Don't Waste Your Spring Break

One of the things we love about homeschooling is that Spring Break happens whenever we want it to happen. So we took a couple days last week and carted the family to Disney. There's a lot of joy in the flexibility that we know is unique and not something everyone can enjoy.

It's Spring Break season, and for all of you from the north coming to Florida to soak up the sun and the surf, sorry the water is cooler than you'd hoped. But hopefully it's not so bad sitting under palm trees and enjoying wearing flip flops!

Spring Break is an excellent time for churches and for ministry leaders. Here are some ways we can make sure that we don't waste our Spring Break:

1. Take some time off - It doesn't have to be all week, but take a couple days and invest in and enjoy your family. The kids don't have school, so there's no homework or daytime obligations. Take a day trip or an overnight and hang out together. You don't have to do a cruise or Disney to enjoy family time.

2. Consider giving volunteers time off - If your church has a large number of younger families, Spring Break is a ghost town. People are traveling, they're enjoying the week off, and the mid-week crowd is much smaller than normal. One thing we did this year was cancel our children's programming to give our children's staff and workers some time off. Breaks are good for the body, mind, and soul.

​3. Do some long-range planning - The break in a church's regular rhythm can provide a chance to do something a lot of leaders struggle to find time for: long range planning. Map out your sermon series for the summer, look at goals for the rest of the year, get on a white board and start brainstorming outreach or fellowship ideas, or get into a couple good books to help you shape and find God's direction for your church or ministry.

4. Step up your visitation - If you're not going out of town, take advantage of the decrease in road traffic and make some home/hospital/nursing home visits. Many of our shut-ins have little contact with their church or their family. Without having to dodge school busses and moms & dads running late for the tardy bell, you've got a little extra freedom to invest in people many have forgotten.

5. Prayer walk your community's schools - Without anyone on campus, our community's schools become a place you can prayer walk. Some of the things you can pray for are: Safety for students & teachers, opportunities to minister to the school, Christian teachers and administrators to work as salt & light, the church that meets in the school gym on Sunday, and for the Christian groups on campus working with students.

How are you making the most of your Spring Break?