people sitting in chairs listening to a speaker the 3 lowest attended sundays and what to do about them title card — Photo by adrianna geo on Unsplash

This post is coming out Thanksgiving weekend, and for most churches that means we’re heading into one of the lowest attended Sundays in the year. These days can be frustrating and disappointing. You put as much time and effort into making the day great and then it feels like no one but your most faithful show up. Even then, some of them didn’t come either.

In my first few years of pastoring, I’d leave these days discouraged, thinking that I was doing something wrong. However, as time passed, I’ve learned to accept these days and even leverage them for success, regardless of who comes.

The lowest attended Sundays for your church may be different from mine for a variety of reasons mainly where you live and who is part of your congregation.

I made that mistake when I moved from Alabama to Florida. I expected New Year’s Sunday to be a dead Sunday, but because I was in a destination beach town, I had more visitors on that Sunday than I had the previous month combined. As I tracked my numbers, I discovered, in general, the three lowest attended Sundays in no particular order are

Sunday after Thanksgiving
Sunday after Christmas (the closer to New Year’s, the smaller the attendance)
Memorial and Labor Day weekend

I know that the last one is actually two, but looking through my attendance data over the last few years it was about the same.

Instead of becoming discouraged and/or railing against people for not putting a higher priority on coming to church we can actually leverage these days to accomplish some things that are hard or even impossible the rest of the year.

1. Plan a fun Sunday

Getting volunteers on low attended Sundays can be more stress inducing than the almost empty rooms.

Anyone else lose sleep over getting a room staffed only for no one in that age group to show up?

On many of these low Sundays, I try to make it fun. We’ll watch a movie, have Pajama Sunday, or decorate for Christmas. We’ll have snacks and games and maybe start late or end early allowing them to play with the pre-service activities. We’ll talk about Jesus, but we won’t try anything big or elaborate.

A fun Sunday allows for you to run your ministry with less volunteers, while also taking the stress off the day. Sometimes kids will take advantage of less structure, but with fewer kids in the room they’re easier to manage.

2. Host a family service

I use this a lot for the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Christmas. We combine everyone into the main sanctuary to worship together and be thankful for the past year as we look forward to the next. I love these days because it gives all your volunteers a day off, kids get to see their parents worship, and everyone hears about Jesus.

Whatever you do for your family service, I would ask that you truly make it a family service and not an adult service with kids in it. I talk about how to do that in this post.

3. Take the day off

A lot of senior pastors like to take these days off and get their staff to fill their pulpits for them. I’ve heard the Sunday after Thanksgiving jokingly called National Youth Pastor gets to Preach Sunday. These Sundays are a great day to raise your hand and ask to speak.

If that’s not an option for you, then go spend the day somewhere else. Go to another church, take a vacation, visit your family two states over. The Holidays are about family and as pastors we so often give that time to our church. Take advantage of these low stakes days and don’t come. Use it as a day to train your volunteers to lead when you’re not there. This post will help you prepare your team.

Every church I’ve served gave me two Sundays off a year and I always took them. it’s good for your mental and spiritual health to take a break from leading every now and then. I encourage you to take your days.

4. Make it BIG

I don’t advise you to try to do this at Thanksgiving or Christmas, but it’s great for other low days like Father’s Day and Independence Day. You don’t have to abandon the day. You can have a big event and invite your community to come.

If you pick these off days, oftentimes other churches and organizations aren’t doing anything, leaving you a golden opportunity. At my church in Montgomery, we created a Father’s Day Car Show. We had over 100 cars and hundreds of people came to see them. After we established the event in our community, it became the third largest attended Sunday after Easter and Christmas and one of the most fun. Our people looked forward to it all year.

No matter what you do on these Sundays, please don’t get discouraged. God is proud of you whether you have 10, 100, or 1,000 people come. Find your value in Him, not in how many came this Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving!