For Churches, Summer Can Be the Off-Season

Summer’s in full swing and the Sunday crowds at many Orange County churches are thinning out. Whatever the destination--beaches, Disneyland, Legoland--even the most committed churchgoer can be lured from the pew at this time of year.

“It’s kind of like school’s out for summer,” says Benjamin J. Hubbard, chairman of the department of comparative religion at Cal State Fullerton. “But it’s not.”

Some local churches depend on a brimming collection plate throughout the year. But unkept pledges--promised in the midst of annual stewardship drives--can leave churches in the red. So many use special tactics during the summer months to reach out to their memberships to keep the faith, even during vacation season.

In Laguna Hills, the senior pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church writes to church members that God “deserves 52 Sundays a year!” Another newsletter from a Huntington Beach Baptist church urges members to arrange holiday events around church times and implores members to return to church the “very first Sunday you get back” from vacation.

With nearly 65% of its budget dependent on offerings, the 2,200-member La Purisima Catholic Church in Orange has reminder notes slipped into member’s donation envelopes nudging parishioners to mail pledges in before taking off.

“They’re all very nice little sayings,” said parish administrator Jeanne Stella, “that we’re hoping you have a relaxing and joyful summer. But while you’re out there boating, camping or seeing the state parks, please remember your church at home.”

Still, some churches are forced to plan for reduced giving in the summer.

“We’re like the airlines,” Stella said. “We make up [the losses] at other times of the year.”

La Purisima also uses humor to convey the need for continuous giving with its “Sermon on the A-Mount,” a financial report published in the weekly bulletin. “The more educated [members] get regarding stewardship,” Stella says, “the more they give and the more God blesses the church.”

Like businesses, churches must anticipate market fluctuations--in their case, variable attendance--when creating yearly budgets. Some ask members to make an annual pledge in the fall. Others just rely on past years’ donation histories for planning purposes.

And while many churches schedule fun summer activities for members, such as Sunday school picnics or vacation Bible school, most don’t seek to compete with all the entertainment Southern California provides.

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For the 250-member Johnson Chapel AME Church of Santa Ana, some special programming does entice members to not stray too far. But still, attendance usually slips about 10%, said the Rev. Timothy E. Tyler. “We do notice it,” Tyler said. “We try and plan for it, but it does affect us at times.”

Johnson Chapel AME relies on uncommitted donations for about 60% of its annual $250,000 budget.

Tyler said he prefers a low-key approach to emphasizing the importance of giving, using family church meetings and new member orientations to get the word out.

He said he tells members: “We make an investment to the church. We believe that God will take care of our needs . . . [but] if the church doesn’t pay its bills, Edison will turn off our lights, just like anybody else.”

Thankfully, he laughs, members “don’t all plot to not be a church at the same time.”

Other times of the year can be problematic, like tax season, according to Jon S. West, pastor of the small Morningside Presbyterian Church in Fullerton.

That church depends on pledges from its 160 members for a whopping 95% of its budget. Recently, West said, numbers have dropped to about 100 or so for Sunday service, a dip he attributes to the aging half of his congregation that enjoys traveling during retirement.

Unlike Johnson Chapel AME, Morningside, like many other churches, conducts a stewardship drive in the fall. Last year, the church received $180,000 in promised contributions. “We’ve been doing fairly well. I can’t complain,” he says. “We come in between 1% and 2% of what is estimated each year,” he said. “It’s all the commitment of the people.”

Members of some faiths include churchgoing on their travel itineraries.

Tom Thorkelson, a past bishop with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Newport Beach financial planner for 41 years, said summertime is a blessing, not a curse, for his church.

“We have greater attendance [during the summer] rather than less,” he said. “Even when people are here to visit Disneyland, Sunday will find them in a local Mormon church.”

Weekly tithing is not mandated in the church, but it is required for members to enter its temples--found locally in Westwood and near San Diego.

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Similarly, in the Jewish faith, those who have fallen behind on pledges during the summer are not allowed to attend high holy day services of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur come fall.

Attendance at the 200-member Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church in Costa Mesa drops 10% to 15% during the summer, then picks up again at the end of August, when many people “go church shopping,” said the Rev. Karen Stoyanoff.

That is the time, Stoyanoff said, when she sees many families--some new to the area--seeking Sunday school programs for children as they equate church with the traditional school year calendar.

For others, she said, fall is just a time to get one’s spiritual house in order.

“It’s like, now it’s time to get back into the groove,” she said. “We took time to be lazy and rest up and enjoy the summer, and now it’s time to get back to our regular pace of life. It’s almost like a time for a resolution.”

At Orange Coast Unitarian, Homecoming Sunday--the first Sunday after Labor Day--is “a very joyous occasion,” Stoyanoff said. “Now all the summer stuff has calmed down. . . . People love to meet and greet one another,” and catch up on all that’s happened over the summer.

Whatever the faith, experts say keeping current is about keeping committed.

Giving “symbolizes one’s loyalty,” Hubbard said. “How loyal are you to your tradition? . . . Are you a fair-weather friend? Can you be there through the thick and thin of both summer and winter?”