I recently asked a number of friends to tell me about their experience of taking a sabbatical. One of them wrote, “By setting aside a few months for sabbath rest we are able to dramatically disconnect from life and work as usual and bring ourselves more fully to God and his call upon our lives.”
Christian leaders thrive when their work pattern is sustainable, and careful attention is given to their renewal and wellbeing. This is how a sabbatical can help Christian leaders to flourish.
When Jesus asked his friends to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:32), he was speaking from a heart shaped by the rhythms of grace in the Old Testament. At any point in the year an ancient Israelite was looking forward to a rest.
Every week began with a day off, the sabbath. Every few months there were festivals bringing people together for worship and friendship. And then there was the seventh-year rest (see Leviticus 25:1-7), known in Hebrew as shmita.
Shmita means release; it was a rest for the land, and a change of pace and purpose for the people. Their workaday focus on cultivation shifted to gathering and eating what the land produced without their help.
This is the main purpose of a sabbatical; a leader is released
so that they may be rested, re-focussed, and renewed.
This is the main purpose of a sabbatical; a leader is released so that they may be rested, re-focussed, and renewed. For an extended season that leader stops sowing, weeding, and reaping. Their focus shifts entirely to gathering and storing, building up a reserve for the years ahead.
For years I have used a ‘current account’ and ‘savings account’ model of sustainable ministry. The stuff I am doing in the next few months is drawing on my current account. But I also need a savings account. That is, resources I will not use straight away but store away for the future. A sabbatical is one way that I can replenish my savings account.
It is helpful to have some goals for a sabbatical, not too ambitious though, and more focussed on personal growth than numbers of things done. Jason Kovacs has highlighted five helpful things to consider. The first is release: to pass your work over to others and to decompress. The second is rest: to recover and enjoy a season of sabbath.
A fruitful sabbatical needs some content and so the third goal is renewal and refreshment: to pray, read, study and reflect. Fourth is re-orientation: rediscovering the joy of the Lord and the gospel. And finally, re-entry: to re-connect well with our normal work.
What would a sabbatical look like? I like structure, so my first one was a two-month trip to Poland and Slovakia. It was 1993 and I wanted to see how churches were handling their emergence from communism; I also worked through Matthew’s gospel and taught myself to touch type.
Phil Sweting, CEO of Living Leadership took the opposite approach, “I just set out to meet some people and see what happened”, he said, “This may look fuzzy to others but was of real benefit to me”.
Ask yourself, “What energises me, what am I not
getting enough of in normal life?”
What about your sabbatical? Here’s a suggestion, ask yourself, “What energises me, what am I not getting enough of in normal life?” Start your planning with the answer to that question.
In his lovely little book, Recovery, the lost art of convalescence, Edinburgh GP, Gavin Francis, writes, “In my own GP practice, my colleagues and I have a three-month break every five years. I return from my own sabbaticals relaxed, reinspired, and energised by the time away. I can’t rewrite my patients’ employment contracts to make sure that they can access sabbaticals, but I do encourage them to find ways to try.”
Resources
After asking friends to share their experience of sabbaticals, Dave and others worked with a few of them to put together a Sabbatical Toolkit. It’s available for download free here.
Book: Recovery – The Lost Art of Convalescence by Gavin Francis