Loading...
The fans are humming, the bulletin is thinner, and half the choir is somewhere on a beach. Welcome to the Green Season — the long stretch after Pentecost when the parish doesn't pause so much as it scatters. Our June 5 reflection, "Vestry Work Doesn't Take the Summer Off," made the theological case. This is the operational follow-up: three small, repeatable moves that keep a small-to-medium parish connected through July and August.
Pentecost Dispersion is not abandonment. The Spirit scatters the Body on purpose — and our job is to tend the threads that hold it together while it travels.
1. Welcome the Summer Newcomer Like You Mean It
Summer is the hardest time to walk into a strange church — and one of the most common. Travelers, relocators, and seekers who would never try a new parish in Advent will slip into a back pew in July. If your greeter team is half on vacation, hospitality cannot rest on whoever happens to be at the door.
Lean on what the wiki calls Parish Systems: hospitality as a repeatable process, not a personality. For the next eight weeks, try this:
- Print extra name tags and put a Sharpie next to them. Every Sunday.
- Build a two-person greeter rotation with a named backup for every date through Labor Day.
- Send a short, warm email within 48 hours of any newcomer card — from a layperson, not just the rector.
- Add one line to the bulletin: "Visiting? We're so glad. Coffee is on the porch."
2. Keep Outreach Running When the Founder Is Away
The site's exemplar here is Manna Meal at St. John's, Charleston — a ministry begun by the Rev. Jim Lewis that has outlasted its founder by decades because it was built as a system, not a solo act. Most small-parish outreach collapses in August for the opposite reason: one devoted volunteer takes a well-earned trip and the food pantry goes dark.
This is a good week to ask a hard question at coffee hour: If our lead volunteer were gone for a month, would this ministry still happen? If the answer is no, the summer fix is small — write down the steps, name a backup, share the key, and put the partner agency's phone number somewhere besides one person's phone.
3. Form Lay Leaders at Summer Pace
Formation doesn't have to wait for the program year. Some of the best lay leadership work happens precisely when there are no meetings competing for the calendar. A few low-lift options:
- A shared vestry summer read — one book, one Zoom in late August to talk about it.
- A 30-minute mentor call pairing a seasoned warden with a newer vestry member.
- The Episcopal Church and Forward Movement's "Signs and Grace" video series, watched at home and discussed in twos and threes.
- Inviting a rising lay leader to shadow a supply-clergy Sunday — handling the welcome, the announcements, the lock-up.
And while we're on supply clergy: leave them a one-page welcome packet. Codes, vesting room, lectern quirks, the names of the two people who will find them if anything goes sideways. It's hospitality, and it's also stewardship of the pulpit.
Stewardship, Reframed for the Green Season
The Book of Common Prayer Catechism (p. 855) names the ministers of the Church in order: lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons. Laity first. That ordering matters in June as much as in October. Every check-in call, every newcomer email, every name written on a tag is stewardship work — tending the connections that make later generosity possible.
Summer relational tending is stewardship. It is not a break from the work; it is the work in a quieter key.
Come Worship With Us This Sunday
Whatever your summer holds — a packed sanctuary or a sparse one, a familiar pew or a strange one — we'd love to have you with us this Sunday. Bring a friend, bring a visitor, bring yourself just as you are. The table is set, the Spirit is loose in the world, and there is a name tag with your name on it.
Want to stay connected through the Green Season? Subscribe to our newsletter for short, practical notes on parish life, formation, and ministry — delivered at a pace that fits a summer afternoon.
Leave a Comment