4 Benefits of Slowing Down at Church This Summer

Growing up, my favorite time of the year was summer. I remember as a kid heading to the pool with my grandfather after the last day of school and thinking, “There’s nothing I have to do for months.”

Summer was indeed a slower time for me growing up. Even when I added summertime activities to my schedule in my older teenage years, time still seemed to slow down during the months of June, July, and August.

Is it any wonder God created seasons for us? Yet, we often reject the very rest God provides.

The idea that Christian ministers should remain busy at all times seems to be more caught than taught. The prevailing attitude is that busyness in church means fruitfulness. This can be especially true during summer when church schedules can include Vacation Bible School, youth camps, special conferences, and other activities and events.

While these events are great and are helpful for building up the body of Christ, the season of summer can find church staff busier than any other time of the year. So as you make ministry plans for summer, make sure to incorporate rest for you and your people.

This summer, our church is slowing down to focus on creative outreach where our members can engage their community in normal patterns of summertime life. In doing so, here are four goals we hope to accomplish that will refuel our ministry. Read More

Ryan sounds like someone who pastors a church in the Greater New Orleans area. Algiers is just across the river from New Orleans. New Orleans is not known as the "Big Easy" for nothing. In the Greater New Orleans area summer brings heat, humidity, and rain. I lived 30 miles north of New Orleans in Mandeville, Louisiana and commuted to New Orleans across the Lake Pontchatrain Causeway five days a week for the better part of 25 years. I was involved in child welfare work in the greater metropolitan area. Every afternoon with clockwork regularity a thunderstorm rolled off the lake. Churches in the area practically closed up shop for the summer due to the summer slump. Parents figured that since the kids had a vacation from school, the family could take a vacation from church. Besides it was so darned hot and humid. And did I mention the rain. But as we discovered at St.Michael's, new families moved to the area during the summer, taking advantage of the summer vacation to move to a new area. Rather than give the choir a vacation for the summer and cut back our services to one Sunday service, we organized a summer choir and kept our regular schedule of services. We also conducted a VBS. Sunday worship attendance did not dip. It did not plateau. It picked up. We acquired a number of new families. The pastor still took a summer vacation. Supply priests and the senior lay reader filled in for him during his vacation. He returned relaxed and rested. But when we treated the summer as a time to slow down, our Sunday worship attendance slumped. So there is a downside to slowing down for the summer as well as an upside.