WHAT'S GOOD CHURCH WEATHER?

It looks like you just can't win is you're pastoring a Long Island Church. Last weekend was the best Sunday so far this year - sunshine, 70's - so people stayed away.

The weekend before was the nor-easter that drowned half of New Jersey and dumped record-breaking amounts of rain in Central park. It was a lot more merciful to the Island for a change, but that didn't help church attendances - they were way down.

It's pretty well established that on any given Sunday in North America, you get around two thirds of your members actually in church, but in all honesty, I haven't worked out yet what's the best weather to encourage the faithful to be there. I guess it's somewhere between sunshine and rain - whatever that is.

However ...

An interesting phenomenon for us at Church At The Movies this past two weeks has been that the turnout has not really been adversely affected by the climatic extremes we have experienced.

How can I explain that? Well, I've come to one simple conclusion, that may be over-simplistic for some - if what's going on excites people, they'll be there come hell or highwater.

Getting the subject of sex addressed in church certainly seems to have got folks attention. This morning I learned that there is a group of university students in Taiwan waiting for the messages in this series to be on our website so they can download them.

So maybe it isn't about weather or any other external factor. Maybe the answer's to be found within a church's programming.

At this rate, maybe we should talk about sex all year!
Just kidding!