We’ve all heard the doom-and-gloom reports. Church attendance is plummeting. Membership is shrinking. The Episcopal Church is circling the drain faster than water in an old baptismal font!
Everyone has theories. Maybe it’s our liturgy (too formal), our theology (too liberal), or our General Convention (too everything). But I have a different theory, and it’s embarrassingly simple.
We need to stop taking the summer off.
I can practically hear readers sputter into their coffee, “Take summers off? We don’t take summers off! We just … cancel Sunday school, dismiss the choir, shut down coffee hour, drop from three services to one, and pretend nobody will notice.”
If this sounds like your parish, then congratulations! You’ve just described taking the summer off while maintaining plausible deniability.
Here’s my confession: I’m one of those priests who was formed in and escaped from the evangelical world. In my former life, summer wasn’t a time to hibernate—it was go time! Vacation Bible school, three different camps, mission trips, community outreach programs. We treated summer like retailers treat Black Friday.
Why? Because while everyone else was slowing down, we were speeding up. Schools were out, work retreats were fewer, community calendars were lighter. It was like having the whole playground to ourselves. In the summer, most of the competition takes a vacation.
When I joined the Episcopal Church, the summer shutdown baffled me. The explanation I received was delightfully antiquated: “Our church comes from old families who summered at their estates on the East Coast, attending summer chapel services.” I am not exaggerating. This was the answer I received. I could almost picture us all enjoying the cool weather in August while sipping lemonade on our verandas.
I love a good historical explanation as much as anyone, but we were in Oklahoma. Unless someone was hiding a secret Hampton beach house, this reasoning had about as much relevance as a snowball in July.
“But wait!” you might protest. “Doesn’t God command us to rest? Don’t we all need breaks?”
I could not agree more. Rest is biblical and necessary. However, the one-day-in-seven paradigm is nothing compared to three months. None of us are running a spiritual boot camp that requires a quarter of the year for recovery time.
The summer is also valuable for another reason. Approximately 80 percent of household moves in the United States happen during summer months. And, statistically, about half of American adults have looked for a new church at some point, most commonly because they moved.
Picture this: thousands of families are packing boxes, saying goodbye to familiar places, and preparing for the emotional roller coaster of starting over. Moving ranks right up there with death and divorce on the stress scale. These folks are vulnerable, seeking connection, open to new experiences, and genuinely hoping to find a spiritual home. And what are we doing while they’re driving around looking for us? We’re essentially putting up a sign that says, “Gone Fishing! Back in September!”
Here’s where it gets really embarrassing. Most parishes don’t even properly communicate their summer schedule changes. They don’t update websites, social media, or even the sign out front. Why bother? “Everyone knows we scale back in summer!”
Except newcomers don’t know. And this is especially true for newcomers who aren’t used to this unique, idiosyncratic habit of Episcopalians. That family who just moved from Arizona and drives by your church in July sees the same service times posted that were there in February. They show up expecting Sunday school for their kids, coffee and fellowship afterward, maybe even a choir to help them feel at home. Instead, they find a handful of people, no programs, no coffee, and the distinct impression that the church barely is limping along. They don’t know that “real church” will resume in the fall.
This is a ridiculously simple proposition. What if our decline, at least in part, isn’t about theological complexity or cultural irrelevance? What if it’s as simple as this: we’ve accidentally timed our annual hibernation to coincide with when most people are looking for us?
I’m not suggesting we turn summer into a spiritual marathon. But imagine if we treated summer as an opportunity season instead of a shutdown season. Imagine if we ramped up welcome ministries when people are most likely to need welcoming. Imagine if we offered our best hospitality when newcomers are most likely to walk through our doors.
This solution doesn’t require a General Convention resolution or a budget overhaul. It just requires staying awake during the months when everyone else is moving, searching, and hoping to find a place to belong.
Light Bragging Ahead.
I’m speaking from experience here. When I was called as Rector of Emmanuel, the parish had a practice of combining its two services during the summer and rotating between a spoken Rite One and a Rite Two service with hymns and organ. The people who loved a spoken Rite One service hated it, and the people who preferred Rite Two and music were unhappy as well. Average attendance went from the mid-90s to the mid-40s. This drop in attendance happened because our practice gave them implicit permission to take the summers off.
My first Sunday was the Day of Pentecost, so it was too late to make a summer change that year, but the next summer we did not change our schedule for the summer months. That first year our ASA increased from 101 to 112. It could be a coincidence, but we picked up three new families that summer. It’s not astonishing growth, but the point is that it’s growth.
Right now, we’re like a restaurant that closes during lunch rush, then wonders why business is slow. I would like to invite you to reconsider the practice of your parish during the summer. It’s ok to make changes, just don’t shut down. And regardless of the changes, make sure that they are clearly communicated wherever people find information about you, including your Google Business listing, website, and signs.
If the choir takes a break, consider letting members of the parish sign up to sing or play something during the offertory. If it’s impractical to offer Christian education in the summer (I hope because you’re busy with VBS for children and a mission trip for youth), maybe instead find four to eight members of the parish who have a home with a swimming pool and have everyone who is able meet at their house and bring food to share. The adults talk and eat while the kids swim and then you all end together praying Compline around the pool. This is what we do on Wednesday nights during the summer, and we call it Pool Church.
There are things we can all do to take advantage of the change of season while still being together. I invite you to spend some intentional time wondering with your team what you might try next summer. If you start now, you have a whole year to dream and prepare!
The Rev. Tom Dahlman is a Guest Writer. He is rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Shawnee, Oklahoma.
