by Eddie Pipkin

Image by Susana Gonzalez from Pixabay

As a sports fan, I noted with astonishment the prices for in-person attendance at the two big events of the past couple of weeks: the NBA Finals and the World Cup.  Tickets for the NBA finals in San Antonio and New York had a base price of $5,000, and tickets for the opening round of World Cup games, even though they are being held in 60,000 person stadiums and there are dozens from which to choose, are in the $200 range.  When it comes to supply and demand, the popularity of an event is often directly tied to its uniqueness.  This can be as true in church life as it is in sporting events.

The reason that sports leagues can charge such high prices for seats in arenas and stadiums is because there is a limited number available.  The NBA finals are a maximum of seven games that come but once a year, and the World Cup, the largest sporting event on the planet, comes once every four years.  There is a premium for scarcity.  One must pay for the privilege to experience a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of athletes and fans.  In contrast, you could, on average, get a ticket to a Major League Baseball game right now for $50 to $75, and you could take the kids to your local minor league ball park for $10, maybe $8 if you sit outside the outfield fence on the grassy bank (which is where they would rather be anyway).

Summer season in the local church features plenty of weekends in which it’s a struggle to fill the stands – oops, I mean the pews.  And while we are not charging for admission tickets to Sunday morning worship, there are definite nods to the strategies of scarcity versus familiarity and nostalgia.

Some leadership likes to schedule events which are unique in the life of the church, either by the identity of the invited speaker or the personality of the event itself.

Some leadership likes to lean into the pull of the familiar, comfortable, and fun by hosting movie themed summer series that take Gospel lessons from the narratives of summer popcorn classics.  This is also a form of nostalgia – and many of the nostalgia-focused summer series, whether it’s adventures in vacations or versions of camp sing-alongs are forms of nostalgia, touchpoints of our longing for a time hazy in misty memory.  They feel like summer, loosey-goosey and relaxed, and they tap powerfully into shared memories and good-time vibes.  (Almost no one I have ever heard of does a summer series on the kind of heavy topic one would encounter during Lent.  That would be perceived as a bummer of a summer.)

For an even purer form of nostalgia, churches schedule around Father’s Day, as well as the birthday of the nation.  That national birthday this year is a big one this year, checking both the boxes of nostalgia and scarcity!

Either, or both, of these strategies, scarcity (uniqueness) or familiarity (nostalgia) is viable if we’re thinking of ways to counter people’s natural tendency to take a vacation from church life during the summer months.  Even better, a little from Column A and a little from Column B can be a powerful pull.  This approach isn’t limited to summer, of course; it’s just a natural time to think about it.  In fact, you may have been thinking and planning this way naturally without using exactly this kind of language to describe what you were doing.

What can we do that gives people the warm fuzzies and encourages them to get reconnected with activities and people that are important to them?

What can we offer that is unique or unprecedented and rewards those who stay faithful and show up during a time of lessened engagement?

It makes sense to dream big and recruit that guest speaker everyone will be excited about or that praise band or special artist that will get everyone fired up and build an event, or even a weekend-long series of events, around them.

Sometimes local churches, conversely, mix things up in interesting ways by featuring elements of their everyday communities in non-traditional ways.  It’s a lot of fun to host Children’s Ministries Sunday and Youth Sunday during those summertime months and turn the whole Sunday morning enterprise over to these enthusiastic younger disciples.  Likewise, any special Sunday can be a blast from an old-school camp meeting sing-along Sunday to an outside Worship & Splash event and cookout.

You can do things like combine groups together for a creative mash-up:

  • The contemporary praise team with the traditional service choir, working together one month only!
  • Small groups with reduced summer attendance getting together to share class time and study.
  • Men’s Groups and Women’s Groups getting together for joint activities or hosting one another for a night out.
  • A churchwide campout on the grounds.
  • A watermelon carving contest!  Or other activities built around the summer harvest.
  • A “summer shorts” film festival in which people make and submit their own short films recreating famous Bible moments, then you host a showing and award prizes!

Summer time, slower times when there is more opportunity to explore new ideas and get to know one another better, are an excellent time for cross-pollination.  Get groups together!  Don’t forget to report back to the wider congregation through social media.  Share those stories!  (That’s both a form of instant nostalgia for those who participated and a form of scarcity programming for those who missed out; those who didn’t get to participate will be motivated to be a part of the next thing on the schedule.)

The sky is the limit when it comes to ideas.  It’s important to collect those ideas as they come up during the year.  They are not always feasible at the time someone thinks them up, so there should be a process and a repository for recording them for future use.  It’s also important to have a group of people who are consulted for creative programming ideas – for scarcity and for familiarity/nostalgia – and to set aside regular times for such brainstorming.  Don’t just assume this kind of work just happens in the course of regular meetings.  Regular meetings, by default and design, are exactly the kinds of venues that frequently kill the creative process.

What are some of the best examples you have experienced where a one-of-a-kind event or offering got people fired up and participating?  What are some of the best focuses on nostalgia you have been a part of?  Do you and your team have a good process for generating and nurturing creative ideas for future initiatives?  Share all your thoughts in the comments section below!