FESTIVAL HISTORY
Begun in 1990, the Festival Of Tents marks marks its 19th year in 2008. Almost all of our yearly gatherings have been in Brownsville, OR.
The Festival of Tents is based on the Feast of Tabernacles in Leviticus 23:33-43 and Deuteronomy 16:13-15. After the harvest in the Fall, Israel gathered to worship God, and thank Him for His wonderful provision for them. During this celebration they rejoiced, feasted, and rested while living in "tents" as a reminder of how they lived when God brought them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.
"... and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your male
and female servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphaned
and the widow who are in your towns.... because the Lord your God
will bless you in all you produce and in all the work of your hands,
so that you will be altogether joyful."
Deut. 16: 13-15
So we also gather, young and old together, to minister to our awesome God in thanksgiving, worship, and celebration. We rejoice before Him and praise Him for His wonderful blessings to us. As we gather to thank Him, we also come as His children to receive a Father's blessing, to hear His heart, and to receive His empowering to carry the good news of His Kingdom to all the nations.
About FOT2008
"Come to Jesus – Wholly Surrendered"
As we look at this year’s Festival of Tents, we are reminded of all the things that the Festival is and always will be: worship, celebrating Jesus, fellowship, serving brothers and sisters and, most importantly, giving our first fruits as an offering to the Lord.
All these things are vital, and we have been so blessed by doing each one of them.
We feel a particular calling this year to focus simply on coming to Jesus--wholly surrendered--and to let our offering of worship of Him take the first place and focus of our time together.
We are living in a time and age that continues to push Jesus out. In order for us to share that life of Jesus, we have to have Jesus in us. Let us prepare our hearts (broken and ready) now, to give all to Father, that He may work through us.
Someone once said, "What we come for is what we will get out of the Festival". Let us "Come to Jesus – wholly surrendered" to Him and His purposes for us.
