Skipping Summer Sundays?

September 5, 2007 by

An interesting story came to me via Slice of Laodicea about how one church handles their summer services.

For June, July and August, the San Francisco Journey moved to a once-monthly service schedule. You’ve told us before that there’s no momentum at your church in the summer. Do you think switching to a monthly service schedule would help? Would it build momentum and excitement, or would it just afford an opportunity for people to fall away?

Overall, I just wanted to point out how one church deals with creating summer momentum. Some do more church, others do different ways of church, and someone thinks less church is the way to go. Hey, I’ll bet their September 23rd kickoff will be pretty buzzworthy. What do you think, church marketers?

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Joshua Cody


Josh Cody served as our associate editor for several years before moving on to bigger things. Like Texas. These days he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, and you can find him online or on Twitter when he's not wrestling code.
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12 Responses to “Skipping Summer Sundays?”

  • geoffreybrown
    September 5, 2007

    Well, I expect their “See you in September” service will be a whiz-bang! There’s no doubt in my mind that there will be a lot of pent-up demand on the part of the congregation and it will be an exciting experience for all concerned.
    On the other hand, I can’t see us ever doing that. Two main reasons:
    (1) We’re Episcopalians, and we’ve always done things this way
    (2) We’ve got an auto race track across the street (Lime Rock Park), and a successful summer Sunday School soccer program in our field, as well as a summer influx of visitors and summer residents to our area, so we would be walking away from a whole lot of opportunity.


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  • Cole Phillips
    September 5, 2007

    This is the fallacy of Ingrid and the folks at Slice. They make big assumptions based on what a church presents on their site. It looks to me like this is a pretty new church plant that hasn’t really gotten up and going yet and they are using the summer to do something like “preview services.” In other words, they are probably still trying to get up and going and are putting a positive spin on the situation. I’m not sure about this, but that was my guess after looking at the site. I definitely think this is a bad idea for most churches if you are up and going strong.


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  • Lex
    September 6, 2007

    I’m with Cole. The page about their pastor says the church was started in June 2006.
    Established churches with the necessary resources need to be available for people, and need to continue to communicate that what they’re doing is important. Just because attendance may be down doesn’t make the church a useless institution.


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  • Doug
    September 7, 2007

    I’m not sure how meeting LESS can cause MORE excitement. I suppose from a programming standpoint you have more time for a bigger “show”, but is that really what church is about?
    Besides, I’m pretty sure when the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together”, he had more than once a month in mind. :-)
    But I’m particularly concerned with the “reason” they give as to their abbreviated schedule:
    “SUMMER…. a time when school is out… a time to get away from work… visit family… veg out… go to ball games… play frisbee in the park… and try to have more fun than we do the rest of the year.
    So in the spirit of summer… The Journey is going on a Summer Service Schedule.”
    So, because there’s lots of fun things to do during the summer, you should go to church less? Not sure that’s a message I could get on board with.


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  • tyler battles.
    September 7, 2007

    hey, josh cody. good post brother.


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  • revolutionfl
    September 8, 2007

    I’m not big on “attendance rules”, but at the same time, I wouldn’t throw out any attempt at getting people to attend church on a regular basis either.
    I think “church” should be offered whether people show up or not. Sometimes I think the Catholic church has it right with daily services. Sometimes.
    REVOLUTION


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  • lynse leanne
    September 8, 2007

    I am not sure that it is a grat idea….our church grew 2000 people during this summer….could be that we moved into our new building, but of course people are not going to be regular…but i dont think having LESS services is the solution. How are the people who are visiting going to know what week you are having church? and how are your regular attendars going to grow if you are not offering a service.
    you could cut the amount of services you have, or make a sat. night or a later service on sunday.
    I think that there are more solutions than making church once a month.


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  • danielle
    September 9, 2007

    i tend to agree with most of you. having church less doesn’t seem like a logical solution. it seems to me to be the easy way out. shouldn’t we approach the problem by trying get people in church more during the summer? i think the church should be finding ways to make church a regular part of people’s schedules as opposed to finding ways to schedule church around people’s regular schedules.
    for some people, summer can be a time when distractions are removed and they can really reconnect with the church. those three months, are in a sense, the “sunday” for the long year: a time of rest. i can understand maybe cutting back on ministries during the week that require week to week commitment to function properly. you also need to give your leaders a rest so they don’t burn out. but when people aren’t walking through the doors heavy with the worries of the august-may demands, they might be more easily reached. summer often gives people the chance to connect with God’s creation through vacation and outdoor activities. the church should be seeking to take advantage of that as well.
    i think the best approach to summer would be to cut back on weekly ministries and spice up your sunday mornings with something that will rejuvenate your regular attenders and maybe draw in new people, staying away from series that would be hard to jump back into if you’ve missed a week or are visiting for the first time. summer sunday services can be an opportunity to try something new. maybe plan a handful of summer events that will bring the body together for fellowship as a whole (as that is often hard to do during the rest of the year) and plan far enough ahead where people can plan their vacation around them.


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  • seeker
    September 11, 2007

    I think that we should be having Sunday meetings twice a month all year round, and instead, increase our expectation that people will be involved in OTHER structures of the church (other ministries) like small group, outreach, service, and perhaps Adult Education (classes offered by the church).
    However, the summer offers some unique challenges and opportunities that I think we should adjust to. Why NOT do something different in the summer? What do people need to keep them in touch with God while enjoying time with their families?
    Perhaps certain ministries should go offline in the summer, or scale back (Sunday services) while others like VBS and missions ministries should scale up.
    The other problem many churches like my small church have is reduced giving puts us in the hole by the time September comes around. I wish we could reduce our EXPENSES during the summer, but Pastor’s salaries and mortgages don’t take a summer break.


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  • Chris Robinson
    October 2, 2007

    My church recently sort of took a Sunday morning off. We sent people out into the community on Sunday morning instead of having a normal church service. Those who didn’t go had a small prayer service for those on the mission field. We sent people to pay to start peoples car washes and tell them about Christ, to laundromats in the hispanic part of town, some went door to door in the ghetto and some walked around in neighborhoods talking to people outside. Not exactly a ‘day off’ but a break from the norm at least.
    The idea behind generating more excitement with less frequent meeting times is that regulars are used to going to church every sunday morning. Sadly, they are not usually excited about it. Taking a month or two off from weekly meetings can remind them what they are missing and make the one service more exciting. It can also hurt excitement when people miss that one week and get into the oh so easy habit of not coming. The idea is that it is easy to get excited about something that is less frequent. Very few activities that I do every day remain exciting. Things that I very rarely get to do…those are things I look forward to and get truly excited about. Thats the logic, at least.
    We do AWANA throughout the school year on sunday nights. Sunday nights during the summer are family nights with activities for the whole family (we still have a nursery). Simple activities like a concert, a watermelon social, or a churchwide softball game that are designed to promote fellowship. During the summer we have serious problems getting consistent childrens workers. This solves that problem and I think is quite a healthy endeavor for the church as a whole as well.
    “Besides, I’m pretty sure when the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together”, he had more than once a month in mind. :-)”
    This could very well be true. But its highly unlikely that he meant “Meet in a group of more than 100 and have a (insert style here) worship service in the sanctuary of your church building once a week” either. Small groups throughout the summer would be more than sufficient to satisfy the “do not give up meeting together” requirement; in fact they would most likely be closer to the meetings the author was talking about.


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  • Chris Robinson
    October 2, 2007

    My church recently sort of took a Sunday morning off. We sent people out into the community on Sunday morning instead of having a normal church service. Those who didn’t go had a small prayer service for those on the mission field. We sent people to pay to start peoples car washes and tell them about Christ, to laundromats in the hispanic part of town, some went door to door in the ghetto and some walked around in neighborhoods talking to people outside. Not exactly a ‘day off’ but a break from the norm at least.
    The idea behind generating more excitement with less frequent meeting times is that regulars are used to going to church every sunday morning. Sadly, they are not usually excited about it. Taking a month or two off from weekly meetings can remind them what they are missing and make the one service more exciting. It can also hurt excitement when people miss that one week and get into the oh so easy habit of not coming. The idea is that it is easy to get excited about something that is less frequent. Very few activities that I do every day remain exciting. Things that I very rarely get to do…those are things I look forward to and get truly excited about. Thats the logic, at least.
    We do AWANA throughout the school year on sunday nights. Sunday nights during the summer are family nights with activities for the whole family (we still have a nursery). Simple activities like a concert, a watermelon social, or a churchwide softball game that are designed to promote fellowship. During the summer we have serious problems getting consistent childrens workers. This solves that problem and I think is quite a healthy endeavor for the church as a whole as well.
    “Besides, I’m pretty sure when the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together”, he had more than once a month in mind. :-)”
    This could very well be true. But its highly unlikely that he meant “Meet in a group of more than 100 and have a (insert style here) worship service in the sanctuary of your church building once a week” either. Small groups throughout the summer would be more than sufficient to satisfy the “do not give up meeting together” requirement; in fact they would most likely be closer to the meetings the author was talking about.


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  • Chris Robinson
    October 3, 2007

    My church recently sort of took a Sunday morning off. We sent people out into the community on Sunday morning instead of having a normal church service. Those who didn’t go had a small prayer service for those on the mission field. We sent people to pay to start peoples car washes and tell them about Christ, to laundromats in the hispanic part of town, some went door to door in the ghetto and some walked around in neighborhoods talking to people outside. Not exactly a ‘day off’ but a break from the norm at least.
    The idea behind generating more excitement with less frequent meeting times is that regulars are used to going to church every sunday morning. Sadly, they are not usually excited about it. Taking a month or two off from weekly meetings can remind them what they are missing and make the one service more exciting. It can also hurt excitement when people miss that one week and get into the oh so easy habit of not coming. The idea is that it is easy to get excited about something that is less frequent. Very few activities that I do every day remain exciting. Things that I very rarely get to do…those are things I look forward to and get truly excited about. Thats the logic, at least.
    We do AWANA throughout the school year on sunday nights. Sunday nights during the summer are family nights with activities for the whole family (we still have a nursery). Simple activities like a concert, a watermelon social, or a churchwide softball game that are designed to promote fellowship. During the summer we have serious problems getting consistent childrens workers. This solves that problem and I think is quite a healthy endeavor for the church as a whole as well.
    “Besides, I’m pretty sure when the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together”, he had more than once a month in mind. :-)”
    This could very well be true. But its highly unlikely that he meant “Meet in a group of more than 100 and have a (insert style here) worship service in the sanctuary of your church building once a week” either. Small groups throughout the summer would be more than sufficient to satisfy the “do not give up meeting together” requirement; in fact they would most likely be closer to the meetings the author was talking about.


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