my love/hate relationship

Summer in South Florida is a mixed bag. You take the good with the bad. Below is my list of both…

I love the water, swimming, snorkeling, and the beach in general. Surf fishing is fun. The weather isn’t too bad, even with the humidity. The gulf breezes keep us relatively cool and the afternoon thunder storms calm the heat a bit. The cloud formations are beautiful and the evening sun reflecting on them is awesome. Golf is fun, walks in the morning or the evening are nice. Baseball is always a highlight and outdoor summer festivals are great. Summer life in Florida is fun, and I like it. This is the fun part. This is the part I love.

There is another side of summer…

Lots of people take an extended vacation from church and, in some cases, from God. Some people are out of town on vacation for 2 or 3 weeks but take the entire summer off of church because “it’s summer, you can’t expect me to be there!” Some of these people get eaten up by the cares of life during the summer because they are dislodged from their relationship with other Christ-followers and the church. Some have the mentality that the church can’t do anything of significance; we can’t make any progress because so many people are unplugged this time of year. Sometimes it feels like some families won’t return until October. Sometimes it seems we have to start from scratch in the Fall, we have to get the train moving again, building momentum can be tough. These are the parts of summer that I hate. I can’t stand the idea losing one quarter or even one third of the ministry year.

We will survive, we will make it until Fall. But I am already strategizing about how we can prevent this “inevitable summer slide” next year. The effort required may kill me and I may never succeed, but I will die trying.