The Faithful Few: The Pastor's Summer Advantage You're Missing

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades encourages church staff to see the summer 'slump' as a prime opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with the most committed members of their congregation. Instead of viewing summer as a downtime to scale back efforts, staff should invest time in the 'faithful few' who continue to show up, building deeper connections that will benefit the church when attendance increases in the fall. • Summer is perceived as a downtime for churches with low attendance and volunteer shortages. • Many church staff use summer for light work or planning but overlook relational opportunities. • The 'faithful few' who attend during summer are highly committed and form the backbone of the church. • Summer provides a chance to build deeper relationships and convert volunteers into partners. • Investing in the faithful few can lead to a more engaged and motivated congregation in the fall. • Ignoring summer opportunities can lead to a loss of influence within the church staff.

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Transcript

The Summer Slump Reality

SPEAKER_00 0:07

It's summertime, you're looking at your calendar, it seems like half your volunteers are at age. You don't even know why you're doing kids' ministry anymore. It's running on you and hardly any kids are there on Sunday. Your weekend attendance looks almost like a ghost town. Giving is down, and you're thinking, great, this is just awesome. Summer slump time again. But what if I told you that you're missing one of the biggest relationship building opportunities of the year?

The Hidden Opportunity In Low Attendance

SPEAKER_00 0:34

The churches that get this really come back much stronger in September than what you would realize. So let's talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders, along with Matt Steen, over at chemistry staffing.com. I hope you'll check us out at chemistrystaffing.com. This whole week, and today we're finishing out this series. I'm calling it the Faithful Few. We're talking about the summer slump that hits virtually every church in America. And it just seems that while everyone else is checked out, there's still a core group that never misses. And you know who these people are. You know who the crowd is that kind of goes off to their lake homes or is on vacation or their kids are in the baseball tournaments every weekend and they just don't show up. They'll be back. They'll be back in the fall. But you know the core group that shows up every week during the summer. Those are the most committed people in your church. And a lot of times we get so caught up in the fact that attendances weigh down that we don't realize that, hey, there are some really faithful people here that are showing up every week. They're showing up in July when it's 95 degrees and your air conditioning is struggling to even cool the room. They're here when the parking lot is half empty, probably because they like to get a good parking spot, right? But think about it. This these are your committed people. Your church, this is your inner circle, and you have really unprecedented access to them right now. They're all in because they're here. And then here's where it gets interesting when it comes to how staff look at this.

Stop Treating Summer Like Off Season

SPEAKER_00 2:22

And you need to model this no matter where you are on your staff. Most staff see summer as just some time off. Kind of light work mode, maintenance load. Hey, we'll keep the lights on, we'll survive until fall. Or I love this, we're gonna we're gonna use this as our planning time. We're gonna plan all summer long so we can kick off in the fall. What we're really saying a lot of times, and I'm a firm believer in planning. What we're saying a lot of times in the summer, say June, July, August, first part of September, till after Labor Day. We would never say this out loud, but we're phoning it in. Right? Because and here's the reason we give ourselves nobody's really paying any attention anyway. Honestly, hardly anybody's here. So we scale back our effort. When I think we really should be scaling up our intimacy, we treat low attendance like low opportunity. Meanwhile, the people who matter most are sitting right there just waiting. Now, I know you're tired, I know the numbers are down, I know it's depressing, I know it feels like if you're preaching a Sunday, maybe you're preaching to a half empty room, you're preaching to the choir, but that's exactly the point. Those 60 people down from a hundred in April, those 60 people in July, they're worth more than

Why The Faithful Few Matter Most

SPEAKER_00 3:41

200 in September. Here's why. These 60 people, these people that constantly show up during the summer, these are your culture carriers. These are your church's vision champions, these are your church's backbone. Summer gives you space to know them as people, not just as volunteers. You can actually have conversations instead of managing all the chaos that is going to be there when all the people come back in the fall. And this is where you can really have the opportunity to build the relationships that sustain you through those hard seasons. The pastor who invests deeply, the staff member who invests deeply in the summer, during the summer, just build something differently.

Simple Ways To Build Real Relationships

SPEAKER_00 4:31

And here's what it looks like. Smaller groups mean real conversations after the service. You can remember names, you can ask about kids, you can follow up on prayer requests. Your faithful few start feeling seen instead of just used. They go from volunteers to partners because they feel noticed. They feel seen, because you had time to invest in them. And then when the fall chaos hits, you've got a team that would run through walls for you. Not because they have to, but because they want to.

Influence With Leadership When Nobody’s Watching

SPEAKER_00 5:04

You know, your senior pastor is watching how you handle the season, if you're not the senior pastor. The staff member who treats summer like a throwaway loses influence. The one who sees it as relationship goal, man. Those people can become indispensable. Because when budget talks happen, when staff decisions get made, he remembers who stays engaged. Your board will remember, your senior pastor will remember who stayed engaged when nobody was looking. So here's your bottom

Bottom Line And Share The Series

SPEAKER_00 5:34

line for today. And as we close out this series this week on the podcast. Summer is not when ministry slows down. Sure it slows down. But summer's not when ministry slows down. It's when the most important ministry actually speeds up. Your faithful few are a gift disguised in a small package, it's a small crowd. Don't waste it. If this helped, I hope that you'll share this series along with somebody, maybe on your on your team, on your staff, maybe with your senior pastor who needs to hear it during this church summer slump season. Uh you can have them subscribe to the podcast. And if there's any way that I can help you or your church uh during this summertime, uh, I'd like to get to know your name as well. And you can reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for this week. Hope you have a great weekend. I'll be praying for your church and for uh your ministry collectively. Uh, but uh but man, you're included in that. Um at Chemistry Staffing, we are for you, uh, we are behind you, and um we know the work that you're doing in the local church because we've been there and done that. It changes lives, it changes the kingdom, and uh what you do is very important. Go do what you do this weekend. Join me again right back here on Monday for the Healthy Church Bank Podcast.