Decorating Ideas for a Church Fall Festival

Football Fall Kickoff Theme

• A football-themed church fall festival can invite the congregants to "Kick Off the Fall with Jesus." Create felt school-type pendants and write meaningful slogans such as "Make Jesus Your Goal," "Let's Cheer for Jesus" or "Are You On God's Team?" and hang them above doorways and around windows. Place footballs around the festival area. Create foam goal posts and place them near entryways. Have youth pastors and volunteers dress in black and white striped referee shirts. Mark the grass in front of the church or parking lot with yard lines created from white masking tape. Creates paper jerseys and use paint or markers to write "Son of God" or "#1" and paste them on the walls. Offer football ring toss games with inexpensive toys as prizes for small children.

Harvest of Hope

• Decorate the church as an old-fashioned harvest festival. Place large signs that read "Got Hope?" or "Hope Lives Here" in the entry or parking lot. A bouncy castle and small pony rides, along with Christian craft activity booths, competitive games and a petting zoo provide fun for the whole family. Bring a touch of authenticity to the grounds by adding bales of hay, buckets of wheat and straw on the ground. Pumpkins and gourds can dot the landscape and provide color, texture and decoration.

Fall Fine Arts and Crafts Festival

• Churches often have congregants who are talented in many types of artistic pursuits, including painting, photography, crafts, textile arts or baking. Take the opportunity to display their wares with a fall art festival. Hang quilts and place knitting on tables in the narthex. Display fine art paintings on easels. Create tiered displays of crafts or wood carvings. Display cross stitchery and photo galleries of church members' finest work. Type out a guide to displayed art and identification cards that detail the name of the artist and the name of the piece. Bakers who delight in creating confections might enjoy displaying and donating their goods for a bake sale that can raise profits for youth ministry mission trips.