Jesus said to them, "Come apart and rest for a while."
-- Mark 6:31
The Lord ordered His disciples to "come apart" and "rest" before they came apart. Preaching the Gospel in a place of deep religious and political division was quite stressful. I am sure they worshipped and took rest on the Sabbath Day. Once in a while, however, these full-time ministers needed more.
Hence the word "sabbatical," from Sabbath, has become part of our ministerial and educational vocabulary. Though common for educational professionals, it is seldom used or applied to Pastors in the church today. Ironically, it has never been needed more.
I've just returned from this rare gift of a sabbatical given to me by our wonderful church. I was relieved of duty in June and July, while our excellent Pastoral Intern and Elders held the fort. It is only the second sabbatical I have been given in 34 years of pastoral ministry. My wife and I made the most of it with some much-needed rest, a little travel, a few reunions to reconnect with our children and other family members, with time left over to write a book. Thank you, Lord, and thank you, church!
If you have a God-called, well-trained, hard-working, full-time Pastor, you have a gift from God. Value them wisely. They don't just work on Sundays.
A good Pastor will typically take 20 or so hours each week to prepare the main sermon for Sunday. They labor a few hours more to prepare evening or midweek services. Another 20 or so hours are spent on the routine duties of administration, counseling, visiting, worship planning, and a host of other every day or every week functions. Throw on top of that another 10 to 20 hours when unplanned events occur. Unplanned events might as well be planned because you can plan on unplanned events happening all the time. These are things like emergency surgeries, crisis counseling, weddings, and funerals. All in all, your Pastor puts in 50 to 60 hours a week or more, every week, often seven days a week, with never a weekend off to take mini-trips with the family.
Without generous vacation and an occasional sabbatical, your Pastor is going to come apart. I have been blessed, for the most part, by the churches I have served in this regard. Most of my peers have not. Many have burned out. Others have dropped out. I have an old friend who even resorted to purposefully doing something immoral just to get out from under the constant pressure of pastoring the church.
If you are a church leader, call your other leaders together and examine your vacation and sabbatical policy for your Pastors. They work hard. They work weekends. They have family. They have left family in other states to live among you and serve the church. Consider guaranteeing them at least four full weeks of vacation, more for every decade of service in the church, and not just your church. Give them a six- to eight-week sabbatical every seven to 10 years. Let them do some major recuperating and perhaps some writing.
This will tell them you love and appreciate them. This will tell them you value their service to the church. This will tell them to come apart before they come apart.
Chuck DeVane is the pastor of Lake Hamilton Baptist Church. Call him at 501-525-8339 or email [email protected].