As people return from summer vacations and settle back in to the comfort of familiar routines, a time of transition begins for local congregations. The changing of the seasons — and the accompanying changes in activities — is a part of life’s rhythm. Ecclesiastes 3:1 declares, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

The business world recognizes the principle of times and seasons. Corporations produce action plans, data sheets and reports for each quarter of the fiscal year. The fiscal fourth quarter is a crucial period during which business leaders reflect on progress, plan for what’s ahead and push for a strong finish.

Similarly, the fourth quarter of the calendar year — the busy stretch comprising October, November and December — can be a vital and strategic time for church activity. “If you don’t know your rhythms, you waste time and energy, and the staff ends up burned out,” says Matt Nelson, lead pastor of City Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This time of year presents special challenges and opportunities in your congregation and community. By recognizing the natural rhythms of your church’s yearly calendar, you can maximize every season — especially during this last quarter. But unless you understand those rhythms and prayerfully anticipate how best to respond to them, you may miss the chance to leverage the fourth quarter for maximum impact.

Fourth Quarter Ministry

Fall ministry means different things in different settings. When Mike Santiago planted Focus Church in Apex, N.C., in September 2012, it quickly became apparent that life in the Raleigh suburb revolves around football. Rather than competing with the popular fall activity, Santiago sought ways to use it to advance the gospel.

Each year, the church celebrates its founding with a series of birthday events that happen to coincide with the start of the football season. Small group meetings follow in October and November.

“Our fall activities run parallel with the football season,” Santiago says. “We start a new series, and we add some sort of element that will draw people back.”

Santiago says it’s an ideal time to emphasize fellowship and outreach. He encourages attendees to plan football tailgate events and invite their friends and neighbors to join them. Every Sunday morning throughout the football season, a video announcement emphasizes the relational focus with the catchphrase, “No Tailgater Left Behind.”

“We’re encouraging all of our people to never tailgate alone,” Santiago says. “We really promote people enjoying Sunday afternoons together and attending at least one of the games together.”

Santiago says understanding the community’s seasonal rhythm is key to reaching people with the message of Christ.

“We’re blessed to have a really laser-focused philosophy that is heavily geared toward the Sunday morning worship service — to the point that we haven’t come up against a ton of competition simply because we’ve never started anything during another prime time hour,” Santiago says. “If we did a Saturday night service, for instance, there would be college football during that season.”

Fall ministry means different things in different settings.

Instead, Focus Church emphasizes a core group of ministries it calls the Focus Five: small groups, children’s ministries, serving, outreach and missions.

“Almost every single one of those things falls into the context of a Sunday morning, except for outreach groups,” Santiago says. “Groups are happening in October, but they are not happening on specific nights where there might be a little bit more competition.”

Konan Stevens, lead pastor of C3 Church in the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Pickerington, also looks for ways to leverage local interests for fall outreach.

“Our community does a big festival every year in the fall, and we like to be a part of that,” Stevens says. “I think sometimes churches want to do everything on their own with their name instead of asking, ‘How can we serve in a way that helps our community?’ How can C3 Church rally around the things that are already happening in our community and be a big presence?”

For The Oaks Fellowship in the Dallas suburb of Red Oak, Texas, the arrival of fall means a renewed emphasis on relationships, particularly through small groups.

“It is always in the fall, around August and the first of September, that we will start promoting people becoming small group leaders or small group hosts, trying to get them to catch that vision so that we will multiply,” says Scott Wilson, senior pastor of The Oaks Fellowship. “It seems to be the best time for us to get people interested. The focus is making sure whatever we have in that fall series is going to be something that people can get excited about bringing their friends to. This is really a catch-all for new people coming to the church.”

The start of school affects many congregations, as students return to college towns and families juggle children’s activities. For Focus Church, which meets in a local high school, the back-to-school transition is particularly significant.

“We have to establish new relationships with the new teachers in the school,” Santiago says. “In the summer, the rooms are all cleared out. We’re able to set up with no problem for the kids’ ministry side. Then, when a new teacher moves into her classroom in the fall, we have the first few awkward weeks where we’re moving her stuff that she just moved in. That is always a major consideration.”

Though the lack of a permanent facility limits the types of fall activities the congregation can host, Focus Church finds creative ways to interact with the community.

“Because we are portable, we don’t really get to do the standard fall festival, or harvest event,” Santiago says. “What we do is leverage the church to go out into the community and be a part of the activities that take place. We equip our church on October 31 with invite cards about our church that they can hand out to people who might be coming by their house for trick-or-treating.”

Similarly, the size and scope of winter holiday celebrations often vary depending on the circumstances of individual churches and communities. Some congregations plan extravagant Thanksgiving and Christmas services, while others host scaled-down celebrations for the small number of people who stay close to home for the holidays.

“We kind of do both,” Santiago says. “We have a big Christmas at the Creek service, where we bring in a train in the lobby, and a full-fledged production-style choir — the whole deal. It generally happens the weekend before Christmas, like the 18th or so. Then we scale back the weekend of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, because most people are either traveling back home after Thanksgiving, or are still out of town. The Sunday after Black Friday we do an acoustic set. We actually promote it as Leftover Sunday, and it’s very family oriented. We kind of scale it back on purpose.”

November and December rhythms can be as varied as holiday traditions. What resonates in one setting may not work in another. And sometimes, unique outreach opportunities show up on the most unlikely days.

“We found that one of our largest attendance Sundays is the first week in November, when the clock falls back an hour,” Stevens says. “It’s the second largest attended Sunday outside of Easter. Our church’s birthday is also in November, so we have two big Sundays. It’s usually when we relaunch our small groups, so we’ll do a big small groups campaign, trying to plug people back in. It’s a good season for us.”

Fourth Quarter Finances

Whether you’re launching a giving campaign, closing out a project, collecting funds for holiday benevolence or simply creating a budget for the new year, understanding your church’s fall rhythms is an essential part of managing financial matters during the fourth quarter.

“People are the most generous between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Santiago says. According to the 2015 “Charitable Giving Report” from Blackbaud, it is common for faith-based organizations to receive over 17 percent of their annual donations in December alone.

Each fall Santiago challenges his congregation to contribute toward a single, tangible goal, such as a building campaign. To emphasize giving during the final few weeks of the year, he personally leads the offering time.

“It’s not that I don’t talk about money, but we have someone else come in and take up the offering until Thanksgiving,” Santiago says. “The weekend after Thanksgiving all the way through the end of the year, I take all of the talking-about-money time that I've saved up all year long, and I use it.”

While money can be an uncomfortable topic, Wilson says it’s important for church leaders to articulate financial goals and keep the congregation updated on progress. As the year comes to a close, talking about how faithful giving has made a difference in the life of the church and community can build people’s faith and generate excitement.

“Most of the time, I try to provide testimonies and giving reports of what God is doing through giving,” Wilson says. “Celebrating where people’s money is going shows that it is not coming to but going through the church to see people’s lives changed and transformed.”

Each Christmas, C3 Church takes up a special offering to help meet needs in the community. Stevens says caring for neighbors is a fitting way to mark the Christmas season and close out the year, and even visitors enjoy contributing.

“We give the whole thing away,” Stevens says. “We say, ‘We are going to take this offering, and 100 percent of it will be given away to needy people in our community.’ It’s been a huge win.”

Fourth Quarter Staff and Volunteers

Even the best plans need people to carry them out. That’s why no fourth quarter strategy can afford to overlook the human component: staff members and volunteers.

City Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, typically sees an attendance surge in the fall, which often means recruiting extra help.

“Last year in September, we moved to three services,” says Matt Nelson, lead pastor. “We had to find 70 more volunteers to pull it off.”

Nelson says he is also careful to communicate with his staff to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working together as a team.

“By now, most of our staff understand our rhythm,” Nelson says. “August and September are full on, and then we start pulling back. October is a transition month. November and December is when we plan our staff getaways. I think over 7 years we’ve done a pretty good job of finding our rhythm.”

Many leaders use fourth quarter down time for retreats (which may be anything from planning sessions to team-building experiences). Others schedule retreats for later, when the hectic fall season has passed. In either case, Nelson says time away is essential. “A lot of guys that I know, church planters, especially, are always going — everything is 100 miles an hour. You can’t sustain that.”

Santiago says he plans reprieves, including a holiday break between Christmas and New Year’s Day, for volunteers as well as staff.

“I think that’s one of the keys,” Santiago says. “I only ask people to serve from September through Christmas. Then I let them know we’re having a Sunday off. That really helps because there is an end zone. There is a finish line for that season. You’re going to be able to spend time with your family. I’m asking you to give it all you’ve got for these weeks when people come to [our church] the most.”

Finding Your Rhythm

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for successful ministry in the fourth quarter — or any other time of year. Each strategy should be as unique as the congregation and community involved.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for successful ministry in the fourth quarter — or any other time of year. Each strategy should be as unique as the congregation and community involved.

Getting to know the people you’re trying to reach, disciple and lead is the first obvious step. Attend the local sporting events. Participate in the city parade or festival. Ask people how they celebrate the holidays. Come alongside those who are making a difference in the church and community.

Tracking statistics — such as attendance, conversions, baptisms (both water and Spirit) and giving — may provide insight into seasonal rhythms you can maximize for Kingdom building. The Holy Spirit, not numbers, should ultimately guide your plans. But maintaining records will reveal opportunities and challenges, which can bring new urgency and energy to your prayer times and planning sessions.

“I think it almost takes a couple of years to get the feel of your community, and then to get the feel of your own leadership style and how you work,” Stevens says.

 “I’ll be honest: I came in with an idea of what we were going to do, and then I got in here and realized it’s slightly different than I thought it was going to be.” Nelson adds, “Our rhythms are a little bit different than the typical church. We’re in an urban setting. We reach a lot of young families, young adults, so it’s just a little bit different. So we made some adjustments. I think you’ve got to be open to that.”

Even for experienced leaders, a new season can bring a few unexpected twists. It’s comforting to know that God is going before you, working in every detail for His glory and your congregation’s good. He will make “everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

John Davidson, Ph.D. is director of Discovery and Development at the Assemblies of God National Leadership and Resource Center in Springfield, Missouri. 

Christina Quick is a freelance writer in Springfield, Missouri.

This article originally appeared in the August/September issue of Influence. For more print content, subscribe.