Sabbatical

Days pass
Years vanish
And we walk sightless among the miracles
Jewish Sabbath Prayer.

Less than a month from today, I will begin a 3 ½ month sabbatical from my position as Senior Pastor at San Clemente Presbyterian Church.  Now that Easter Sunday has come and gone in glorious fashion, I am turning my attention to the final preparation for that small but significant transition in my life.

In one sense this sabbatical has been a long time coming.  This summer marks 20 years of full time Christian ministry for me.  What began when I was taken on the full time staff of Youth For Christ to lead a local high school campus evangelism ministry in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood later led to ten years as the College Minister and Associate Pastor of Christian Discipleship at Hollywood Presbyterian Church and then the past nine years here at SCPC. 

When I started my pastorate at SCPC they wrote into my terms of call at sabbatical after seven years.  But in our seventh year we were finishing a building project, so we postponed it a year, and then last year (my eighth) one of my associate pastors was diagnosed with cancer and things felt too uncertain for me to take the sabbatical.  Now, a year later, my lay leaders and staff team are as strong as ever.  Our church is in a wonderful, even quite surprising, season of growth.  And all of goals that I was brought here to accomplish seem, well, accomplished. 

So, now what?

 

For many pastors, these kinds of milestones are either marked by tiredness or restlessness.  They are either burned out or bored.  I am neither.  Not even close.  As I told a search committee for another church that was gently inquiring if I was interested in their position, “I am pleasantly, passionately and permanently called to San Clemente Presbyterian Church.”  Indeed, I have never been more energized or excited about ministry than I am right now. 

But, I have had a growing sense that it is time for a holy pause, for a lingering moment for the church and for me to catch our breaths and reflect upon all that God has been doing in our congregation and (for me, anyway) my life. 

In many, many ways, the days have indeed past and the years have vanished far more quickly than I can fathom.  (Was it really 20 years ago now that I began my career in ministry by leading a mission trip to the Yucatan Peninsula?  Has it really been 14 years since I was ordained a pastor?  Has it really been nine years since I walked into SCPC on that bright Sunday morning to give my candidating sermon and submit to a vote on my calling to be pastor of the church?  Note: to the two people who voted “no” that day.  I don’t know who you are, but I think it turned out ok.) And sometimes I get so immersed in the days and years that I miss the “miracles”.  To see then, embrace them and base the next season of my ministry on God’s “doings” rather than my own is what my sabbatical is about for me.

Yes, I have a few structured goals for the time.  And thank God for the Lily Foundation Clergy renewal grant that has funded my sabbatical and some great opportunities for my church during this season.  But mostly, the sabbatical is time for that holy pause.  A time to look back and open my eyes to the little miracles that God has done all around me and allowed me to part of in some small way, take a deep breath and say “thank you”.  Oh, it will be much more than that also, but for today, that is enough.

For the next few weeks I will be posting pre-sabbatical preparatory thoughts and inviting anyone who would like to, to travel along with me. 

Next Post: Sabbatical Blogging.