From big events like mission trips and VBS to small ideas for households on the go or at home, there are many ways to connect with families over the summer.

Summer is such a wonderful time of year—for many it’s a time of fun in the sun, vacation, beaches, family trips, or camping. But it can also be a challenging time of year for children, youth, and family workers to feel like they are keeping families engaged. Most churches take a break from weekly programming like Sunday school and youth group over the summer. Worship attendance frequently dips in the summer as many people are away, traveling, or simply enjoying the warm weather on weekends. Finding small ways to engage households in faith formation over the summer can be a daunting task. 

Summer Programming

Many churches have one or two “mountaintop” experiences for households over the summer such as Vacation Bible School, mission trips, or similar. Mountaintop experiences are the big events that are designed to give participants fun, meaningful, and lasting faith-formative experiences. They also frequently require a lot of planning, volunteers, and coordination. Some churches have noticed attendance declining for these events in recent years, especially as people continue to figure out schedules in the post-COVID-19 lockdown world. These events are meaningful and important but can be difficult for smaller congregations to pull off. They also only engage the participants during the week of the event without more continued interaction throughout the rest of the summer.

There are smaller, compact yet meaningful events that you may consider. For example, Augsburg Fortress has published two books of intergenerational event ideas for summer planning: Journey Together: Twelve Intergenerational Summer Events and Good Stewards Together: Twelve Intergenerational Summer Events. These books are designed to bring people of all generations together and come complete with supply lists, themes, and activities in a la carte style. 

If you are looking for something lower key, doesn’t require as much planning, or is not reliant on a critical group for attendance, consider ad hoc times such as coffee shop hours or park and playground hours that people can drop in and engage at their leisure. I also do a story time over Zoom where I read a bedtime story once a week to kids who are invited to join the call in PJs and bring a stuffed animal. Since it’s over a video conferencing service, it’s less dependent on people’s travel schedules as households can join from wherever they are! 

Summer Faith Formation at Home

Another option is to just provide experiences for families to do at home on their own. If your congregation has a lot of households traveling over the summer, consider having a stuffed animal mascot that can travel with them and appear in pictures that are then shared on the church’s social media accounts, keeping people connected even when traveling! Or consider a summer social media challenge for households to participate in and use a special hashtag or have them tag your church. Deeper KidMin has many examples of challenges on its website. 

Finally, consider supplying your families with a resource that they can use together at home. Claire Brown and Anita Peebles of New Directions for Holy Questions have a book, podcast, and website full of resources that are designed for households to do together at home. 

There is no right or wrong way to accompany people through the summer months. Whatever opportunities you provide, I am sure that households will be happy to find ways to engage in faith formation, big or small, with the congregation.

Peace and all good,
Pace C. Warfield

About the Writer

Pace C. Warfield (they/them) is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA where their research interests include Reformation history and queer theological anthropology. In addition to their studies, Pace has worked in children, youth, and family ministries for over fifteen years at various congregations throughout the country. Pace has previously written blog posts for We Talk, We Listen, the diversity blog of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, on mental health and the holidays called “Waiting for Snow” and a Lutheran approach to LGBTQIA+ systematic theology called “The Queer Ground.” Additional resources they have prepared on loss and the holidays is the podcast episode of Horror Nerds at Church “The Queer Holiday Survival Guide” and their post “Queering Grief” on their personal blog. They live in Hopkins, Minnesota with their partner and two dogs.

This blog post is part of a monthly series of practical advice for faith formation leaders by faith formation and education professionals. Summaries of these posts are sent in a monthly email to email subscribers. Subscribe today!