This morning the reality of summer kicked me in the back…literally.  Mondays are my days off and summer always brings with it a different dynamic for our family.  My wife is a ten month employee at the university and has the summers off.  So, when the kids get out of school for the summer everybody is home on Mondays.  I love it, but it takes some getting used to.  After having ten months of Mondays to myself to think, read, and relax, it is just different.

The same can be said for our churches in the summer.  In one way we love them.  More schedule flexibility.  Long-range planning time is abundant.  But, the tension I have always felt in the summer is between sacrificing the present for the future.  It feels like we sometimes sacrifice the present of potential summer growth for a future we aren’t promised.  Now, I am in no way saying we shouldn’t do long-range planning or be strategic.  I am only wondering if the reality we have experienced in past summers is at least somewhat induced by our own negligence of the present.

Maybe I feel that more this summer than previous ones.  Being a church planter, I come face to face with the reality that if this summer gets to sparce, there may not be a fall to get to.  More than that, is the awareness of lost children.  More than ever in my life I am aware of those around me who are lost without hope in a future without Christ.  And for them, it is quite possible there will be no fall.  The time is now.  We are called to now.  The future can hold amazing treasures for those who recapture NOW.  Don’t let another summer come and go only as planning time.  Impact your world for Christ NOW.