Remember the Sabbatical
It was one of those ministerial days—if you’re in the work, you know them well. Within two hours of walking in the door, I had reports of an active member in the hospital, another who had died, seven or eight phone calls to return, and several administrative crises that all entered my office without appointments. The most realistic bible verse for ministers is, “with sighs and groans too deep for words.” I exhaled and said my mantra, “Remember the sabbatical.”
It’s becoming my habit these days In 2004, after a year-long process and with advice and assistance from Penny Marler and the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence at Samford University, my church and I received a National Clergy Renewal grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. We had designed a summer of educational activities with a title guaranteed to at least get a reading from a committee:
- “Rediscovering Our Roots: A Parallel Journey of Church and Pastor
Or, What Do Bluegrass, Songwriting, and Spiritual Growth Have in Common?”
Together, we proposed an educational pilgrimage that would take me on a journey in my relational life, my creative life, and my spiritual heritage and roots. At the same time, we designed parallel experiences that would take place at the church so that, during our time apart, we would be thinking together about the same issues. The committee designed a wonderful brochure so the congregation could keep up with where I was and what I was doing. Pastoral care was handled by the staff, and the church was very respectful not to interrupt the time away.
That spring, I prepared for the sabbatical. It was a tremendous spiritual discipline. I had to line up speakers, wrap up everything, and then, when the sabbatical began on May 31, begin to let go of the church. But when the “letting go” took me about three weeks, I finally concluded that there was never a good time to leave. So I just left.
The sabbatical exceeded my expectations. Interspersed between numerous events that summer, I scheduled weeks off to rest and recuperate, as was recommended to me by a committee member who had taken a sabbatical before.
The first week, I spent at Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky, one of the highlights of the summer. The five days of silence with the Trappists was unbelievably rich. At the end of the week, my wife, Vickie, flew up for a weekend in Louisville, where we worshiped on Sunday.
A week later, I went to Maryville, Tenn., to attend a nationally renowned music camp for guitar, mandolin, and banjo players, conducted annually by Steve Kaufman, a noted flat-pick guitar player. For me, music has been a lifelong passion, one I inherited as a child from my bluegrass-playing father. My father went with me, and we spent the week rooming together, attending classes and playing music together late into the night.
That week, my Dad and I spent perhaps the most and best time together we had ever had in our lives. We studied with some of the finest guitar, banjo and mandolin teachers in the world and heard them in concert each evening playing bluegrass, jazz, swing and old time music.
“This is one of the greatest things I have ever gotten to do,” my father told me at the end of the week. That was worth the entire summer.
But it was still only the beginning. Over the next few weeks and months, I traveled to New Mexico to study Native American art and pottery, went to Nashville to explore the music scene and record original music with an old high school buddy, and flew to Great Britain with Vickie to attend the Baptist World Alliance and explore my Baptist roots in Scotland and Oxford.
At the BWA meeting, we spent time with friends and met Baptists from all over the world. After a quick trip to Paris, including a day at the Louvre, we returned home. Finally, the summer and my sabbatical came to a close with a trip to Asheville, N.C., where I spent time writing and reflecting.
At the end of the summer, I returned to a wonderful welcome at the church. Some things had changed, and people had gone through personal transition. Going back to work August 31, only a few days after Katrina hit the Gulf coast, brought significant challenges. But overall, the transition away and the transition home were good. I hit the ground running, but ever since I have thought about what the sabbatical means, both for me and the people I serve.
When I say, “Remember the sabbatical,” I'm not telling myself to “escape into the past.” The experience was much stronger than that. Instead, I'm saying “remember what you learned.”
And what was it I learned that summer?
A whole world is out there. It was interesting to step into other worlds—the Nashville music industry, for example, and the songwriting communities there and in Birmingham. First, these other worlds gave me perspective. They aren't really different from the one I already live in. Whether in Nashville or elsewhere, people network. It’s competitive. You have to work your way up, and sometimes it’s not talent that guarantees success but timing or who you know. Being in this other world helped me realize that, when I am frustrated and want to complain about being a pastor, I can remember that the issues and frustrations are not all that different elsewhere.
Venturing out into this wider world also taught me that the tiny little world called “church” is just a small part of where God is working. And many of the places where that work is occurring are not “religious” places. During my sabbatical summer, I had spiritual conversations with all kinds of people in all kinds of secular settings. For me, the wall between church and world evaporated. My perception of “where the work is” for us in the church has shifted profoundly.
When the only place you ever swim is an aquarium, it’s hard not to think that it’s the whole world. For three months, I got out of mine and saw the world with new eyes. I haven't yet figured out all that this new perspective means, but I call on it again and again, and I remember.
Much of what we spend our time doing may not be all that important. Conversely, some things we neglect are immeasurable. My sabbatical summer was rich with relationships—time spent with my wife, my father, a best friend from high school, my children, and almost all my closest friends from my adult years (thanks to the Baptist World Alliance gathering them together for me!). I returned to my life in Birmingham, realizing that urgent things tend to push aside important things.
Caretakers tend to take care of everything and everyone else at the expense of those who are the most important people in their lives. My sabbatical sent me on a personal journey that has re-ordered my relational energies. I now give more attention to family and friends. When I remember the sabbatical, I remember what matters.
Creativity = Time + Space – Distractions. When I left for sabbatical, I was exhausted. Like many pastors, I had burned the candle at both ends for many years. Responsibilities accumulated, and I was reluctant to stop any of them. Boundary work, I now realize, means saying no not just to things that are easy to dismiss but also to things you like.
I spent part of my summer studying the creative process. I read Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker and studied the craft of songwriting. I gained deep insights into communication, preaching, and writing. The time we spent exploring visual and musical arts has prompted me to make more space for them in my daily life.
My week at a Trappist monastery—not saying a word to anyone for four days—was the beginning. It unleashed a flood of insights and creative energy. It had been a long time since I had felt so mentally rested, dreamed so intensely, and written so much in my journal. I came to a simple formula that at least works for me:
- Creativity = Time + Space - Distraction.
Actually, this process of reducing the distractions and finding the time and space for creativity began before I went on sabbatical and continues even now. The process of getting ready for a sabbatical was itself a spiritual discipline. I have since ended several major outside responsibilities. This process is just beginning for me. I don't intend to withdraw from the world, but I do have to be more intentional about my time.
A minister friend who is new to the work recently told me he was afraid that the creative juices might dry up over time. But I have learned that they don't dry up as long as you make space for them to work. You need time to back away, with no agenda. I continually work to reconstruct my life to make new spaces—not for doing nothing, but to make room for God, for creativity, for spiritual reflection.
As I've carved out these new spaces, I've realized that the people I love and serve have these same needs. Helping them find space, creative growth, and spiritual renewal is an important part of what we should be doing as pastors.
A sabbatical takes planning and work, but it is the educational and renewal experience of a lifetime. I would encourage all pastors to go for it.
Remembering the sabbatical is what I do these days. Maybe a better way to put it is “living it out.” A sabbatical can change you and your ministry. Try it. And then, keep remembering.The Rev. Gary Furr is pastor of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. His article, “Touring Our Own City,” was published on the SPE Website in November 2005.
