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Take a sabbatical!

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Everyone doing ministry in your church needs a three-month break every seven years or so. This includes your minister, elders or PCC, ministry leaders, youth team and Sunday school teachers. Why? Because the Bible commends it, and it is good for us.

First, the bible commends it. When Jesus asked his friends to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:32), he was speaking from a heart shaped by his upbringing. At any point in his younger life, he was looking forward to a rest, every 7th day, the three major religious festivals in the year, and every seven years there was a Sabbath year when the land was to rest. For sure, there would be seasons like seed time and harvest when everyone was working flat out, but the law of God (an expression of his grace) would force people to stop. That rhythm of sevens seems baked in to our psychology and these patterns in scripture carry a simple message for all of us, do the same!

Second, it’s good for you. Every seven years the land had a rest (Leviticus 25:1-7). The seventh-year rest was known in Hebrew as shmita, which means release. It was a rest for the land but it was also a change of pace and purpose for the people. Their workaday focus on cultivation shifted to gathering and eating what the land produced without their help.

This is the core value of a sabbatical for a Christian leader; the pace and purpose of their work changes so that they may be rested, re-focussed, and renewed. For an extended season that leader stops sowing, weeding, reaping, and threshing. Their focus shifts entirely to gathering, building up a savings account of material they can draw on in their future ministry.

We are God’s creatures, and this is how we are designed to function. Try not getting that seventh-day rest for a sustained period of time and you will suffer psychologically or physically. We have different festivals, and different holidays, but the principle is the same, they are there for our good.

The idea of a sabbatical is so powerful that secular organisations are beginning to embrace it. In his lovely book Recovery, the lost art of convalescence Gavin Francis, an Edinburgh GP, writes:

“In my own GP practice, my colleagues and I have formalised a compromise into our contracts as a three-month break every five years. I return from my own sabbaticals relaxed, reinspired, and energised by the time away. I can’t rewrite my patients’ employment contracts to make sure that they can access sabbaticals, but I do encourage them to find ways to try”.

(Recovery, Gavin Francis, Welcome Collection, ISBN 9781800810488)

Along with Paul Coulter of Living Leadership I have spent a lot of the last year talking with people in Christian ministry about their sabbaticals and writing a Sabbatical Toolkit  which is now available from the Living Leadership website. Our passion is to enable people in ministry to keep going and enjoy serving the Lord, we see these rhythms of seven as essential for effective Christian work. Why not raise this issue with your leaders and start thinking together about how the life of your fellowship may be enriched and its impact enhanced not by working harder but by learning to rest?

Achieve more by doing less and doing it better. To do this you all need a sabbatical!

The both… and… mentality

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There are eighty-five billion nerve cells in your brain, only slightly fewer than the number of stars in the galaxy! But the real work is done by the connections between them. There are around one hundred such connections for every brain cell. Every time a tiny packet of a chemical messenger crosses one of these connections something important happens in your head.

These one hundred and eighty-five billion connections firing constantly can monitor your temperature, move your thumb, or make you seethe with resentment. Whatever your ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ is it is intimately connected with this activity in your brain – we are whole beings, not independent spirits hitching a ride in some passing flesh. Christians believe that the psyche (your self) is more than just your brain, but our minds are intimately connected with our brains. Those brain cells are important to your health.

When people are unwell mentally it comes down to something happening, or not happening, in their brain. But that is a controversial statement among Christians. Is anxiety an illness or is it really a failure to trust in God? Is depression a genuine affliction or is it really a sinful refusal to rejoice in the Lord? Is a psychotic episode the result of those brain connections not working properly or are those voices really those of an evil spirit?

Sadly, these discussions often take place in an ‘either… or’, atmosphere that results in tetchy debate and very polarised answers to the problems we face. Instead, we need a ‘both… and’ mentality. Yes, poor mental health may have a spiritual cause, but it is more often about that complicated organ between our ears.

Christopher Ash, in his wonderful little book, ‘Zeal Without Burnout’ is helpful on this. He takes us back to Genesis 2:7 where man is made of dust from the ground and given life by God breathing into it. We are spirit, and we are dust, he says. Christians are attuned to nurturing the life of the spirit, but often neglectful of our dust. Christopher points out that this can lead to serious problems sooner or later. Often, they are mental health problems, burnout, anxiety or breakdown.

What causes this? The list is endless, stress, lifestyle, abuse, neglect, family history, trauma, etcetera, etcetera. Mental health issues have complex origins and far-from-simple solutions. That is why we need a ‘both (spiritual)… and (psychological)’ approach.

You find this is scripture. When Elijah ran for his life after the battle of the prophets on Mount Carmel, he was so upset he just wanted to die. What did he need most, a fresh encounter with God or a nice meal and a good night’s sleep? God gave him both, and a lot of exercise, a forty day walk to Mount Horeb. Then came the spiritual bit, speaking in a quiet voice, God reassured and re-commissioned Elijah.

Here’s what that looks like. A godly friend of mine has been diagnosed with depression, I pray for him, and we mull over scripture in our conversations, but I also meet him to walk in the hills and encourage him to go to the gym. I encouraged him to see his GP before he was diagnosed and to try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy when it was offered. An ‘either… or’ approach could reject therapy in favour of purely ‘spiritual’ ministry. Instead, I am commending a ‘both…and’ mentality, harnessing God’s common grace in recent research, and his special grace in the gospel towards his people.

Everyone needs the gospel; special grace that re-connects believers with God. But there are times when we need to access the gifts God gives through his common grace to everyone, doctors, nurses, therapists, medicine. The list, like the need, is endless.