Rosh Hashanah (aka: Feast of Trumpets) & Jesus

Feast of Trumpets (or Rosh Hashana) is all about Jesus! It is NOT just a Jewish holiday. In fact, it is one of 7 feasts that the Father gave us to help understand His plans better.

I always say that the Jewish people only have part of the story and we, Christians, only have part of the story, but when we combine it all, that is when we see the Lord’s full redemptive plan!

I have grown up in church all my life and it wasn’t until I started studying the Feast days that things started making sense to me. Seeing Jesus through the Feasts was the answer to so many questions that I had!

What is Feast of Trumpets?

Not only are the feasts fun, but the Father gave them to us so that we would understand more about His son, Yeshua (Jesus Christ), and His first and second coming.

The first 4 feasts are in the Spring months. They are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost.

The last 3 feasts happen in the fall starting with Feast of Trumpets.

When Jesus came to the Earth the first time, He fulfilled all 4 Spring feasts to the very day. He died on Passover, He was the Unleavened Bread, He rose on First Fruits, and He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

So with this, it can be assumed that the last 3 remaining Fall Feasts have something to do with Jesus’ second coming! I have a full presentation on why this is the case, backed by scripture. See below.

Feast of Trumpets Explanation Video

You can watch it by clicking the photo above or click here.

You can use this video to help with your own FOT festivities a couple of different ways:

1. Use it to help understand FOT yourself before teaching it to others

This is a great option if you are brand new into this and need somewhere to start. You can watch it beforehand and then reteach it to your family/friends/small group/community.

2. Play the video during Feast of Trumpets

Another option is that you can use this video on the actual night of FOT and just have everyone watch it together as part of your celebration.

I have had families get dinner together and then put this presentation up on their TV so that they can all watch while eating. This is a great option if you don’t feel comfortable teaching the information yet.

3. Have everyone watch it before Feast of Trumpets

A third option, and one that I did last year, was that everyone who wanted to celebrate FOT with us (about 50 people in total) watched this presentation BEFORE we all got together. That way, on the actual night we weren’t in “teaching” mode, but yet “celebration” mode.

This opened the night up for there to be more fun things that we could do together to celebrate instead of everyone watching me present for an hour. I’ll list out the fun things we did to celebrate further down in this blog post.

How to Celebrate Feast of Trumpets

First, I want to say that you do not have to feel the pressure of getting it exactly right. We are not doing this to be ritualistic, but yet to learn more about Jesus and the Father’s plans. So do not worry about getting everything 100% correct. Just do the best you can. 🙂

There are many different ways that you can celebrate FOT. You can celebrate on your own, as a family, or as a community. We have done all depending on what we had going on that year. I absolutely LOVE hosting a community-wide Feast of Trumpets celebration though. It’s so much fun for me and I have received so much feedback that it is fun for everyone else also.

What You’ll Need to Celebrate

Regardless if you are celebrating by yourself or with lots of people, here are the things that you’ll want to have for the night:

The teaching video

I listed above (you can also get it here) either before or plan on watching it the night of FOT. None of this matters if you are missing the reason why we are doing this. The teaching of how Feast of Trumpets is all about Jesus is the most important piece of this whole night

Shofar or some kind of trumpet

I ordered my shofar off of Amazon but it does take some time to arrive so try to order it a few weeks in advance if you can. If you don’t have time (or the money) to order a real shofar, no worries! You can get creative. 🙂

I have also ordered kid trumpets from Amazon too and they are always such a huge hit. If you can’t do this because of time or money, you can even MAKE your own shofar by rolling up a piece of paper and blowing through it. The Lord will see your efforts and honor them!

Pro Tip: Learn how to blow your shofar by watching my quick video here.

What to Eat for Feast of Trumpets

Your main meal can be just about anything you want it to be. Roast, chicken, and/or fish are typically common. If you are doing a group meal, you can do it potluck style and/or catered. You can have fun with some of the things like having Bugle chips as trumpets!

However, there are a few things that are customary to have on Feast of Trumpets that are outside of the main dish. Again, we aren’t doing this in a ritualistic kind of way so if you don’t want to have these things, then no worries. However, I like to have these customary items because it is fun and brings in more layers of the teaching (which you will see in the video).

1. Apples & Honey

I typically have a platter out of cut up apples and honey jars where people can dip their apples in the honey. I’ve also done multiple different flavors of honey and that was yummy too. (Ex: Cinnamon honey, peach honey, lavender honey, etc.) I bought all of these flavored honeys from a honey store while on vacation but I’m sure you can find some too with a quick search. We have even done an apple dessert contest! (More info about this further down in the post).

2. Pomegranates

I usually make a pomegranate cheesecake. I have also done pomegranate meatballs that were a huge hit too! For the meatballs, I just bought a big bag of meatballs from the freezer section of Costco and then followed this recipe.

3. Challah bread

Challah bread is made to look like braided bread with three strands. I bet you can guess what these 3 strands represent, right!? Yep, the Trinity!

You can find many recipes on Pinterest. It’s not as hard as you’d think it would be. 🙂 Or you can call around your local bakeries / grocery stores to see who sells it.

Unique Ideas to Keep Everyone Entertained

First and foremost, Feast of Trumpets is about learning why it is all about Jesus. However, most people (especially the kids) learn by having fun!

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to get really creative with our FOT nights. Here is a list of things that I have done that have been huge hits.

1. Apple Schmear Baseball

This is one of my kids’ favorite things to do on Feast of Trumpets! Buy a bag of apples from Costco (cause you’ll need a lot) about 1.5-2 weeks before FOT. You purchase them this far in advance to make sure they are nice and soft.

Then on the FOT, play baseball but with apples! It is so messy and so much fun!

I have had my told the people attending my FOT events to wear clothes that they don’t mind getting messy. I have also told each family to bring their own bag of apples to make sure that we had enough.

Apple Schmear is one of those things that your kids will remember. It’s great for making family memories!

2. Apple Dessert Contest

Apple dessert contest has been a huge hit for several years now. I wish I had better pictures for you all to see but the sign below should give you an idea how I run it. I always get some kind of small gift for the winner.

3. Feast of Trumpets Scavenger Hunt

This was SO. MUCH. FUN!!!!!! I highly recommend trying to do this if you are hosting for a crowd.

We have hosted it at the park for several years so a couple weeks beforehand, I went to the park and mapped out the scavenger hunt. I used the swings, slides, tunnels, woods, and anything else I could find to hide clues. Even the dog bag container! (I put up all of the clues about an hour before the event actually started.)

I am going to share with you my scavenger hunt notes; however, you will have to tweak them based on what you have where you are hosting FOT. But hopefully, this will give you some ideas and a good starting point.

One thing that is super important – I had everyone watch the video that I’ve posted above teaching why the night is about Jesus BEFORE they came.

I sent out the video to the parents the week before and said, “Please make sure that you watch with your kids before you come. It is vital as I won’t be teaching it that night. We will be in full celebration mode but if they don’t know the WHY then they will not understand what we are doing.“

With this, everyone showed up already understanding why we were celebrating the night and ready to have fun. See below my FOT Scavenger Hunt setup. Feel free to tweak this based on your surroundings.

Making the Scavenger Hunt Clues

I wrote out the scavenger hunt clues in rhyming form then I did 20 different variations of the clues so that everyone wasn’t running to the exact same clues at the exact same times. I did 20 because we had 20 different families coming. If we would have had 5 families coming, I would have only done 5.

I am showing you a picture so that you can get an idea of what this looked like on my end. It was more work for me up front, but it made the chaos of the actual night run a bit more smoothly.

Instead of everyone running to the swings first, we had 1-2 families running to that clue while everyone was dispersed all over the park. Each family still had to get to the swings eventually, but it just mixed up the order in which everyone was running. I hope this makes sense.

I put the clues on note cards that I had hole punched and tied it to things around the park with string.

Clue Card Wording

Again, make sure to rearrange these clues and print different variations off for each family that is coming to your FOT. These clues are all based on FOT and try to get the families to understand and learn about this night in a unique way. 🙂

Below are both a PDF file and Word doc with the clues.

Same file as a Word Doc that you can edit:

4. Silly Face Apples Contest

What kid doesn’t have fun making silly faces on apples!? You can order these silly face stickers off of Amazon or just lay out Sharpies and have them come up with their own creation.

This was actually a really great activity on one of my FOT where I was teaching that night. It kept their hands busy while listening to the teaching.

5. March Around Jericho

The famous march and blowing of trumpets that brought the walls of Jericho down was done by shofars! It is a fun way to get the kids up out of their seats (if teaching that night).

A fair warning – this will be SO loud! Haha!

6. Flashlight Tag

Feast of Trumpets signifying the Lord’s return can be taught as the Light of the World coming back and piercing darkness. With this, you can do fun games like Flashlight Tag to reinforce this concept.

Another idea is to paint things in glow in the dark paint (like balls or crosses) and have the kids go find them once it gets dark.

7. Photo Booth Wall

Who doesn’t love a good photobooth wall!? I found all of these fun photo props on Amazon.

8. Sharing Salvation Stories

I cannot tell you all enough how vital this is. In fact, one of our friends decided to get her kids in church because of hearing someone’s testimony the night of FOT. She had grown up as a Christian, but had stepped away from the faith. Our kids are great friends so when we invited them and explained how it was a really fun night for kids, they came.

When they got there, she saw someone that she had went to high school with. This girl that she knew was pretty wild and she was shocked that she was at FOT. I had asked the girl, Sam, beforehand if she would share her testimony with everyone during our celebration, which she did.

My friend was totally shocked at how someone with such a wild past could now be totally changed. And because of this testimony, it changed my friend’s heart back to the Lord. Hallelujah!

9. Praise & Worship

I’ll be honest, praise and worship is hard for me because I’m such a terrible singer and have a hard time remembering words to songs. However, I do think it’s important and have asked others to lead a worship song or two during the night.

10. Baptisms

This is so, so special to me as both of my kids were baptized in this horse trough on Feast of Trumpets.

They had asked to be baptized so we set it up to where we would do it this night. I put it out to our group that was coming and said the baptismal would be open to anyone and 2 more signed up for it also. Then on the actual night, one more stepped up in the moment so we had 5 kids be baptized on FOT! Wow wow wow!!!

Thank you, Jesus, for letting these kids take that step of faith and declaring their love for you in front of their friends and family!

11. Gifts for the Kids

I always like to reward the kids at the end of the night to reinforce a couple of things:

• That FOT is all about Jesus coming back
• That those who seek Him will be rewarded
• That the Lord is pleased that they celebrated His feast

With that, I always like to give a small gift. Here are some of the things that I have done in the past:

• Cotton candy clouds with a mini-Jesus figure. Represents “Jesus coming on the clouds” for his 2nd return!
• Flavored honey sticks (this is always a huge hit and are so cheap)
• Apple stress balls (found on Amazon)
• Scripture slap bracelets
• Lion stickers or temporary tattoos (represents the Lion of Judah coming back!)
• And of course – trumpets!! (You can find bulk packs on Amazon.)

The Wrap Up – Should Christians Celebrate Feast of Trumpets?

If you don’t know by now, my answer is a 100% YES! There is so much to the night. So much to learn about Jesus. So much to learn about His return. So much deeper understanding that we just haven’t been getting.

Parents, it is up to YOU to teach your kids these things. You cannot expect the church to teach these things. I have a lot to say about that but I’ll keep that for another post. But for right now, please understand that the Father loves when we seek Him deeper and learn His ways. It’s just as the scriptures say:

So be diligent and do just that. Search out what the Lord has for you and your family. Do not let the world tell you that these Feast days don’t matter, because they do! Have fun with it and let it be what it was meant to be – a celebration!

Thanks for reading…now go live that Free Life, my friends!