For most of us summer is for barbeques, for vacation, for getting away from the routine, for family and friends. For most pastors, summers also means church doldrums. Let's face the truth that church attendance usually drops in the summer months. Our competition is not another church or pastor, but everything else that is going on in the summer months.
This year at Church Requel we decided to go with the flow. No, we didn't shut down and tell people to come back in the fall. We did decide to make the most of the summer trend. We did our best to turn church into a summer attraction. We did this with fun, family and focus.
We are having fun at Church Requel this summer! Each weekend we've celebrated something. A birthday. A balloon launch. A baptism. Our only limitation has been our imagination. We talk about the Sunday night party that happens every week at Church Requel. People come early and stay late because of the festive atmosphere.
We are enjoying and becoming our own family. More of us are single than are married. This wasn't intentional on our part. It just seems to be the way it's worked out. We like to say that we are a motley crew of misfits. Somehow, though, we've found a place where we all do fit together - in God's family at CR. Each week this summer - after our singing time and before our communion time - we greet one another. That sounds typical enough, but doesn't begin to describe what happens. We've been playing the song "Centerfield" by John Fogerty as part of our Summer Singles baseball theme. When the music comes on, people don't just shake hands with someone next to them. They get out of their seats, into the aisles, and they hug just about everyone they can. I usually have to stop it after two to three minutes or they would just do it all night. They have become a family.
We are focused in our teaching. At the beginning of the summer I explained our summer singles theme. Each Sunday night we would have a single sermon - not connected with another sermon. We are not in a summer series of sermons. I told our congregation: "If you miss one, come back the next weekend. You won't be behind." Each sermon has one single big idea, which I give away right at the beginning of the talk. I give them big ideas focused on encouraging their Christian faith. I tell them lots of stories - personal stories, Bible stories, their stories. They listen with amazing focus! Everyone likes a good story. The stories themselves always tie back in to the big idea: the focused, single theme of the night.
Our summer has not suffered as much of a decline as we have seen in the past. Our morale is better than ever. As best as we could accomplish, we have turned Church Requel into a summer destination on Sunday nights. We will be going into our back-to-school, back-to-routine in better shape than ever. But I don't think we'll go back to any kind of a routine at church. Unless that routine happens to include fun, family, and focus!
