COLUMBUS - A Columbus church celebrated a milestone anniversary on Saturday, and invited the entire community to join in on the fun.

Connection Christian Church commemorated its five-year anniversary with a day full of live music, yard games, activities for kids, and a barbecue smoking contest. Lead Pastor Mike Moser says that Connection has been able to use similar community events to grow its membership during the past five years.

"With getting out in the community so much and serving people, they start to ask questions and want to know who you are and what you're all about," Moser said. "People come in and if they like it they let their friends and family know, so it just kind of built from there slowly, and now we're a church of 150 people on a regular basis."

With Connection's five-year anniversary, Moser said that he spoke with fellow church members about how big of an opportunity it was to continue to gut out in the community, and the church ultimately decided to open the festivities up to whomever wanted to attend and learn more about the church.

"I just went to my church and said that we have a great opportunity with our five-year anniversary to let people know that we're here in the community, that we care about them, and it's a great celebration for us," Moser said. "It has just been a great group of volunteers that have really come together, planned it out, and thrown out different ideas to put this event together."

The event not only served as a celebration of Connection's history, but also as an opportunity to look towards the future, as the church will be moving to a new location next to Goodwill later this year. Moser says that the church hopes to move in to its new facility in December, and that the bigger space will allow Connection to continue to grow as it moves into the future.

"We wanted to make sure that it had enough room for all of the kids that we're anticipating coming in, and would still be able to provide a great worship experience for the adults," Moser said. "So when this spot came up on the west side of town, 15,000 square feet, it triples our square footage, and will allow us to have a bigger footprint for the stuff going on inside, but also for some of our events."

Those interested in learning more about Connection Christian Church can visit their website http://connectionchristianchurch.com/.