneficial this was for the church to reach out to the community and create fellowship. I only talked to one person (a woman from New York who told me all about her son not watching commercials and how she never has to buy him stuff) and nobody from the church ever introduced themselves to me or invited me to come to worship with them.
Will I do this again next year? Sure. Will I ever attend this church on a Sunday morning--or Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, Saturday evening, or Wednesday evening? Probably not. Will my clothes be a smidgen tighter as a direct result of all the candy I consumed? Absolutely.
