Four Summer Ideas for Building Family Faith

Sarah Pedrozo details four ways families can grow in faith together during the summer months.  

It’s the first week of June! That means school is out (or will be soon), or, if you are a homeschooling family, the at-home schoolwork is done. Now is the time for the long, slow days of summer. Hopefully, that conjures up images of camping in the backyard, bike rides around the neighborhood, catching fireflies, and lots of running barefoot.   

But besides all these fun activities, summertime also offers us a chance to experience and grow in faith in unique ways. At the end of each religious-education year, I send out a few ideas to the families in my parish of how to continue to grow in faith during this season. I’m sharing four ideas below, and I hope you’ll find them helpful. 

Take God with You 

One of the best, and easiest ways to foster faith formation is to visit different Catholic churches. If you are traveling, make sure to attend Mass in the town you visit. Before you go into the new church, ask your kids to take special note of the architecture. You’ll be surprised at what they notice and the connections they can make.  

For example, my family once attended Mass at a church where the water from the baptismal font ran down the center aisle and wrapped around the altar in two channels. The presider and altar servers actually crossed a little bridge to go onto the altar. Another time, on a trip to the beach, we attended a small church that featured a huge sea mural behind the altar. To the side of the altar, the bow of a real fishing boat projected about four feet out of the wall. A statue of Mary, Star of the Sea, was perched on top of it.  

As you might imagine, both of these churches gave us a wealth of conversation after Mass. Not only did my kids get to see firsthand how the worship space of churches reflects the culture and needs of its particular parish, they could also recognize the universality of the Catholic Church. The church building might have looked different, but the Mass was the same.   

Visiting different churches this summer can be especially fruitful, because it is a Jubilee Year. Find out which churches in your diocese have been designated as Jubilee sites, and make a plan to visit one. If possible, go out and enjoy lunch together afterward, or pack a picnic and eat together at a nearby park.  

Read Good Books 

Many public libraries sponsor summer reading programs to promote reading while the kids are off school. This usually means signing up for the Summer Reading Club and tracking the books read over the weeks at home. In the public library in my town, children who read 30 books over the summer are awarded a special certificate at the end of the program.   

In my parish, we have dozens and dozens of wonderful children's books that are available for our catechists to use during Religious Education classes. During the summer, I move the books onto bookshelves and put them out in the narthex of the church. Families can come by and check out some books in the same way they do at the public library.  That way, kids have a chance to read Scripture and saint stories, and continue to be formed in their faith. Like the other libraries, we will also award a special certificate to kids who reach their goals and let them  pick a prize from our box of religious items, such as a holy card, bracelet, etc.  

But even if your parish doesn’t have a lending library set up, most religious-education directors are happy to lend out the books they have. Just email and ask if it's possible to use some of those resources over the summer — and be sure to return everything before classes start again in September.  

Practice Praying 

Summer is also the easiest time to focus on prayer. Without the pressure of homework, sports, dance, gymnastics, and all the other activities typical to the school year, summer gives us a chance to slow down a little and do some of the things we never seem to have time to do.  

To practice praying, it’s helpful to make prayer concrete. Set up a small prayer space somewhere in your home. It can be as elaborate or as simple as you would like, but all you really need is a Bible and a candle, placed on top of a green cloth, because summer falls during Ordinary Time (after Pentecost, which is June 8 this year). Add some pictures or holy cards of your favorite saints and family members and make a plan to gather around the prayer space and pray together. Summer months are also a good time to visit the Adoration Chapel at your parish.   

Model Life-long Learning 

Possibly the most important way to impact your children’s faith is to show them that faith is important to you. Let your children see you reading Scripture or praying the Rosary. When you go to borrow those children’s books from your parish, pick up some adult spiritual reading for yourself, and be visible when you read those materials.

As we know, what we do speaks ten times more loudly than what we say. If we want our children to be adults who pray, then we have to show them what that looks like by doing it ourselves. There’s really no shortcut around that. Your children will know if something is really important, because they will see you do it.

Summertime comes and goes. These few weeks will fly by and before we know it, it will be time to pick out new school supplies. But hopefully incorporating a couple of these ideas will help keep your family connected to each other and to God, and arrive at the beginning of the new school year rested, rejuvenated and ready to go again.  

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Copyright 2025 Sarah Pedrozo
Images: Canva