Fall Festivals and the Ministry of Hospitality

TLDR: Sometimes it might be best to focus our fall festivals on building friendships with others and showing them that we care for them, and trust God to provide opportunities to share the gospel later.

It’s fall, which means cooler weather, colorful leaves, pumpkin spice everything,¹ and fall festivals. A question I often see asked about fall festivals is how to share the gospel with those who attend. Is it best to have a time when someone does it over a PA system? Is it better to have a booth or station for sharing the gospel? Hand out a tract?

This is an important question for sure. I’m about to offer an option that you might not have thought of, but I’m going to warn you that you might not like it. Here goes:

Perhaps the best way to share the gospel at your fall festival is NOT to.

I know, I know. That sounds terrible. It sounds so ungodly and anti-evangelistic. But hear me out. Let’s see if I can make a case that not sharing the gospel at times, and for specific reasons can indeed be godly, evangelistic, and effective.

Making a Case from Jesus’ Ministry

To make my case, I want us to take a quick survey of aspects of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels.

Jesus’ healings

As we read through the Gospels, one thing that stands out is the number of times Jesus healed people. It was a major focus of his ministry. Why? Because Jesus truly cared about people. Certainly, their spiritual condition mattered most to him, but that doesn’t mean their physical condition wasn’t quite important too. Jesus healed people because they were in need, he could help them, and that’s what he wanted to do because he loved them.

Jesus’ healing the man born blind

The account of Jesus healing the man born blind in John 9 provides some helpful insight about how Jesus connected meeting people’s physical needs and their spiritual need. Jesus healed this man early in the chapter and then sent him away to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:7). It wasn’t until later, after the man’s encounter with the religious leaders, that Jesus shared the gospel with him (John 9:35ff). We see that Jesus met both needs, but not at the same time—there was a gap of some time between meeting the physical need and the spiritual one.

Jesus’ eating with sinners

Earlier I said that Jesus healed because he loved people and cared about them. His reputation of eating with sinners and tax collectors (see Mark 2:13–17; Luke 15:2) helps prove that. Jesus didn’t just eat with the outcasts of society once or twice; he ate with them so often that he was known for it. Here’s why that is so interesting: in that culture, eating with someone was a form of acceptance. For Jesus to eat with these sinners and tax collectors was for him to see them as people—to care about them and want to have a friendship with them. Jesus was by no means utilitarian: only preaching the gospel in his limited time on earth. He invested significant time into merely loving people.

Jesus’ friendship with Zacchaeus

The best example of Jesus befriending others is his encounter with Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1–10. When Jesus told him, “I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5),² he was basically looking to begin a friendship. Zacchaeus was a man overlooked by everyone else—not because he was short, but because he was a tax collector. Jesus, however, saw this unseen man. And he cared about him. Jesus didn’t just see Zacchaeus as someone who needed salvation; he saw a man who needed friendship. Zacchaeus had spiritual needs for sure, but he also had emotional and social needs. Jesus cared about all of them.

Our Take-away

OK. So let’s wrap this up by summarizing what we can learn from Jesus’ ministry.

**First, it’s not just OK to meet people’s physical, emotional, anre relational needs, but it’s what we should be doing.**

Again, to be clear, a person’s spiritual need is his or her greatest need. We aren’t here to make life better for people on their way to eternal judgment. However, neither are we here to ignore how God has made people as his image-bearers. Jesus didn’t focus just on the spiritual; neither should we.

Second, we should pursue genuine friendships.

One aspect of Jesus’ earthly ministry that is overlooked the most, I think, is his friendships with people. We seem to want to super-spiritualize things and therefore we often fail to appreciate the importance of friendships. God created us as relational beings to imitate his relational identity. Friendships, then, are at the core of our identity as image-bearers. They are of deep value and we shouldn’t look past them. Building friendships is a spiritual act.

Third, while there are surely times to share the gospel out of the gate, there is also a place for what we can call two-step evangelism.

This is what Jesus did with the man born blind and Zacchaeus. He cared about them first. Then he pointed them to the gospel. Yes, we need to share the gospel with the lost, but I believe we have some flexibility in when we do that. Sometimes, it’s best right away. Sometimes, though, it’s best a little later.

A Fall Festival Possibility

So, what might this look like for our fall festivals? Well, if we believe that it’s the only opportunity we will have to share the gospel with those who attend, then we should find a way to share the gospel then and there.

Most often, though, this isn’t the case. Most often, those who attend are our neighbors, friends, and families. These are people we will have plenty of future opportunities to share the gospel with. Perhaps a better option, then, is to see fall festivals as primarily about relationship building—like Jesus’ miracles or meals. What if our main goal was the ministry of hospitality—providing an event primarily to give families something to enjoy? What if we measured success by relationships started or deepened? As long as we have two-step evangelism in mind, this isn’t compromising. It’s simply focusing on people holistically, building friendships, and trusting God to give us future opportunities—ones that might be more effective—to share the gospel.

For the record, I’m on Team Apple as the best fall flavor. Pumpkin has its place—mostly savory, like a great pumpkin soup I make each fall—but give me a caramel apple any day! ↩︎