Seasons and Festivals
Picture, People at Worship
The church exists first to offer worship (honour) to God and to thank him for the gifts he gives us, and secondly to honour and support each other, because we're all fellow creatures of God and so by honouring each other we honour him too.

As well as the Seasons and Major Festivals which help us worship God, the church celebrates several 'Special Days' throughout the year to remember, honour and support each other and our work in God's world. Celebration of the "Special Days" is usually optional, Christians chose which they want to remember, not all churches celebrate all these days....
'Special Days'
Fathers Day
Picture, Father and Child
Fathers Day isn't specifically a Christian Festival, but we have included details here for the sake of completeness as it's a popular celebration with many people and is sometimes celebrated in church.

Fathers Day was introduced in the USA as a balance to Mothers Day. The idea of a day for fathers was suggested by several people at different times but formal recognition is generally attributed to Sonora Louise Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington who, in 1909, was listening to a sermon in her church on Mothers Day. Because her mother had died, she couldn't join in the celebrations so she felt that fathers should be honoured too, especially fathers like hers who had to show special devotion to the family as a single parent. She urged the Spokane Ministerial Association to adopt the celebration and it was observed on the third Sunday in June 1910, the month of her father's birthday.

Picture, President Lyndon Johnson
The observance of Fathers Day didn't grow rapidly, some where concerned that it might become an excuse for commercialisation - the selling of products as presents for fathers - which of course it has, but the demand for a day was persistent and in 1916 the American president Woodrow Wilson approved it. However, it wasn't established officially until as late as 1966 when president Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Fathers Day should be observed throughout the USA on the third Sunday in June and in 1972, president Richard Nixon signed the law that made it permanent.
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