Though sabbaticals are often used for various purposes, the basic idea of a sabbatical is rest. After many years of ministry—some of them quite difficult—I am ready to rest for a while. I am basically a “doer” kind of person, automatically focused on planning and projects. So it will be challenging for me to take a break from doing. But I believe this will be an important discipline for me—really, a kind of fasting. My goal is personal renewal—to prepare myself to be an effective pastor for many more years of ministry. That will require some quiet times with God to reflect on the last twelve years, deal with any outstanding issues, and lay a foundation for continuing on into the future. I’ll need to do some praying, thinking, and healing. I’ll likely need to seek the help of other experienced pastors who have been this way before.
If you’re one of my fellow “doers”, the sabbatical may look to you like an extended vacation. However, while I hope some of this does feel like a much-needed vacation, the goals I’ve mentioned will be quite challenging for me. Of course, there will also still be some things to do. During this first three-month period, I hope to address some of the needs that so often get pushed aside during the hectic pace of my regular schedule: personal growth, family time, simplifying my life, and finishing some personal projects in our home. However, as I’ve been cautioned by the elders, it is so important that these things do not take the place of the main objective of this sabbatical. And I’d appreciate your prayers for that as well.
Best quote: “If you look carefully at a cow through the day, it looks remarkably unproductive. It spends hours chewing and then re-chewing. It takes less than five minutes to download the milk that it took 24 hours to produce. But when you’re creating milk, you just can’t make it go any faster. There are limits in the creativity game. f you are going to create, you need some time to chew the grass and stare into space.” (John Ortberg)
