Each June and July, we offer a summer jubilee to our regular, weekend, and weekday servant leaders because (1) everyone needs a Sabbath season, (2) a summer jubilee invites our regulars to re-connect with an adult Sunday small group, (3) it invites new servant leaders to test the waters or serve a short season with great intentionality in ministry with children.

Jubilee = a season of emancipation, celebration, and restoration.

Our numbers are typically a bit smaller, but more than what one-room Sunday school can offer if relationship building (with Jesus and one another) is always the goal of Sunday mornings.

What do we do?

I begin asking questions in January/February and listening for what folks in our church are individually working on and invite them to share what they are learning with our littles in June and July. What are they talking about when I ask, “Hey! What are your doing right now that brings you joy?”

Large group is led by me and includes another group game and/or another song along with the Bible study part extending our time from 20-30 minutes. This summer, students are then dismissed to two classes for 30 minutes:

#1 – Building with power tools for 3rd-5th graders
A fabulous general contractor comes with power tools and several projects to build over the summer. I reimburse his supply expenses. The first year/season, I recruited his ‘assistants’. This year I asked him to invite some of his buddies to join him as his ‘assistants.’ With safety goggles, aprons (I provided) and nail gun and table saw (he provided) students learn and practice safety and more with his four (FOUR!) assistants. And by golly, he made sure everyone had gone through Safe Sanctuary training, arrived early, and staged his Sunday classroom on Saturday. First year, do the task. Second year, invite others to join the journey and build a team.

#2 – Building our communication skills with sign language for Kindergarten-2nd graders
As part of our 10-hour intern’s winter/spring semester at college, she began taking several sign language classes in the evening. She will teach fingerspelling and songs to our littles to present in three children’s moments this summer. We recruited her ‘assistants’ at the Bring Your Parents to Sunday School and several youth/adults stepped up to learn alongside the littles by seeing the summer class promoted in the bulletin the month before.

Other than the two class leaders, everyone else is a first-time or second-time servant in children’s ministry. The skills they learn will be ones they can use to serve their church.

At the first parenting workshop at my home church a long time ago, the presenter shared: Choose your kid’s extracurricular activities so that your child(ren) can use them to serve/share in the Body of Christ. She continued: If your family is going to invest a ton of time, money, and relationships in an extracurricular that will be a priority for your family, be sure your kids see it as a tool for growing their discipleship. Our experience: music, marching band, and drumming for #1 Son; theatre, travel, and communication for Baby Girl. This filter for which extracurriculars we were sold-out-for was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians directed the apostles, teachers, prophets, and church leaders to ‘equip the saints for good works to build up the Body of Christ.’ Oh we’re building alright. And the saints come in all shapes and sizes, all stages and ages.

What does Sunday morning summer programming look like for you?

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15