7 Excellent Father’s Day Ideas for Churches

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, father's day is right around the corner. And if you're like most churches, you're wondering what are we gonna do to honor dads? Well, in today's episode, we have seven ideas for your church to honor fathers. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow. This is the reach right podcast. You're listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello, and with me as always as my co-host Ian Hyat, we're here to help your church see more visitors and grow well. Hey guys, walk us to the rewrite podcast, episode number 101. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my co-host Speaker 4 00:01:03 Ian Hyat. What's up Thomas. Speaker 0 00:01:05 Hey, not much, man. Father's day is coming up, uh, looking for, I can't Speaker 4 00:01:08 Wait. Speaker 0 00:01:09 And that's our, uh, our theme for today is seven great father's day ideas for churches. Um, I think that there's like this reputation that comes with father's day, that it is kind of the, the second class holiday when there's mother's day. And you gotta do that up big. Everybody comes out on mother's day. Mom wants people to come, and then I've heard I can't back this up with evidence, but father's day is historically one of the least attended days of the entire year for churches because dad just wants to stay home. Or I guess is the idea, uh, dad isn't is into his faith. His mom is maybe, I don't know where it comes from. It's just something right. Have you heard that too? Speaker 4 00:01:47 Oh, I've heard it. Yeah, probably just chalk it up to man laziness. Right. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. That's Speaker 0 00:01:52 One reason. I don't know where it comes from exactly. But I will say that, uh, churches do tend to do a lot for moms on mother's day. And I think, yeah, it's we do have a heart to do things for dads too, but I feel like a lot of times we're just stumped on some ideas and I've seen some, I guess that's what we're gonna be talking about today is helping to give our, our audience some ideas on things that could maybe incorporate into their father's day service. Uh, some things that they can do there. These are all things that we've seen churches do. Uh, I've seen them to varying degrees of success. So I think it'd be a, a fun conversation to have. So, uh, your church, do you guys do it up big typically on father's day? Speaker 4 00:02:30 Not as big as mother's day. Of course. So typical, I guess, but, uh, yeah, we've come up with some unique things, uh, over the years for sure. Speaker 0 00:02:38 Yeah. Yeah. We, we do too. Um, so I know a couple of these are from churches that I've been a part of or churches that I've led or the churches that I'm a part of now, but why don't I'll go ahead and kick us off here. Yeah. Um, and so this, hopefully it just gives you some ideas. I think you probably don't want to do all seven of these on father's day. It might be overkill, but if you do one, maybe two, I think that'd be really a cool thing here. So, uh, number one is bacon bar. This ha I'm just telling you as a dad. This sounds fantastic to me. So if I walk into church and I'm handed a nice stick of bacon of different varieties, different flavors, I imagine like maple dipped or chocolate dipped bacon. Oh man. Uh, just a nice stick. I heard of churches doing bacon flowers, uh, you know, kind of the reverse mother's day type thing going on there. I've seen some of those kinds of ideas, but I don't know. I love this one. I think it's just something you can do to honor dads, right. When they come in, um, you know, it depends on your area. If you're a church in Portland or something, I was gonna say, Speaker 4 00:03:36 Yeah, I just spoke with a church in Portland today and you know, he may have been a vegan, I don't know, but you know, it's okay. You Speaker 0 00:03:43 Can't confirm or deny that, Speaker 4 00:03:45 Huh? No. Maybe have some CEL celery on the side with the bacon. I don't know. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:03:49 Ants on a log, you know, something like that. Speaker 4 00:03:52 That's good. That's good. I mean, bacon goes four meat lovers, which are, I think most dads, I think, uh, bacon, you know, it's just hands down, goes good with it. There's never a bad time for bacon ever. Speaker 0 00:04:06 So yeah, that is. And I think that's just kind of getting us down. I think food is one of the keys to a man's heart. And so yeah, whether it be, uh, bacon or it'd be donuts or it'd be whatever it is that dad's love in your area. I think a lot of times, if you're, you, you might want to think of something regional. Uh, so you know, here in Hawaii we have these special donuts called malasadas and having a bunch of malasadas for dad. Uh, that would be fantastic. Um, yeah. Bacon again. Great idea there. So yeah. Do something food related. We might suggest a bacon bar. Speaker 4 00:04:39 Yep. Next one. I'll cover here, which also I think is just having dad themed foods, which I, I think we covered just one of those but, and drinks. Um, so dad's root beer. Uh, of course, uh, how about that? I mean, that's, that's a no brainer almost. Um, but you know, uh, you know, candy bars with maybe like, uh, and I've seen some churches do like candy bars with like, you know, a dad superhero thing on the, on the, on the rapper, whatever, something customized like that. So again, food sweets, uh, root beer, you know, stuff like that always, uh, comes over positive. Right? Speaker 0 00:05:15 I've done, I've done the dad's root beer before at churches that we've led and that's always kind of a hit for dads to have a nice dad's root beer. Here's one we did is we, we used to give out, I don't even know where you would find these now, but we'd give out pop rocks. And we'd say, because pop rocks, you know, so we'd kind of do this whole thing and it was, we'd give out pop rocks and yeah, you kind of make a cheesy thing out of it and I Speaker 4 00:05:34 Don't know. And then you know, about, and then the kids, the kids want the pop rocks and it creates, you know, it's some more excitement. Right. So, yeah, but I don't know. I I'd still do pop rocks even as dad now, but yeah, Speaker 0 00:05:46 You'd rock some pop. I, I do remember when I was seven really enjoying pop rocks, but I think that Speaker 4 00:05:50 They've been around. Speaker 0 00:05:51 Yeah. I I'd go bacon any day though. I think that's, uh, I, I take bacon over, Speaker 4 00:05:55 I take bacon. I think number one. So far bacon. Yep. Speaker 0 00:05:57 Yeah, there you go. So, all right, good. Next one. Uh, is grilling supplies. I think this is always a fun one. Uh, we're just coming out of Memorial day. We're in the midst of summer grilling season. Uh, there's a few ways you could do this. I think one of the most common ways I've seen is a, uh, church rub, uh, for instance, so you'd make like a, you get bottles and rubs are super cheaper, cheap to make. If you buy the ingredients in bulk. Yeah. You go to Costco and yeah. You get a big thing of all the different things you would want in rub. You know, the spoiler is that most rubs are salt, pepper, uh, garlic powder, onion powder, PAA, those kinds of things. Yeah. Or what make for great barbecue type rubs there. Yeah. And I know I used the one that I was given at our church last year, we were given a, a nice rub and it was, uh, something we could use on. Speaker 0 00:06:43 I think I used mine on some chicken turned out really good. So you could do it that route. You could also, uh, you maybe have some kind of a giveaway. So yeah, if you want to take a time during the service and say, Hey, who is the dad of the, the newest dad here, who has the youngest kid in our entire church? And everybody kind of raises their hand as to how old their kids are and give them a set of grilling tools maybe, or yeah. Who is the, who has a, a, a son or daughter who lives the furthest away or something, having some kind of a competition, uh, for dads. I think that could be really cool to do, but grilling themed awards, uh, for those questions would really be a cool thing to do Speaker 4 00:07:20 I'm in Texas. So that sounds great. Uh, the Texans dad and me would of course be all for that, but I think dads everywhere, uh, a lot of them will appreciate grilling. So, uh, no, that's a good one. So next one pre or post-service games. I mean, so probably not something you wanna make too lengthy. I don't know if you wanna have a full on football game with dads getting injured or anything like that, or having to spend too much time, cuz dad's probably gonna be, if it's after service excited to go get lunch or have lunch made for him or whatever, if you're like me, I would just be like my, my family, they roll their eyes at me because whenever it is father's day, I call it father's day weekend. Oh. I say it's father's day weekend. I've done so much for you. Speaker 4 00:08:06 What's what's in it for me, you know, what's coming back to me, but no, the game getting back to that, I think, you know, corn hole, um, you know, you could, you could set up a quick little corn hole thing. Um, maybe kind of like a darts thing. And if, if dad hits a bulls eye, um, you know, they get a, some sort of a little prize or something like that. I know at one time, not for father's day, but my church, uh, we had a guest speaker out who was like an ex football player and of course our pastors, an ex football player. So we had that whole thing here and football's big in Texas and all of that. So we had like a bench press contest as a matter of fact, or we had, which dad can, how, how many times can you bench 135 pounds now? I don't know if that'll go over. Yeah, it was unique, but it was popular. It was Speaker 0 00:08:49 Definitely popular all their church clothes and they hop onto the bench and they're, uh, Speaker 4 00:08:53 It's like, it's just one set of like, however many times you can live this way. Anyway, you know, I don't know if that'll work in most churches, but again, maybe the corn, Speaker 0 00:09:01 I love the idea. That's what thought is about just giving ideas. If they say maybe people work at your church, uh, if you, uh, have the right kind of crowd where bench pressing a certain number of reps would really, uh, the dads would go for that. Great. Speaker 4 00:09:12 We would be careful though, that you have people spotting, you know, one injuries at church, right. So Speaker 0 00:09:17 Yeah, that'd be a miserable father's day. And, Speaker 4 00:09:19 Uh, Speaker 0 00:09:20 As, uh, as us dads tend to get older as you and I both know when we work out that, uh, yeah, it, uh, it can lead to injury from time Speaker 4 00:09:27 To can and takes a long time to recover. There you go. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:09:29 So that's exactly it. So, alright. Uh, number five, a father child event, we talked about this one, uh, we did kind of a sister episode to this one for mother's day. Yeah. Uh, and so, uh, we talked about that for moms. Uh, I think that this isn't something maybe for Sunday morning, like, so you don't have an additional event right then, because I think you'll your odds of good attendance are gonna be poor. Uh, so I think that this is something maybe for father's day weekend, like you were talking about yeah. A father child event, uh, the obvious one is something like a, a daddy daughter dance. Um, I know that that's, that's appropriate for dads with certain age daughters. So I know if you're a, um, a father and you have a 35 year old daughter, you know, you may not want to go to the daddy daughter and she may not want to do the daddy daughter dancing might be cute still. Hey, who knows? Sure. Uh, but just some ideas there, but yeah, especially, I know I've been to them with my daughter when she was younger. Uh, my daughter is 16. Speaker 4 00:10:27 Now your daughter's my daughter and your daughter pro both being teenage years, a little older than mine, but, uh, they may be like, uh, no dad, eh, Speaker 0 00:10:35 I don't think so, dad. Yeah, Speaker 4 00:10:36 Exactly. If, if, if you insist. Speaker 0 00:10:39 Yeah. But I think just, uh, it might be a little tight on time for this cuz you probably needed to be announcing this a few weeks ahead of time. So if you're watching this podcast, uh, here in 2022, you may not have time to do this father child event kind of an idea, but for next year it's something you can kind of be thinking about. I think a daddy daughter dance, or maybe some other ideas, kickball tournaments or those kind things could all be really cool ideas for, uh, kind of a father themed event there. Speaker 4 00:11:06 Yeah. Well here's the next one here? Host a guest speaker. Well, this one, you know, then, I mean it's probably been done quite a bit, but maybe you get in a, uh, a men's ministry leader or something like that, a real man's man, Hey, maybe it could be a, a, a woman speaker that challenges all the dads to be better husbands and fathers <laugh>. Yeah. But, uh, I don't know about that, but, uh, but yeah, you could, but also, you know, there's, you could have a panel of, uh, I know that my church likes to do a lot of Q and a stuff and gets in a panel of not just men, but panel, it could be a panel of dads, you know, that of different, uh, aged kids than you ask different various questions too. Something like that could be yeah, really neat. But, uh, but yeah, you know, it makes it a little bit of an occasion and uh, yeah. Something different. Speaker 0 00:11:51 Yeah, no, that's good. I, I think that, uh, you know, for a lot of churches they can bring in a local celebrity or someone like that, or maybe there's someone in your church that, uh, maybe they were a high school football hero back in the day or yeah. Someone that has some kind of a story like that. And maybe they're not even doing the whole message. Sure. But just kind of, uh, recounting something, uh, or someone that people in your area would know depends on your church, obviously. Right. But I think that having someone that is not normally the one speaking is a good idea. And I'll say this too, as a lot of pastors that listen to our podcast are fathers themselves. Right. And there's nothing wrong with having that weekend off. I think it would be a pretty good time to spend some time with your kids and just enjoy service and maybe not have to prepare the whole message, uh, over father's day weekend. Like we were saying there, so Speaker 4 00:12:37 Absolutely good Speaker 0 00:12:39 Stuff. All right. Last one, probably the most important I'd say is honor fathers during service. Yeah. Uh, so I think this is something that's really important. Here's something that I have, uh, I have caught wind of is that mother's day, the theme for mother's day services is typically, oh, moms are so great. Uh, we love moms. Aren't moms the best. We just, they they're just amazing. And then that's all well deserved. I agree with all of those things, I just said, moms are great. I love my mom. My wife is a great mother. I really, I cherish mothers. Yeah. However, for father's day, the theme is often the opposite it's Hey dads, we really gotta step it up. We're not doing enough as dads. You're you're too distant. You're not loving your kids enough. We need to pick it up dads, right? Yeah. Could you imagine giving that message on mother's day? Hey moms, no, you're not doing enough. You know, you are not doing it right. Moms, you need to pick up the game that wouldn't go over well, right. Speaker 4 00:13:37 No, us dads and, and husbands are already on thin ice as, as it is. Right. So exactly. Uh it's uh, yeah. And it, dads are always known as the ones that need to step it up, so. Speaker 0 00:13:47 Right. And, and so like, isn't it, is it any wonder that it's easier to get moms to want to come to church on mother's day, right? Yeah. Than get dads to come on father's day. But that's when we're doing really very different things. A lot of times I'm not accusing every church, I just am telling you what I have witnessed. I think we all get the importance of dads, but this is number seven. I think it's important that we honor fathers during the service. Yeah. Yeah. And so if you have a message and it very well maybe deserve that dads, do I, I agree. There's lots of dads and all of us need to step it up and become better fathers to our kids, better husbands to our wives. I'm all for issuing a challenge. I would maybe suggest holding back on that and not doing it on the day that we choose to celebrate dads. Right. Not doing it on father's day. And instead having one that honors dads, uh, and really praises dads and celebrates the hard work Speaker 4 00:14:41 Because then they come back because then they come back next Sunday and then you can go hard on, then you that's. Right. Yeah. So Speaker 0 00:14:48 Kick him in the teeth next week. That's really that's right. The solution to all this. So that's fun. But I, I think just, uh, taking the time to honor dads, having dad stand, uh, uh, if you're the kind of church that lays hands on people, then you would have people around them lay hands on them, honor, bless dads, uh, take, take some time, really just to do those kinds of things. And yeah, I think that can change the culture, uh, and you can see more, uh, turnout and, uh, have a bigger impact on dads on father's day, if you do those kinds of things. Speaker 4 00:15:18 Agreed. Agreed. Speaker 0 00:15:20 Yeah. That's it. Any closing thoughts or anything Ian, anything as we're kind of wrapping up here? I Speaker 4 00:15:24 Seven, I, you know, you know, as I consult with so many pastors, uh, most of them are dads, you know, and, and I would just say to, you know, our listeners and viewers that, you know, Hey, we appreciate you guys, you know, and, and, uh, you deserve to be honored, you know, and, uh, and, uh, dads have a challenge in this day and age. So I think that, uh, you know, to, to go to church, to be honored and, uh, to, uh, be celebrated even by your heavenly father, I think dads need to know that they are celebrated by their heavenly father. And, uh, we appreciate you dad, pastors, dad, ministry leaders, and, uh, keep up the good work. And then also, if you are not doing good work, step it up, <laugh> let the challenge, let the rebuke come from us and not from, uh, maybe church so much this weekend. Speaker 0 00:16:11 <laugh>, that's, it I'll end with one other little, little kind of caveat or caution. Uh, the numbers bear out that about half of the people in your church don't have a good relationship with their dad, or there's some kind of attention there, or they had an absentee father or there's some kind of abuse or there's so many issues. And I think that's where a lot of this tension comes. Yeah. And I just think we need to be sensitive to that. I don't think you throw out the baby with the bath water. You don't say, you know, we're not gonna say anything because right. You might offend somebody. I think that's, that's the wrong approach on this. Yeah. But I would say that you do need to be sensitive to all of the people in your church that don't have a, a good relationship with their father or father's day as a reminder of painful times and things that were hurtful to them there. Speaker 0 00:16:58 So be sensitive to that. I'd say even speak to it, but don't spend the majority of your time there. And I think the, the point of that is pointing to our father, uh, pointing to, to our heavenly father, who is the one who, uh, is the best dad and remembering that, that we all have a father in him. And so I think just kind of keeping that in mind as you're doing it, but in the end, it's important that you celebrate dads and we hope you guys have a great time doing that here in a couple weeks. So absolutely we'll leave it at that for this week. Uh, thank you guys so much for being a part of our rewrite family. If this has been helpful to you, or you maybe got an idea that was, uh, something you might want to put into place this year or next year, uh, go ahead and hit the like button, uh, share this, give us a comment, subscribe, follow, do all those kinds of things you can do wherever you're watching this episode. Thank you guys so much for being a part, thanks of our rewrite family. And we'll catch you guys next week. Speaker 0 00:17:51 Thanks for listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out online at reach, right studios.com. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next week.