The Summer Slump

 

The Summer Slump is a phrase pastors and church leaders use to describe the decline in attendance and giving that typically happens in churches during the summer months.  As soon as school gets out for the summer, families start leaving town for family vacations, trips to grandparents' houses, summer camps, and trips to the lake.  And most of the time, attendance at worship on Sundays is the victim along with regular giving.

While most families are not gone the entire summer, each week there are regularly at least a couple of families out each week.  As a result, many church activities often take a hiatus during the summer.  Activities for kids and students may take a break for the entire summer or at least a few weeks.  Men's and women's bible studies and other small group Bible studies often pause for a season.  Church budgets often have to be adjusted for the end of the year based on giving trajectories because of the Summer Slump.  

All of these issues are concerning realities that pastors and church leaders have to contend with.  But there is another Summer Slump that I want to encourage you to get out of.  That is the Spiritual Summer Slump.  

When the dog days of summer hit, we get lethargic about a lot of things in life.  We don't want to go outside to do work on our house or in the yard.  We stop going to the gym or going for a walk or taking a bike ride.  We spend more time in the air conditioning.  We may sleep in a little later.  And, if we are not careful, that same lethargy can extend to our spiritual exercises.  We get lazy about having our quiet time, going to church and worshiping and fellowshipping with other believers, spending time in faithful prayer.

So, let me give you three simple ways to maintain your spiritual health and avoid the Summer Slump: 1. Stay hydrated.  Jesus said that he is the water of life, so when the heat of summer comes, don't spend less time drinking the water that is Jesus.  Spend more time with him, time in the word, and time in prayer.    2.  Eat healthy meals that won't weigh you down.  Summer may not be the best time to do an intensive study on a deep theological issue, but that doesn't mean you quit studying the Bible altogether.  Do a short Bible study on your own.  Find a book that is encouraging and light-hearted.  Read through some short books of the Bible.  Pick out a short video series on Right Now Media to watch.  Pick back up with the Gospels in 30 Bible reading plan on Youversion.  3. Get in regular but scaled-down exercise.  When you are on a family trip, you may not have the same rhythms of Bible study, family devotions, or worship as you normally do, but you can still get in some meaningful times of worship.  While you are on the road trip, let the kids introduce you to some of their favorite worship music and rock it with them.  Listen to a Christian classic on audio like C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.  Find a Christian concert to take the family to.  Take a weekend to binge watch "The Chosen" or The Lord of the Rings.  Have a family discussion about plans for growing together spiritually once the summer is over.

Stay hydrated, eat healthy and light meals, and get regular but scaled-down exercise and avoid the Spiritual Summer Slump.

A Vision for the Future

 

One month ago, I shared with the church a renewed vision for The Crossroads as we celebrate our first fifteen years as a church and move forward into the future.  The new vision, giving our lives away to build God's Kingdom and to bring God glory, came about as a result of extended times of prayer, seeking God's direction, and evaluating the vision statement that has guided us for the last fifteen years (Loving God, loving people, and rocking the world).  

For the past thirteen years, when someone asks me about our church, I have told them the same thing: "We are going to give you an opportunity to give your life away for something that matters for all eternity."  That response came about based on a desire to stop fueling the consumer mentality about church that has become a cancer in the American church.  

You see, in America, when people ask about a church, the question they often ask is, "What does your church have to offer?" or something similar.  By that question, what people typically are wanting to know is what programs do you have to offer for me or my family; what cool, fun, or exciting things do you do; what kind of music do you have; what kind of kid's activities do you offer; what events do you offer that will entertain or engage my family.  And if you respond to those in a way that says you are the church that has the best to offer in all the things they are looking for, they will come to your church.  At least until there is another church offering something bigger, better, more fun or engaging or entertaining.

If a church pursues that approach, you can draw a crowd, but you continually have to offer something new, different, and bigger than you did the last time, and something better than what is being offered by other churches in the same market.  In our market in North Texas, there are megachurches with multi-million dollar budgets, programs for every segment of the family, and musicians that have songs played on Christian radio.  The consumer mentality is alive and well in our area, and it actually is destructive to the long-term good of the kingdom of God.

So, I decided that we were intentionally not going to do that, not going to pursue that, not going to fuel that in people.  Not that we don't want to do things with excellence, not that we don't want to provide things that are fun and engaging and life-changing, but that's just not going to be the core of who we are.  So, I came up with a response that would intentionally deflect those kinds of questions and point people to the heart of who we are as a church.  Which is what prompted me to start answering with, "We are going to give you an opportunity to give your life away for something that matters for all eternity."

Over the past year, as I have prayed about the future vision for our church, I've come to realize that is the real vision for The Crossroads.  That is who we are, why we exist, and why we want our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and community to be a part of it.  As I prayed and thought through this vision, seeking clarity from the Lord, I realized that statement needed just a little bit of tweaking to be a clear, compelling vision statement.  What needed clarity was, "What is the 'something that matters for all eternity'?  What is it that we really want people to be giving their lives away for?  Two things really became clear: God's Kingdom and God's glory.  So, the resulting new vision statement for The Crossroads was born: Giving our lives away to build God's kingdom and to bring God glory.  I'll share more details about the specifics of what exactly that looks like and how we will live it out in the rest of this series.

For now, two thought questions for you to close: What are you (or your church) giving your life away for?  How are you giving your life away?

Hungering, Thirsting, and Holding My Tongue

 

At the beginning of this year, I engaged in an extended time of complete fasting for spiritual growth, seeking the Lord's direction for The Crossroads, praying for an awakening in our nation, and asking God to raise up an army of church planters to reach people with the gospel. During that same period of time, I also was on complete vocal rest (That means I couldn't talk at all!) for two and a half weeks.  Silence is a historic Christian discipline, and it is something that the Bible encourages us to do in numerous places.  For instance, Habakkuk 2:20 says, "The Lord is in his holy temple; let the whole earth be silent in his presence."  Thus, there certainly can be legitimate spiritual reasons for engaging in times of silence before God, whether that is for a brief time daily (a quiet time), a quiet walk with the Lord in a peaceful place (throughout Jesus's ministry, he would often withdraw to a quiet or lonely place to be alone with the Father), or a more extended period of silence.

So, while there are great spiritual reasons to engage in the discipline of silence, my reason for going on vocal rest was much more practical.  Through years of speaking to a large group of people at least weekly as well as loving to sing loudly during worship, and using poor vocal technique, I had developed nodules on my vocal cords.  You can google them if you want a detailed explanation, but basically it's like having callouses on your vocal cords.  The result is always sounding hoarse and having a minor sore throat after speaking for a long time.  The first remedy for them is simply not talking for a period of two to three weeks with the hope that they will heal during that time.  So, that's what I did.

Now, I wasn't totally without any means of communication during that time. I carried around a small whiteboard and dry erase marker with me (when I remembered them) that I could use to write messages.  I also used a weird version of charades and a tiny bit of sign language.  One of the things we learned is that LaRissa is horrible at charades!  I could send text messages, and I also found a couple of different tools on my tablet and phone that would convert text to speech.  None of these solutions were great, though, and made communication slow, cumbersome, and ineffective.  So, mostly, I was just quiet. 

Although I was not doing this vocal rest as a spiritual discipline, keep in mind that it overlapped with an intentional extended period of fasting and seeking the Lord.  And God did use the silence in correlation with the fasting to graciously reveal himself to me.  Being silent allowed me to be more attentive to the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit and to be more focused on meditating on Scripture and spending time in prayer.  The biggest "Aha!" moment came for me when I realized that not talking was harder than not eating.  I mean way harder!  

Think about that with me for a moment.  Eating is far more important in the long term for life and my physical well-being.  At some point, you cannot go on without eating.  Nutrients are necessary for life.  On the flip side, speaking is not necessary at all for life.  There are people who cannot speak, and yet manage to have a long and fulfilling life.  I know plenty of people who are extremely introverted who are perfectly content to go for hours on end without saying a word.  But that's not me!  While not eating involved some difficulty, not talking was incredibly difficult for me.

And that's how the Lord spoke to me.  What if I (what if we all) had the same attitude toward the voice of the Lord and the word of God as I did about my own voice?  What if I desired to hear the voice of the Lord more than I desired physical food?  What if I looked forward to time in prayer and time in the word as much as I look forward to my next meal?  What if I hungered and thirsted for hearing from Jesus as much as I do food and drink.

Thinking about that brought new light for me to a statement by Jesus.  Jesus had been in the desert fasting for 40 days when the devil comes to tempt him, and the Bible specifically tells us that he was hungry (Mt. 4:2).  So, the first temptation that the devil offers was for Jesus to turn a pile of stones into loaves of bread.  It was a temptation to use his power to fulfill his own personal desires, to satisfy his physical hunger, to place his need ahead of the purposes and direction of the Holy Spirit and God the Father.  Jesus's response is what the Holy Spirit illuminated to me: "It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4).

Jesus understood that physical food was not all that was necessary for the thriving of human life.  While bread can sustain our physical bodies, bread cannot bring true life.  Only the word of God, only hearing from the Lord, only listening to the voice of the Lord can ultimately bring life to us.  So, for Jesus, the voice of the Lord was far more important than physical food.  Jesus knew that he could not carry out his mission on earth apart from the presence, the direction, and the empowerment of the Father and listening to his voice at every moment.

So, my big takeaway was this desire and this prayer: "Father, I want to live my life hungering for your word, to hear your voice, to know your voice, and to follow your voice more than any other desire in my life.  I want to hunger and thirst for righteousness.  I want to look forward to hearing from you more than I look forward to eating a great meal."   Maybe you would pray the same prayer today.