We just want to thank you guys so much for allowing us to rock out with yall....- James Dew and Full Circle

Thank you guys for letting us come out to be with you today. We're sorry we had to rush off, but we did make it to our other show with plenty of time. Thanks again for all you did for us. God bless and keep in touch. - Soulshine

Thank you so much for inviting us to be a part of Faith Fest! we had a great time and we hope that all who attended received a blessing,  - Exit 417

thanks for having us at Faith Fest 08...we had a blast! - Eleventhour

Oh my goodness did I have a great time hanging with everyone! THANK YOU SO MUCH for the invite and letting me share the stage and the day with so many great people! Love ya'll, - Matt Thien

Thank you for having us at Faith Fest '08!!! What a blast. We were blessed to share the stage with so many great bands. Hope to come back. - The Oswald Brothers

Once again Faith Fest was awesome!! Not only did the bands sound great they all had a great message and ministries...We are looking forward to coming back soon... Keep on doing what you do for Jesus. - Chelsie Boyd

Thank you so much for allowing iWitness to be a small part of the day at Faith Fest 08! I wish we could have been there all day... Praise God for the glorious weather! It was perfect! You guys really put together a great event. God bless you all for your efforts!! - iWitness

Faith Fest was awesome! - Sheridan

The blurb in the Hall County home school newsletter informed us that the Winder First United Methodist Church was having Faith Fest '08 on Saturday from 11am – 10pm.  And except for any food, drink or crafts you might purchase, everything was free.  Not only that, but there were going to be 10 Christian Bands from Georgia  playing between 12 noon and 10pm.  All that plus this church was only about 15-20 minutes away and we had a bright sunny day with highs expected in the low 80’s … so about 11am we piled in the van and hit the road.

The pictures in the slide show do a pretty good job of telling the story (I have also set up a photo album for those of you who like to look at the pictures and read the comments).  We had a great time … we were there as a family from 11:30 until nearly 3pm.  Then my daughter and I returned in the evening for the last three bands.

The bands we got to listen to were James Dew and Full Circle, Bearing Light, The Red Letters, Oswald Brother –the Band, Chelsie Boyd and Exit 417.  A guy name Matt Thien (reminded me of Chris Rice – check out his song BEAutiful) played between sets in the evening during the setup for each band. (I’ve provided the links for the ones we liked if you’re interested in checking out some Georgia bands).  

I was struck by how good each of the bands was starting with the very first one.  I know a lot of folks think the pinnacle of success is in being nationally known and celebrated (celebrity) but each of these bands were ministering to folks and pointing them to Jesus … and I imagine that’s pretty much all what God intended for this day.  The problem is we typically ignore and fail to support the local folks … something I’ll be thinking about in the future.

It was interesting to me that while a Methodist church was sponsoring this event, the bands came from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds and during the day between sets pastors and preachers from different denominations offered short messages.  Overall, you got a sense of Christian community coming together without regard for the denominational barriers that typically separate … it was refreshing.

When the sun went down, the stage lights came on and the music turned up, the folks from this church came around with buckets full of the glow-in-the-dark bracelets for everyone still there … and they were also free to boot.  Kids can do some pretty fun and creative things with those glow-in- the-dark bracelets when they can have pretty much an unlimited supply to work with – something that is usually cost prohibitive.

The food vendors started shutting down around 8pm (and the music was continuing until 10pm) and some of them did something I have never seen done before.  They cooked the rest of the food allocated for the event and then walked around with pans full of cooked food offering it to the remaining concertgoers for free …

Kudos and thanks to this church, Pastor Tippens, the church staff, all the many volunteers, the local Fire Department, food vendors, crafters, the bands and their crews, etc., etc. who made this such a special day for our family and so many others -  I do believe God was glorified in this day!

We are already looking forward to Faith Fest 09!

This was a blog on Bernie Webb Jr.'s blog-site - http://www.xanga.com/bwebbjr/677171363/item.html

From 2005 Event:

Faith Fest, Winder First United Methodist Church 2005

     What an awesome day! PG (keys), GG (rhythm guitar), Cliff (lead guitar) and myself (Betty) got on our motorcycles and rode all the way to Winder; about 85 miles. PG had to pull over as his bike dropped his foot peg but he quickly fixed that problem. For being so late in the season it was about 90 degrees and humid, a typical hot summers day. I was passing sunscreen around like a mom with her kids at the beach. Large buckets of ice water were going fast as band after band had to play on a stage next to the road right in the direct sun!

     White Stone got together before we went on to pray for the Lord's anointing to fall upon us as we played His music. We also prayed that God spare us with a breeze and some clouds to keep us cool. The anointing and His favor were seen right away as we turned around and saw many cars pulling over and parking at the Ingles parking lot with their windows open listening to our music and waving at us. Some of these people actually came over to the church yard to the front of the stage to continue to listen. The clouds began to roll in and we were spared of too much direct sun.

     Mark Whitaker, together with the staff an volunteers of Winder First United Methodist Church on Broad Street really knows how to organize these events and we would be honored to work with them in the future. There was plenty to drink, food was provided, and they hired a professional sound company that made us all sound awesome! We had so much fun and we could see that the people were feeding off of it.

     We stayed for a little while longer to watch the next band. We had to leave earlier than we wanted to as some of us "bikers" didn't have night goggles so we really needed to get home during daylight. This was an all around awesome day playing in God's garden!

By Betty Stephens