Horizon’s 9th Annual Harvest Festival

Writer / Diane Jacks Saunders

The leaders of the Horizon Christian Fellowship invite you to their 9th Annual Harvest Festival. This is a great no-cost event, with food and entertainment for the whole family.

“We usually have 800 to 1,000 people (at the festival), and we’d love to have more,” said Todd Melloh, Horizon’s development director. This year’s event will feature hayrides, face painting, carnival games, music, live entertainment and food.

rev“It’s an alternative to Halloween, so the kids come dressed up in costumes,” the Rev. Bill Goodrich said.

Goodrich also said the Harvest Festival is just one of several activities and ministries Horizon provides for the community. For example, Horizon hosts an annual invitational cross-country meet for junior high and high school athletes.

“We have one of the best cross-country courses in the city,” Goodrich pointed out.

Other outreach activities include Camp Indy, a popular summer day camp on Horizon’s 98-acre grounds. Approximately 300 children attend, Melloh said.

Horizon, which recently celebrated its 26th anniversary, wasn’t always this large Christian community that seeks to welcome anyone to its large campus. Goodrich said Horizon began humbly, as a Bible study in his and his wife Vi’s living room. Only five people attended that first meeting in July 1988.

Goodrich believes that God sent him and his wife from San Diego to Indianapolis.

“He (God) took us out of California (to start a church), but it took a year to take the California out of us,” he recalled with a chuckle. “We did it out of obedience.”

Starting a church was big undertaking. Goodrich said while organizing the church he and his wife faced several challenges. Those challenges included losing his job because the company he worked for went bankrupt. He briefly thought he might have displeased God in some way.

“I confessed every sin I could think of,” Goodrich said.

Eventually, the tiny congregation grew and moved to a rented facility. The number of church-goers increased and the need for their own facility became apparent.

“The Lord led us out here. This was a retreat center for the Disciples of Christ,” Goodrich recalled. “We bought it and moved in July of 1991.”

The current kindergarten through 12th-grade school and church building was built in 1996. The church is affiliated with Calvary Chapels, an organization of autonomous churches, Goodrich said.


Horizon’s 9th Annual Harvest Festival
Oct. 24
Horizon Christian Fellowship
7702 Indian Lake Road, Indianapolis
5-7 p.m.
Free
317-823-2349 (Children’s Ministry)
horizonindy.org

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