In many churches, Memorial Day is the lowest attendance of the year. Where we live (KCK) Memorial Day is considered the beginning of Summer and most folks consider it routine to spend the weekend at the lake or at a softball tourney or whatever. I've even heard stories of churches calling off services for that weekend (I hope that's not true).
Looking back over the last few years of attendance statistics, Memorial Day has been rough for us at WCCC. Apart from ice storms (and one strange day in June of '03 when half the church was inexplicably absent), Memorial Day is the worst attendance by far, usually about 40% below average. Last year was the best with only about a 10-15% drop and I'm hoping that this year will be even better.
I'd like to think that our people are not thinking of church as something you need vacation from! Besides, a family might find great benefit to end a vacation a day early, come home, go to church, and take Sunday afternoon to rest before starting your week again Monday morning. So many of our vacations warrant a breather afterwards anyway; perhaps we should plan for that!
Another note on vacations: We are taking a break on Wednesday nights from July 13 to August 3, just before schools restart in mid-August. A late summer vacation will thus coincide with our church down-shifting its activities for a month.
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