Every year, right around early May, our team breathes a collective sigh of relief. Easter is over. We made it through Holy Week. The inbox stops dinging every five minutes. We’re tired—but there’s finally space to think.
And that space? It’s a gift.
Summer is often labeled a "slow season" for churches. Families travel. Volunteers are scarce. Ministry programming shifts into cruise control. But here's what we’ve learned over the years: Slower doesn’t mean less important. In fact, summer is one of the most strategic seasons on the church calendar—if you know how to use it.
Why Summer Is a Strategic Window for Church Communications
Think of summer as your off-season training camp. It’s not about coasting. It’s about preparing. When you have margin, you have the freedom to:
- Think long-term instead of week-to-week
- Evaluate what worked (and what didn’t)
- Get ahead before the fall madness hits
We used to wait until mid-August to start planning fall kickoff communications. And every year it was the same story: scrambling to coordinate ministries, rushing out half-baked announcements, volunteers confused about what was happening when. It wasn’t that we weren’t working hard—we just never had a plan early enough.
But one year, we blocked off two planning days in June. No emails. No meetings. Just a few of us in a room, with whiteboards, calendars, and snacks. We walked away with a roadmap for the next six months. That fall? Smoothest we’d ever had.
What to Do With This Time
Here’s how to use the summer slowdown to get your church communications calendar aligned and ready for the season ahead:
1. Audit Your Current Process
Be honest: where are the bottlenecks? Are announcements always last-minute? Do ministries operate in silos?
Take time to map out your current communications workflow—the tools you use, who touches what, and where things break down. This kind of reflection is essential to improve your church communications software stack and team rhythms.
2. Preload Your Calendar
Look ahead at your fall ministry season. What major events, sermon series, or campaigns do you already know are coming?
Start adding them to your church calendar now. Not just the dates—but what channels you’ll use, who needs to approve what, and how far in advance messaging should go out.
This is where a dedicated church communications calendar tool like Communicate shines. It lets you visualize everything in one place—no more digging through Slack threads or Google Docs.
3. Create Messaging Buckets
For recurring ministries (youth group, small groups, outreach), create templates or "buckets" of common messaging needs. That way, when it’s time to promote them again, you're not starting from scratch.
Example: Instead of rewriting the same small group announcement every 6 weeks, have a few pre-approved versions ready to drop in.
These buckets are a key strategy in sustainable storytelling for churches, helping you communicate clearly and consistently.
4. Equip Your Team
Summer is a great time to introduce better systems without overwhelming your staff or volunteers.
Maybe you’ve been meaning to roll out a shared communications calendar, or train team leads on how to submit announcements more efficiently. Do it now—while there's breathing room.
One youth pastor I worked with used summer to teach her student leaders how to manage social media scheduling. By fall, they were owning it like pros. That never would've happened in September.
Lead with Vision, Not Panic
When your communications plan is reactive, it feels like you’re constantly playing defense. But when you use slower seasons to align your calendar and clarify your strategy, you start playing offense. You lead with purpose. You make space for creativity. And your church actually hears the message you're trying to communicate.
Fall ministry season will be here before you know it. You can either enter it scrambling to catch up, or walking in with confidence.
Don’t Waste the Window
Take one morning this week. Grab coffee, a calendar, and maybe one or two ministry leaders. Start sketching the next season. What could you line up now that future-you will thank you for?
And if you’re tired of duct-taping your communications together with spreadsheets, emails, and crossed fingers, Communicate is built for exactly this. It’s the church communications software you didn’t know you needed—until now.
Want to put this into action? Start planning your church communications with Communicate — the only church communications calendar built just for ministry teams.
