When I started my sabbatical, I began by outlining some goals and things I wanted to do during this time. Here are those things as I outlined in my journal before I started this process:
1. Stay committed to a Bible study.
When I started, I had 2 small groups in mind and now I'm in a totally different one. My good friends, Buz and Jolen, invited me into their Life Group. Life Center North calls their small groups "Life Groups" because we are encouraged to do life together with the people in that group. Here are some small group truths I've been learning:
- You have to invite people. I would never had joined this Life Group if my friends hadn't invited me! But they did and I felt welcomed from the very beginning.
- The "perfect" small group doesn't exist. You pretty much just have to get over yourself and commit to one. This is the first small group I've been in where everyone is not the same age and it's not a bunch of single girls. Everyone else is married and most of them have kids. I should have joined one of these a long time ago! I usually choose to be in small groups with other single people, but how are we supposed to grow if we're in a group of people exactly like us?
Should you be in a small group if you're not already in one? Is there someone you can invite to join you if you are in one?
2. Read.
I hope you've heard the phrase "be a lifetime learner." I wanted to take my extra time and really dig into some books, not just start 20 and never finish one of them. I've been reading some books about ministry, a fictional read and some others about spiritual growth. One of my favorites has been Praise Habit by David Crowder.
How are you growing spiritually and mentally?
3. Spend my extra time with the Lord.
I didn't want to just end up hanging out with my friends instead of leading at youth group. Part of this was an intentional time spent each day reading the Bible, journaling and praying. The other part was setting aside time each week to go to a coffee shop and sit down for a couple of hours to read and journal. An important habit to have during this time was to keep journaling what I was hearing from the Lord and what was going on in my head during my time of rest.
I also planned a couple of half day prayer retreats, a full day prayer retreat and took part in a women's one day retreat offered by our church.
How much time are spending with the Lord? Do you need to dial something back for a little while so you can spend that time with God?
4. Keep the Sabbath.
I thought this would be easy now that I have a job with weekends off, turns out its still hard to do! It's been fun to see how different this looks each week as I try to keep a whole day to rest. It wasn't long before I totally understood why the Jewish leaders in the Bible had so many rules about this day. I quickly started thinking, "Now wait, is this work?" or "Am I resting right now?" But Jesus has a more go with the flow kind of approach: "Jesus said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'" (check out the whole context in Mark 2 and 3). So my Sabbath looks different every week. Sometimes cooking dinner is therapeutic and other times it's work, so I throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. Sometimes putting my laundry away is restful and sometimes I save it for Monday.
Another part of keeping the Sabbath meant that I needed to rest from the church where I did ministry and go to another church, somewhere where I didn't know the people up front and what was going on in the church body. I needed to go somewhere where I could worship and listen without doing any ministry, but I'll talk more about that in another post.
Are you getting enough rest on a weekly basis? Is there something you need to give up for a little while so you can be energized?
5. Pray about ministry.
I started my three month sabbatical with the intention of being involved in ministry again when it was over (I asked some close friends and my youth pastors to keep me accountable in this). I decided to take a break so I would be better prepared to minister when I came back. I left it pretty open, asking the Holy Spirit to lead me where I should serve and having no specific ministry that I committed to return to. This was the part I was most afraid of - what would happen if I didn't hear the Lord tell me anything specific before I returned to ministry? What if I just ended up in same patterns again? A third of the way through, God gave me an answer. He gave me a big picture vision and how I pursue that in the next year or so is more up to me and the church I serve in.
Are your gifts and talents being used in your ministry? Are you stagnant or are you moving forward? Have you spent time praying for those in your ministry?
6. The 80/20 rule.
This last one was my youth pastor's thought and not mine, so I don't get to take credit on this one. He asked me as I stepped out of high school ministry for those three months to not completely check out. He asked me to stay in it for 20%. Ultimately ministry is not about me, it's about God using me to minster to others. I am honoring that committment I made to serve God by still allowing myself to be used during this time. This 20% has included grabbing coffee with some students every once in a while, talking with them when I see them at church, sending them a text or Facebook message, even playing Draw Something on my phone with them. I don't say, "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that, I'm on a break." In some cases, it means keeping in contact with them, sitting down to talk with them and checking in to see how they are doing. In other cases, it means asking other leaders to jump in. In all cases, it means taking a minute to ask the Holy Spirit what to do next.
One of the most helpful things I did when planning out this time was that I put it all in my calendar. It forced me to make sure I wasn't hanging out with friends all week instead of neglecting the time I had put aside to spend with the Lord.
Can you take one of these steps to get energized?
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