Hello to you friend! As you probably know, last weekend was Father's Day and I would like to say how thankful I am for my Dad, for being a Dad, and for my heavenly Father who is good all the time!
It seems that whenever there's a celebration of some kind there's a difference of opinion as to whether it's right, wrong, or just plain crazy.
While my blog here is not meant to be one that offers more than musician tips, I feel that it's important and necessary to outline a couple of biblical events that happened long ago to see why we love celebrations.
Let's first look at the word 'festival'.
According to dictionary.com, the word festival means: "A day or time of religious or other celebration, marked by feasting, ceremonies, or other observances."
The first mention of a festival in the bible is in the book of Exodus Chapter 5, verse 1: "After this presentation to Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They told him, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.'”
If you believe like I do that each of us was created by a God who loves us, then you know deep in your heart that there's an innate need to worship. There's also an innate need for community. We love to be social!
Even if you don't believe in a God who loves us you can still agree that we love to be social. Just look online for a few minutes and you can see the results of our desire to connect.
One of the ways that God created for us to connect is through music. And what better way to connect than to have a party celebrating God's love through music!
I can of course hear the opposing opinion that says: "festivals are bad and only pagans have them."
This kind of attitude is negating what God has created and ordained as good.
We are to celebrate God's love and worship Him through song. Jesus addressed the naysayer attitude when in Luke 19:40 He said: "He replied, 'If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!'"
My final thoughts about this are: We were made to worship God. We were made to love and glorify Him. One of the best ways to worship and love our God is to celebrate Him through a community event, a festival that brings people together for encouragement and unity.
If you're in the Dallas, Oregon area in the middle of August, please join us for the first ever, Dallas Christian Music Festival. We would love to have you be a part of our community to celebrate God's love!
