Planning A Service For Memorial Day Weekend

If you’re a part of planning your Church’s services you know when Christmas and Easter are coming but beyond that you may give little thought to the 6-8 other holidays throughout the year that might find their way into your services.  Here are some ideas on how you can gear up for one of those holidays.  

PLAN AHEAD

Consider making a master list of of all of the holidays you’ll be recognizing at your church.  As you’re planning, keep an eye on this list to make sure nothing sneaks up on you.  For Memorial Day Weekend here are a few things to consider:

Volunteers: With a three day weekend you can count on people being out of town.  Be sure to schedule your volunteer teams well in advance so you’re not caught with no one to serve. 

Teaching: If you know a chunk of your regular attenders will be out traveling you may want to connect with your teaching Pastor about the message.  If it’s a critical portion of a series maybe do a special message on the holiday weekend and come back to your series the next week.  

Visitors: With people leaving town to visit family that mean’s there are people coming to town as well.  How can you go out of your way to welcome newcomers?  Think of how you can connect with them at each point of the service.  

Special Elements:  Finally, someone will need to decide how and when you will recognize Memorial Day.  

RECOGNIZING THE DAY

Memorial Day is a difficult day to handle in a church service.  

It isn’t a day to honor those currently serving in the Military (Armed Forces Day)

It isn’t a day to honor those who have previously served in the Military (Veteran’s Day)

It isn’t a day to celebrate our Country and freedom (4th of July)

Memorial Day is actually a somber day as it considers and remembers all those who have died fighting for our Country.  This makes it probably the most difficult holiday to recognize in the flow of a service. 

Here’s how we handled it this year at Calvary:

Oftentimes volunteers will serve as campus hosts through the different services but we decided to have our Pastors fill this role.  After the opening worship time we often have a time for prayer with our church, the Pastors took a moment at this point to recognize Memorial Day and pray for all those grieving from the loss of a loved one. 

During the announcement time that same Pastor said something like “Of course this is Memorial Day weekend and we are so thankful for all who have given their life on our behalf.  We pray that Lord brings you comfort and peace if you’re remembering someone you’ve lost” 

All and all we spend about 1-2 minutes on memorial day but quite a bit of thought and effort went into making sure it was handled with the respect it deserved without overshadowing the main reason we’ve gathered.  

Join the conversation and let us know how you handled Memorial Day weekend in the comments below!