It seems to be fairly common practice for churches to cancel or limit services during the summer, the most common victim of this summer sacrifice being the Sunday evening service (for those churches that still have one).

I suppose the theory is that summer is the time when most church members are vacationing and attendance will be down.

But this cause/effect relationship leaves us with compelling questions. First, if lower attendance means eliminating services, then we should also cut the Sunday morning service and the Wednesday night supper/prayer meeting. After all, very few vacationers stick around for the Sunday morning service, and none come back from the beach for Wednesday’s pot luck supper or for a progress report on Aunt Matilda’s bunion.

If lower attendance is not the reason for cutting summer services, then perhaps it is too avoid offending the consciences of vacationers. One cannot feel guilty about missing church if there is no church to miss. But, alas, this also leads to other problems. If cutting evening services eases the beach-bound member’s conscience, then why cut only one service? The conscience would be eased three times as much if all three weekly services were cut. Furthermore, if easing the conscience is the goal, why ease it only in summer? Why not cut Sunday morning services during hunting season? Why not cut them when a big golf tournament is going?

So, if neither low attendance nor easing the conscience is the goal, perhaps it is something as yet unconsidered. Perhaps we cut services during the summer because members need them less. Perhaps we’ve worshiped God enough during the previous nine months: we’ve built up a “worship credit” against which to draw while we absorb the rays. Or, perhaps we’ve fellowshiped enough with believers and need to spread joy among the unchurched on the beach.

Or, perhaps there is less need to feed the sheep and guard the flock during the summer months. Spiritual ignorance, indwelling sin, and spiritual warfare are, perhaps, inversely proportional to the number of vacations the congregation takes.

So, if our spiritual leaders are concerned about their members’ collective conscience, unused ‘worship credit’, fellowshiping with the unchurched, and spiritual vitality, there is, really, only one conclusion to reach: more vacations means more spiritual vitality, and the deacon board should mandate that members stay away from church year-round, so that piety and church health can reach new levels.

Thom Rainer posted an article June 15 called “Crisis at County Seat First Church”  in which he advocates not giving up on established churches that either have been around for a long time or are otherwise set in their ways, are in decline, and are without a pastor.

The temptation in these churches is to let them be and start another, less moribund congregation. Or, as one state denominational church planting guru said, sometimes encouraging such a church to start a plant itself is the bloodless split it might need.

Yet I agree with Rainer that whatever is left in the established church is worth saving. One problem, however, is the unrealistic standards for pastor these churches set and which lead them to lament the absence of “realistic candidates.”

The types of men these churches most likely need are the types they are unwilling to call, those that are faithful to orthodoxy and denominational distinctives but are not bound to archaic notions of what Christian practice must resemble, and are willing to preach the whole counsel of God without fear, without compromise, and without hesitation.

Many people who identify themselves as Christ-followers claim to believe the Bible is God’s revelation of himself to us, and, in the words of a famous confession, is the only sure guide as to what God would have us believe about him and what duty he requires of us.

Yet one author has pointed out that the claimed authority of Scripture is much different than the ‘functional authority of the Bible,’ that is, whether Scripture actually governs faith and practice in the life of the church.

Judging by what people say, there is not much functional authority goin’ on out there. Some of the most revealing statements come from church leaders, such as deacons. I collect anecdotes of the things leaders say, and for a long time the winner (loser?) in this area was the following:

Anecdote #1: The deacons at a church were discussing the formation of a search committee for pastor, and worldly standards of education, prominence, and so forth had been governing which members had been suggested to serve. One deacon then stood and read the various passages of Scripture teaching that the body is made up of various parts, each one fulfilling a specific role, and suggested that the deacons look to the spiritual qualifications and giftedness of its members to determine who should comprise the search committee. There was no discussion, but another deacon stood and began his defense of the former option with, “I don’t want to disagree with the Scriptures, but…”

That example has been relegated to position number two by the following:

Anecdote #2: The pastor had expressed his objection to the proposed Christmas program, which was more “It’s a Wonderful Life” than Advent, and a deacon, obviously growing tired of the preacher’s explanations, said “Biblical, biblical, biblical. Does everything this church does have to be ‘biblical’?”

Well, one would hope so…