Several brief words for you on a stormy Halloween!
First of all, I don’t know about you, but I am still aglow from Saturday’s Fall Festival on Fifth, right in our backyard! It was a celebration for the ages, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for 
so many of you who brought it to life! Under the creative, dynamic, and fun leadership of our Fall Festival coordinator, Kim Wilkinson, and the steady guidance of Amy Cook, our Ministry Assistant, everyone who arrived on-site this weekend were welcomed with a spirit of hospitality, fun, and deep celebration. You who volunteered were everywhere, serving homemade BBQ, hosting games and trunk or treat, taking folks on tours of the building, blessing animals, staffing the bouncy house, and helping on the playground. And it was gift upon gift to host hundreds of people from the community, right here at our church house! Attendees told us they heard about the Fall Festival through all the methods we used to communicate about the gathering — Facebook ads, signs around town, ads online and in local news, and lots of churchwide word-of-mouth. Many voiced their appreciation for such a fun event, and as we were winding down for the day, conversation already turned towards how we can make next year’s Fall Festival even better than this one. For a first-time try at a community-wide outreach event like this, it was truly a remarkable day — and the weather even cooperated!! Enjoy a host of pictures in today’s eBlast!
Second of all, I am preparing this week to travel to Georgia, where I will be the speaker for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia’s annual gathering. When he extended the invitation to me to come and speak, Jody Long, CBF Georgia’s executive director, spoke of you and our church, the bold faithfulness we’ve found in facilities and mission, and how our story might offer hope to so many other churches like ours. And so his invitation was for me (and our Chris Gambill, who will also be there) was to come and bear witness to God’s work of Love in our midst. I will be away on Sunday and Monday, doing just that — telling our story with pride and gratitude for what God has done among us. You’ll not want to miss this Sunday! Dr. Larry Hovis will be proclaiming in worship, and together, we’ll mark All Saints’ Sunday by remembering those who have departed from this life and entered life everlasting.
Finally, speaking of remembrance and gratitude, I hope you have marked your calendars for Sunday, November 24. That morning, we will celebrate the end of our “A Boundless Home” building project in a pot-luck fellowship breakfast during the Bible Study hour, dedicate new spaces like the ramp and the prayer room to God’s glory, and worship together, giving thanks for the steadfast love of God that has traveled with us every step along the way.
From a community-wide festival to a beacon of hope for sister churches, a remembering space to a sacred space in which to be transformed, this place, these people, our shared vision and task, and the God who binds us up — all of it in its fullness is becoming a boundless home of Love each and every day.
For that, we say thanks be to God!
Together in God’s work of Love,
Emily Hull McGee