No matter the temperature, when the calendar turns to October—it’s fall, y’all! The season of pumpkins, apples, chai, and college football is in full swing here in the South.

Last fall marked our first autumn as a church with both a name and a home. To celebrate, we hosted a family fun event called Pumpkin Palooza (you can read about that here!). We learned a lot—especially about how powerful personal invitations and social media can be. When we asked guests, “How did you hear about it?” the answer was almost always, “Facebook!” That came from our congregation sharing and commenting on posts the day before the event. It worked, so we did it again!

Other wins we repeated this year included the chili potluck, prizes that weren’t candy, and a short message to bridge the games and entertainment. We even started 30 minutes earlier to catch the sunset just right. Though it rained, we easily pivoted to Plan B and brought it inside to the Worship Center and the Social Hall.

One discovery from last year: while our musical guest was incredible, most community families left once the games stopped. So we prayed and asked, “What could we offer this time that people would stay for—and maybe even join in?”

Enter country line dancing! And just like that, The Round Up was born.

We found a fantastic local line dance instructor through Facebook who promised clean lyrics, simple moves, and fun for all ages. She delivered! In our conversations, she mentioned there are more and more line dances being designed for Christian music, so of course, she taught and closed out with, you guessed it: Church Clap.

The youngest dancer was four, the oldest was 87, and everyone—from dads to grandmas—hit the dance floor. Laughter filled the air as our multigenerational church family quarter-turned, clapped, and kicked up their heels together. We planned for 30 minutes of dancing; we went 45 and could’ve kept going!

Before the dancing started and while chili dinner was served in hundreds of styrofoam coffee cups with hundreds of spoons, the fun continued:

  • The CONNECT Team started conversations with fresh-popped popcorn.
  • The Children’s Team set up baby pumpkin decorating with jumbo black sharpies.
  • Youth gals painted faces with cacti and stars, while youth guys supervised the western inflatables—an epic 7-in-1 stagecoach & bank bounce house and a dual axe-throwing challenge.
  • Senior saints ran the ring toss, and Young Adults helped littles pan for gold nuggets in a kiddie pool of sand from last year’s nativity luminaries.

It was pure joy—families together, generations laughing, everyone moving and mingling.

The first line dance I ever learned was the Hokey Pokey: “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out…” You remember! Our God invites us to do the same—to put our whole selves in. Through Jesus, He made a way for us, broken and selfish as we are, to be made right with Him. We won’t find satisfaction putting just a “right foot in” or a “left hand in.” He wants all of us.

And that’s what it’s all about.

“…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 3:4