Sabbatical Season
Plant and harvest your crops for six years, but let the land be renewed and lie uncultivated during the seventh year.
Exodus 23:10-11 (NLT)
Our family has been practicing Sabbath since our boys were babies. We didn’t have that name for it at first, but it was an intentional day of stopping, resting, and delighting as worship. Over the years, that practice has taken on more form and it is so central that our children form life decisions in relation to our weekly Sabbath. We all prioritise resting in Jesus together.
But we’ve never gone the step further to a Sabbatical. I have been in vocational ministry since 2007 - from pastoring to missions to member care. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last 18 years. In Exodus, we see God lay out rhythms of work and rest on the weekly, yearly, and seven-yearly scale. In an agrarian society, the year off from planting gave time for the soil to be restored, and for people to entrust themselves to the Lord in a new way. I imagine the farmer also enjoyed the change of pace!
We’ve been talking about the possibility of Sabbatical for a while. At the start of the year, with Mum’s passing and the wild ride of our home flood/remodel, Sabbatical almost became an emergency necessity.
The Lord gave us other ways to be refreshed and restored, but the invitation to Sabbatical still lingered with us - not as a requirement but as a kindness.
At World Indigenous Missions we have a process for Sabbatical, including board approval and working with a Sabbatical Advisor. We’ve been doing that preparatory work, and we are grateful to announce that Sarah and I are approved for our first ever Sabbatical, which began November 21st and will finish on February 28th.
This isn’t a vacation. It’s a set-apart season to attend to the Lord as He attends to us in a unique way. We will cease all of our normal ministry responsibilities and walk through a three part structure: Rest, Reflect, Refocus.
This is designed to help workers like us:
process the previous years of service
discern areas the Lord wants to challenge, heal, or grow
prepare us for the next season of ministry
Sabbatical is both rest and work of a different kind.
Given the experiences of the last few years, we are hoping the rest portion, which will largely coincide with the holiday season, will provide a special time of connection with Jesus, each other, and our children. Reflection and Refocus stages will help us to assess our current practices, align fully with the work God has ahead for us, and do specific learning related to the new project (Wilderland).
When those ancient farmers took a year to let the ground rest, I wonder if they saw new ways of doing their work? Perhaps they were planting, tending, and harvesting a certain way because that’s how they’d always done it. And maybe, during the fallow year, they saw the land differently, and observed the seasons with fresh eyes - the rest changed the work.
We are so deeply thankful for your continued financial partnership and prayer support. Our desire is to continue in a lifetime of healthy, whole-hearted service to the Lord and His people. We are daily amazed by the generosity and faithfulness that makes our work possible. Pray for us that we would make the best use of the time and receive all that Jesus desires for us.