THE "S" WORD

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.” (Genesis 2:2)

The title is THE “S” WORD.

What’s the S word? “Sabbatical”.

It’s ironic that I just wrote about my high school English teacher, Mrs. Kane, in my last posting entitled, “A Botched Joke?” because the first person I ever heard talk about sabbatical leave was Mrs. Kane. One day in class she was telling us that college professors often are given each seventh year off as a year of rest and enrichment. She was talking about what a great idea sabbaticals are, and that more professions should offer sabbaticals.

I was not aware (until I started mingling with liberal clergy) how common CLERGY sabbaticals are. For years and years in the Assemblies of God and in the more theologically conservative churches I NEVER hears of pastors taking sabbatical leave. Yet, among liberal clergy, and I don’t mean POLITICALLY liberal clergy, I mean the kind of clergy who don’t take the Bible all that literally and who may believe kind of an “I’m O.K./You’re O.K.” kind of thing, I’ve come to see that sabbatical leave is an extremely common practice. When you’re around liberal clergy, it seems someone is always going on or off a sabbatical.

Lest you think I’m criticizing the liberal clergy about this, I’m not. The evangelical churches are now realizing that the liberals got this thing about sabbaticals right. Our current District Superintendent (like a Bishop) Bob Wise is a strong advocate of pastors taking sabbatical leave. He’s introducing this concept to our District. He’s got quite a job ahead of him! Although he took a couple of sabbaticals during his 33-year-pastorate in Brockton, MA, he’s encountering numerous Assemblies of God clergy who have never heard of taking sabbatical leave and who feel it’s unnecessary. Yet, he’s pressing on with this, saying that if clergy are burned out and unhealthy, they will not have healthy churches.

The past eight months have been extraordinarily difficult ones for me. All the whys and wherefores are MUCH too personal even for ME to write about, but I contacted my District Superintendent in December to seek some counsel and direction. After a few meetings, he’s strongly encouraged me to take sabbatical leave. Yesterday morning, I announced to the church I pastor that I’ll be taking sabbatical leave soon. As I can tend to be one who shoots from the hip and then gives too much or too little information, I had a prepared written statement to read which my wife and Church Board helped me to prepare. It’s been decided I will have two months of sabbatical leave in 2009. One will be soon, and will be for total rest. The other will be later in the year and will be a time of personal and spiritual enrichment.

I must admit I had a hard time accepting all this at first. Whereas I was an incredibly lazy person when I was around 20, by my 40s I’d evolved into a control freak and a work-a-holic. Ultimately, that’s not healthy for me or for anyone around me. I have been really scared about the sabbatical because I’ve thought, “What if I don’t change? What if it doesn’t do any good?”

I’ve had to realize that God has seen me “through thick and thin” as they say. My life’s involved a lot of pain, and a lot of sacrifice. There have also been some great victories and some exhilarating moments. My mother was the type who “saw the glass half empty” and sometimes I’m the type who sees the glass as dirty and already in the dishwasher! (I stole that line from my friend Pastor Rob Woods who stole it from a guy in his church!) Yeah, I can look at the dark side of life which is, well, not good.

Boy, I’ve related to George Bailey, the guy in, “It’s a Wonderful Life” who goes to jump off that wrought iron bridge. He forgot that he was rich in friends and truly had a wonderful life. Remember it took “Clarence” to remind him of all that?! Speaking of Pastor Rob Woods, he happened to send me an e-mail a couple of days ago. He reminded me of a time I preached at his church a few years ago and told me of a young man who was very positively impacted for the cause of Christ that night by my sermon. That e-mail was more special than a million dollar check! So, yeah, I’m kind of burned out...and I need a sabbatical, and as Dick Martin of Laugh-In used to say, “I’ll be a better person for it.” I believe I really WILL!

I’ll be going on my first leg of the sabbatical shortly after Easter. Someone has already asked me if I’ll be e-mailing or posting on the blog during that time. I don’t think so, but I really don’t know. So, that’s the “S” word: sabbatical. I get to go on sabbatical. And speaking of “S” words, I guess that’s pretty SPECIAL!