Celebrating harvest

As we are still a relatively young church which is still at the planting stage, we are always looking for ways to connect with people we know and find ways to invite people to an event or a worship service.  Certainly it is much easier for people to come to an event like Family Christmas or Easter Festival.  We thought we would try this year to do something a little different to mark harvest time.  It is not something which seems to celebrated much in the churches here but harvest is an important occasion to many in this land whether that be for rice, fruits like apples, or vegetables.  Of course for many city- and town-dwellers, there is little connection today with farming and most probably think very little about harvest.  Yet it is an important time both to commemorate and to give thanks for all that we have.  And it is a festival which is marked in the Bible.  So we rented the place we often do and invited people to come to a simple service celebrating harvest.  We started with a craft together - making something on which we would later write our thanks.  We moved into a time of worship, with some simple songs, a great illustrated kids' talk by one of our talented members and a simple message on what, to whom and why we give thanks based on one of the Psalms.  We also watched a short video made by a Japanese Christian charity which works to provide food and aid for, among others, children in Africa who have little food and little money.  Later we enjoyed some simple food and chat together.  Although we did not have a large number of guests, we were glad to be able to mark this occasion and can see this as something we might repeat in future years.