November 2026 Member Letter

November 5, 2026

Dear Brethren,

This is my first member letter since returning from the Feast of Tabernacles. It truly was a great Feast for my wife and me. We spent the first half in Branson, Missouri, where we enjoyed a few days with our youngest daughter and her family. Branson is a wonderful Feast site for families to gather. Instead of staying in a typical hotel or resort, renting a house on the lake provided an additional opportunity for us to spend time together. It was just too short!

After the fourth day of the Feast, we boarded a plane and flew down to Orange Beach, Alabama. There we enjoyed time with my wife’s family from Georgia. Once again, those four days flew by, and before we knew it, we were on our way home. As generally happens, the eight days seemed to pass much too quickly.

Each Feast is important, and each Feast should add something to our understanding of God’s plan. This was my 65th Feast of Tabernacles to attend, although my family began observing the holy days at home several years before we were actually able to attend a Feast in person.

We understand that human learning is cumulative. From infancy onward, we learn something and then build upon what we have learned. A child learns his first words and then adds vocabulary and concepts. A child learns to walk and eventually learns to run. Ideally, what we learn today becomes the foundation for what we learn tomorrow.

The Bible describes spiritual growth in much the same way. Peter admonishes us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Spiritual growth requires that we remember what we have learned and continue to build upon it.

We must never stop learning. In his book A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future, Charles Van Doren makes the point that in our individual lives we learn more from day to day and year to year because we remember at least some of what we have already learned and then add new knowledge to it. Consider the example of Wilbur and Orville Wright and the airplane. They did not begin with a jet engine. Each time they built and tested a model, they learned something, and that accumulated knowledge made the next one better.

I believe the Feast of Tabernacles can work in a similar way. The Feast is not a one-time event. God commands us to observe it year after year. We hear sermons, study God’s Word, fellowship with brethren and experience eight days centered on God’s plan and His coming Kingdom. What we learn one year should become a foundation upon which greater understanding can be built in the years that follow.

The Feast of Tabernacles is an example of learning. We learn from hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling—the five senses. We accumulate knowledge from year to year. So, what did you learn this year? How did what you heard and experienced add to what you learned in previous years? Was there one particular lesson, or were there several? What did you learn—or perhaps relearn—that you hope will stay with you for the rest of your life? What memories did you bring home from this year’s Feast of Tabernacles?

Personally, I can’t say that I learned any completely “new” lessons this year, but a number of important lessons were reinforced. And perhaps that is an important lesson in itself. Spiritual growth doesn’t always mean discovering something we have never heard before. Sometimes it means seeing more clearly, understanding more deeply and believing more firmly what God has already taught us.

Through the messages and conversations with brethren this year, the picture of the future became clearer. We heard messages focusing on the world of peace that will come to this earth after the return of Jesus Christ. We were reminded that there will still be challenges and lessons to be learned during the Millennium. And beyond those thousand years lies the fulfillment of the rest of God’s plan, ultimately leading to the new heavens and the new earth. Each year at the Feast, that picture should become more focused and clearer in our minds.

It was also reinforced for me this year why we are commanded to rejoice at the Feast each year. Many brethren came to the Feast this year in the midst of very difficult trials—trials involving health, family, employment and other circumstances. God does not ask us to pretend that our trials do not exist. Rather, the Feast gives us an opportunity to look beyond those trials to the future He has promised. For eight days we focus on a world that will be very different from the one in which we now live—a future world under the righteous rule of Jesus Christ.

I recall my first year as a Festival coordinator in 1981. I felt as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders and that it would somehow be my fault if that year’s Feast was not the greatest ever. But things didn’t go as I expected. I still refer to that year on Cape Cod as the Feast when everything that could go wrong did go wrong! Yet even today, I occasionally have members tell me that Cape Cod in 1981 was their best Feast. I learned something important that year. The Feast wasn’t about me. Its success did not depend upon my ability to make everything—from the weather to the facility to every organizational detail—go perfectly. My focus needed to be less on whether everything met my expectations and more on serving the needs of the brethren. That was a lesson I learned 45 years ago, but it is one I still remember.

As you reflect on the Feast of Tabernacles 2026, I encourage you to remember why you attended and what you learned. Perhaps, like me, you didn’t come home with one dramatic new lesson. Maybe instead God reinforced lessons you had learned before and helped you see His plan a little more clearly.

As we prepare here in the United States for the annual Thanksgiving holiday, I am sure we all have much for which to be thankful. I hope one of those things is the privilege of having experienced the Feast of Tabernacles for one more year. The Feast may be over, but its lessons should not be. May we retain what God taught us this year, add it to what we have learned in years past, and continue to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Sincerely, your brother in Christ,

Jim Franks