Tonight we kick off our new series Faith Underground (in parallel with Dangerous Church), where we will talk to the students about the way church should be and can be. It’s a good time of year to do this series because heading into the summer can be a time when the church (especially student ministry) can slow down. And while it’s important to have breaks it’s also important not to have things fall apart because your “numbers” might drop.
Yesterday I met with some youth pastors from the area, just something we do each month, but the topic of conversation was whether or not to take a summer break. You can tell the difficulty with the decision comes because of a few concern.
But a long summer break isn’t goin to cure this, in reality it’s about changing with the seasons. When you move into the different seasons it’s important to move with the seasons. One thing we do naturally in our Catholic parish is to get spiritually deeper during Lent, we tend to kick things off in September because it’s a time of year when people kick if off (Football, school, the fall, etc). When you take breaks it needs to be breathers around Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and it doesn’t have to be a total break, just tone thins down. This summer we slowing thins down but will keep moving. The idea is to keep the kids in contact with the local church, because a danerous church never stops.