Weekends

Family gatherings can be difficult for pastors.  Everyone else in the family has weekends off work so they're the perfect time for reunions.  But it's our busiest day of the week.  Others can pack up the car on Friday night and return home Sunday night without missing any work.  But it's a bigger investment for clergy (and other church staff) because we have to count it as vacation - a Sunday out of the pulpit.

My side of the family has been meeting on Memorial Day weekend in Des Moines for the past few years.  Last year I felt that I couldn't miss another Sunday in the pulpit because of all my other travel plans.  So I preached that Sunday and then we drove to Des Moines - 3 hours away.  Not only did I arrive tired and spent, but everyone else had already been together for a day, catching up and reconnecting.  I was physically present - I'm in the photos - but I don't know if I was really PRESENT.

This year, my son Rob and I drove up on Friday and looked around downtown Des Moines

for a while.  Now, on Sunday, we have been here two days and shared meals and stories and laughter with the extended family.  There is no sense of rushing or of having missed out on the fellowship.  I am PRESENT.  And it's good, really good.

The pace of my life is starting to change.  The rhythm of Sabbath is beginning.  And I'm finding the time to listen and laugh and breathe in the presence of my beloved family.

Sabbatical vs Vacation

It's inevitable that some people will refer to my sabbatical as "vacation."  I try to be polite and not correct them, but for my congregation, it's really important that they understand the difference.  I take several weeks of vacation every year, time away from preaching and doing the weekly routine of church stuff.  But even during those weeks, I'm never fully off-duty.

I'm sure it's different in multi-staff churches, or even churches with a secretary or administrative assistant.  But when you're a solo pastor who has the church phone number forwarded to her cell phone, vacations are not really a time for totally disengaging from my role as a pastor.  My congregation is good about not contacting me while I'm on vacation, but there always seems to be things that crop up that need my attention, if even briefly.  And if I'm answering an email here, a text there, then I'm not really AWAY from ministry.

Last summer was a perfect illustration.  Clif and I had decided to do a getaway to Colorado, just the two of us.  We didn't want a lot of plans or running around. We just wanted to breathe in the pine-scented air, read and look at mountains.  You know, RELAX.  Except soon after we arrived, I got an email from our newly-hired worship leader that his full-time job had suddenly changed and he would not be available on Sundays anymore - beginning now.  So I had to figure out who would do music at church the next Sunday.  Fortunately, my sister-in-law and her husband graciously agreed to do music and put the lyrics into Media Shout.  Then we got a call from my sister-in-law on Friday.  "Clifford (her husband) is in the hospital and I don't know how to enter the lyrics.  Can you walk me through it?"  Notice that she didn't say, "My husband is in the hospital and we can't do music on Sunday."  She didn't want to ruin my vacation.  But I was worried about my brother-in-law and I was worried about music for worship and so Clif and I looked at each other and said, "We need to go home."  It was only one day early - and this was a highly unusual circumstance - but it highlights the problem with a solo pastor going on vacation. There are a lot of things that a lot of people in the church can do - and they DO them all the time.  But there are always going to be some things that need the pastor's attention, even briefly.

When you add to that the pastoral care concerns - people I know who are sick or grieving or in financial trouble, all of my people and all of their wounds that I carry with me as I pray for them - I don't ever really get a vacation from being a pastor.

Now I'm going to be gone for 3 months.  There is another pastor at the church who will have to figure out emergency musicians or child care workers.  There is another pastor who will answer the church phone and hear all the prayer concerns.  There is someone else filling that role so that I don't have to.  That's what sabbatical is.  Truly letting go of being responsible for a group of people.

When I am a camp director at church camp, I'm never off duty.  If a kid gets sick in the middle of the night, I have to take him to the nurse's cabin.  If a camper misses home and cries, I have to comfort her.  But camp only lasts for a few days - a week at the most.  Being a solo pastor is like being a camp director all the time.  I sleep with my phone next to me in case someone goes to the hospital in the middle of the night.  I feel guilty if I miss a call when I'm in the shower (not too guilty, but still a little guilty that their call went to voicemail).

So this week I'm adjusting to the sound of silence.  No incoming emails related to church stuff.  No texts from my congregation.  No phone calls, like at all.  It's a little disconcerting, this first week, almost like being in the Twilight Zone.  I'm not sure who I am.  I know from experience, however, that this feeling fades and then I get to re-discover who I am and explore my own relationship with God apart from being a pastor.  How fortunate I am to serve a church that understands this and prepares for this and is really ok with all of it.

The Hard Part

I held it together yesterday.  I had to.  Two services, two times to preach, a Sunday School class to teach, a special visitor to welcome, a potluck...I couldn't let my mind go to the saying goodbye part, the see-you-in-three-months part because I knew that I would get tearful and I am a real sloppy, messy, crier.  So I focused on getting through the morning and giving hugs and finishing up all the little tasks I needed to do.

And then this morning I looked at the photos from the blessing yesterday.  My Regional Minister, Bill Rose-Heim, came to bless me as I prepared to leave and bless John Carr as he takes over as pastor during my sabbatical.  I didn't know what Bill would do for the time of blessing, but he had questions he asked of each of us.  For me, the questions were things like, "Will you rest and seek God?" For John, "Will you trust in the gifts God has given you to lead this congregation?"  And even the congregation agreed to pray for both of us.  Then they surrounded us, laying hands on us, and they prayed.  Bill gave the church a walking staff to stand in a visible place for the summer to remind the church that while I am on my sabbatical journey, I am still a part of them.

If I had allowed myself to be more present in that moment, I probably would have cried.  But I held it together.  Until this morning when I looked at the photos and remembered how powerful that blessing was, what a gift it was to me (and I assume to John, too).

And now I need to do one of the most painful steps of entering into sabbatical - hiding my church friends from my Facebook feed.  The only way I can let go of the mantle of pastor is to be unaware of what is happening in their lives - the good and the bad.  But they are also my friends, and I care about them and it feels wrong to be unaware if they are hurt or in trouble.  This is where I must surrender those anxious feelings and trust that God and John and the church herself will care for all the needs that happen while I am gone.  But it's hard.  And it hurts.

My Last Sunday

I think it's probably pretty unusual for a pastor to take two sabbaticals from the same church.  Many churches don't give pastors sabbaticals at all and those that do might require a full seven years before a pastor gets one - which means fourteen years with a church before a pastor gets a second sabbatical.  Most pastors don't stay with a church for fourteen years.

I waited seven years to take my first sabbatical, and while I was on it, I realized I should have taken it sooner.  Seven years is too long, in my opinion, to go without a break from ministry.  So I made sure that my church was prepared to give the pastor a sabbatical after five years, a schedule that more and more churches are following now.

The time leading up to my first sabbatical was filled with angst and excitement. (I preached about this in my sermon this morning.  You can listen if you'd like:  http://mp3.livingwaterchristian.org/worship/2016/messages/LWCC-2016-05-22-Message.mp3)  I felt like a new parent leaving her newborn with a sitter for the first time.  I was sure that no one else could care for my church the way that I could.  I was concerned about what would happen if someone needed me while I was gone.  My stomach was in knots and it took me probably a month before I relaxed enough to really appreciate the sabbatical experience.  Of course, everything was fine, better than fine.  The church had a great time with their sabbatical pastor, and God did some really important work on me.

Everything about this second sabbatical is much calmer.  Instead of feeling like a parent who is turning over the care of her fragile newborn for the first time, I feel like a parent who is sending her child off to overnight church camp for the first time.  There's still some separation pangs - this is a big step for both of us - but there's also excitement and joy at what this "child" will see and do and learn apart from me.

And naturally, there are still a few loose ends for me to tie up so I'm gently easing into this whole sabbatical thing.  But it begins with deep breaths.  And I've already started taking those.

Fresh New Blog

I thought I might just resurrect the blog I used last time I went on sabbatical.  You know, dust it off every five years.  But I'm too technologically limited to figure out how to do that. And maybe it's just as well.  This sabbatical is completely different from last time - in a number of ways.  So I think I'll just start out with a fresh new blog for this fresh new experience.

But first, I have one more sermon to write and lots of emails to send and a few phone calls to follow-up.  And two services and a Sunday School class to get through.  And lots and lots of goodbyes.  But this page will be waiting for me on the other side, when I begin to figure out what it means to sabbath well.