It’s coming.

The school year is fast coming to an end, families are making vacation plans, our church has scheduled our Sunday worship in the park and time in our air-conditioned fellowship hall. Warm weather is already teasing us enough that we aren’t always certain whether we will need a jacket or not.

Soon, summer will be upon us.

But beware, along with summer, we risk facing… the summer slump.

Church leaders know exactly what that means. As soon as families take time off for summer vacation and church members make plans to enjoy the warm weather fishing, camping, and other outdoor activities, church attendance, and often church finances, will see a twenty to thirty percent reduction. We know it’s coming, we plan for it, but even so, it can be discouraging to see (more) empty seats, fewer friendly faces, and struggling finances that were on good footing the month before.

But the summer slump goes deeper than empty pews and slim spreadsheets.

The summer slump is personal and has a very real spiritual component. As we begin to prioritize family, vacation, and summer fun (and that’s not a bad thing), we often neglect to spend time with God. For many of us, Sunday morning is the only time we spend in study, worship, and prayer and when we skip it, often for weeks at a time, our spiritual health suffers and, unintentionally, we drift away from God. Every week we spend away from church makes it just a little easier to skip yet another week. Every missed moment in God’s presence, in study, worship, prayer, or meditation, draws us closer to the world, to the values of its culture, and farther away from the values that God wants to teach us.

As we make plans for the summer, we should also make plans to avoid the summer slump. Whenever possible, honor God by planning to be in church and trust that God will honor the sacrifice of your time by allowing you to work efficiently and accomplish your goals and beyond with the time that remains. But when your schedule forces you to miss your time with God on Sunday, commit to setting aside another time during the week to read scripture, pray, or work through a bible study of some kind. Do what you can to prevent your summer busyness from causing a summer slump and wandering from your relationship with God.

It’s coming.

Beware; the summer slump.