A Farewell to Summer 2026: How to Go From Good to Better

I feel it in the sticky air, the saturated hair clinging to my neck, the beaded drop of sweat running down my arm. Summer holds on with heavy breath. Even August can feel like a sauna.

Never mind that Hobby Lobby says it’s time for chai and pumpkin spice, bonfires and bundles of hay. Summer isn’t sleepy quite yet.

The struggle? With my kids back in school, my calendar is filling with afternoon meetings and interviews, and I don’t want to look humidity-zapped. My solution? Stay bare-faced, hair twisted into a clip until shortly before I have to look ready for the day.

This means I can sit on my front step under the gentle weight of the sun for a while. It means curled hair doesn’t undo itself while I’m at my treadmill desk.

And it also means I finished the last few curls four minutes before a Facebook Live, and it’s a miracle I had mascara on both eyes.

Maybe you feel like you’re falling into fall too. 

Barely ready.

Rarely at your best.

And yet, there’s a quiet, undeniable inkling that something is missing.

• Conversations in driveways and over casual dinners.
• Cheery hellos and neighbors helping neighbors.
• Pretense-free, faith-forming honesty.

Perhaps this dream has lain dormant for a while as you fit all the necessaries into your day-to-day. Perhaps you’ve never laid a finger on this desire for an old-fashioned kind of neighborhood, where kids play in the street and adults converse on porches. But the tumble from summer to autumn has you daydreaming.

What if I had friends right here on my street?

What if I could make a little bit of a difference in this corner of the world?

What if my faith started a ripple effect in my neighborhood?

If I could, I’d offer you an orange-mango-banana smoothie with a squeeze of fresh lime, and we would say farewell to summer together. But then we would ask ourselves where we go from here. 

From the good of summer to the even better of intentional conversations and budding friendships and faith spilling organically into our lives.

From the joy of slow sunsets and lazy mornings to life-giving rhythms that make room for other people. 

From the carefree to camaraderie.

From Good to Better

I’ve been the one peering around the corner, intimidated by the unknowns, underestimating what I could possibly offer. I get how overwhelming it is when you assess the ginormous gap between where you are and where you hope to be someday.

I wanted a map for missional living. Someone to tell me exactly what to do and how to do it and when to do it. Formulas to override the need to rely on the Holy Spirit.

It makes me think of the half-marathon map I have in an open tab on my laptop. If you know my weird dislike of the color purple, it would amuse you to the nth degree that this course map is purple. The route squiggles in dark purple through hilly and historic sections of Cincinnati, then bends towards the river and beelines on flatter terrain towards the finish line. I want to applaud the genius who mapped the course for this thoughtfulness. 

But actual life is more like a trust fall. We don’t know the mileage we will traverse or our expiration date. We can bank on unmovables like encountering resistance . . . and God’s sustaining grace. But the hard parts and coasting stretches? We take them as they come. We don’t get them marked on a map.

Interestingly, it’s the same strategy that gets me up the steepest inclines that also makes missional living accessible. The taller the hill and the more angled the slope, the shorter my steps become. Baby steps, as rapid-fire as I can manage. They burn your calves, but when I settle into a rhythmic motion, I actually speed up. 

Baby steps break the hill down into doable sections, just like they reduce the overwhelm as we move towards a missional lifestyle. They might seem inconsequential in comparison to the growth you hope to see, but here’s the thing. When you’re facing the right direction, every baby step takes you closer to where you want to go.

Keep this in mind as you linger a moment longer in your front yard, as you wait to close your garage door until you’re finished carrying everything inside, as you acknowledge a neighbor out walking her dog, as you tell God thank you out loud, as you casually admit where you’re in still in progress and in need of grace, as you gently lean into a conversation with your ears open to the God-nudges.

You don’t need a detailed roadmap to move towards a missional heart, neighbor friendships, and ripple-effect faith. You just need a set direction and a series of baby steps.

For your heart (and if you like, for your wall or dashboard or mirror), here is a manifesto to define the direction:

We posture our hearts like an open door, welcoming our neighbors into our hearts, homes, and lives.

We let the things God is doing in our own lives ripple out beyond us.

We cultivate lives worth imitating through a rhythm of spending time daily with God.

We live from the overflow of grateful hearts.

We don’t push our words ahead of our actions.

We are humble, honest, and interruptible.

We take notice of those around us.

We create margin in our schedules for doing life with our neighbors.

We know the direction is more important than the pace, so we keep taking baby steps even when we feel imperfectly ready.

We are nurturing, one rhythm at a time, an uncommon normal.

Need more baby step ideas? I send a short, neighboring tip-of-the-week email with practical baby steps for missional living in your neighborhood. 

And finally, could we pray together as we close?

A Prayer as We Say Farewell to Summer

Lord, as we let go of summer, grow our anticipation for what’s ahead. Give us a vision for what You long to do in our neighborhood. Keep our hand tucked into Yours and our hope stayed on You. Baby step by baby step, help us to lean into love, value the people right in front of us, and let our faith gently ripple into our conversations. In Your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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