Labor Day is a good day to think about sabbaticals, that elusive extended period of time away from the church and pulpit. We pastors usually get extended time off by being fired, quitting, or retiring.
I never had a sabbatical, not after serving as pastor for more than a decade in two different Southern Baptist churches. By way of abject confession I’m sharing why my resume would not include any brief or extended period away from my church for renewal and rest:
I never asked.
Had I asked, the two wonderful congregations where I served longer pastorates would likely have worked with me to arrange some period away. I am none the worse for not having done that but believe now that it is a good thing for a pastor (and ministerial staff as well) to be able to take an extended time away from their church for a sabbatical.
There is, I admit, a subset of SBC pastors who have slipped into the unhealthy and unproductive attitude that they are overworked, underpaid, that the work is uniquely difficult. These are the brethren who depress gatherings of ministers with their personal and church woes. Unfortunately, some churches have experience with lazy and unaccountable ministers who have not served well but these are a minority. Most of the tens of thousands of SBC pastors and staff ministers serve well and faithfully.
But it is tough for the average pastor. The SBC as a whole is flat or declining meaning that most churches are not growing and that many are having difficulty properly supporting a fulltime pastor. Folks in the pews have far more exposure to the megachurches with their celebrity pastors who aren’t like you and me and the average SBC church pastor. The amount of respect given to the minister has been eroded by our scandalous, greedy, immoral, and racketeering fellow clergy. There is that consumer mentality among many prospective church members which leads to an attitude from the pews more focused on what the church and staff can do for them and their family than how they can serve Christ through the church.
All this adds up to the pastor having to sustain a higher level of stress. (And they want to take away our beloved Housing Allowance on top of all this!)
So, churches, give the guy a sabbatical who has labored for the Lord and the church five or ten years faithfully. Pay him during that period. Tell him not to worry about anything, the church will take care of the routine ministry needs while he is away. Tell him to go somewhere where he can enjoy himself (and family, of course), where he can develop fresh, new ideas. Where the daily pressures have been suspended.
Our moderate and liberal colleagues who identify with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have a plan and program in place for sabbaticals. If we SBCers have anything, I haven’t seen it. Is the SBC doing what we do best here – talking a subject to death but not actually doing anything about it?
Our North American Mission Board has an information page on sabbaticals along with an occasional article on the subject.
Thom Ranier, LifeWay CEO, had a fairly recent article on sabbaticals. He estimates that 5% of SBC churches offer sabbaticals.
If sabbaticals are only a big church thing in the SBC, then I’m wasting time here. The vast majority of SBC churches are small congregations, single staff. Baptist Press has a nice article (rather dated but still relevant) on one of these. Noteworthy in the piece is that when the pastor returned after his five-week sabbatical he preached a month of ten minute sermons. The congregation liked them. (I know of a couple of pastors for whom I would fund a sabbatical if they would preach 10-minute sermons rather than preaching their 10 minutes worth of sermonic material and expanding it into 45 minutes).
If megachurches are the model for us these days and megapastors are the few, the mighty who are emulated by the average pastors, then here’s a place where something good could come from the mega-satellite-franchised church up the road from you. Almost certainly their pastors takes one or more months away every year.
We invest hundreds of millions of dollars in training and helping Southern Baptist ministers. I would consider setting aside some funding for a sabbatical initiative that would encourage and assist churches in giving their pastor a sabbatical a good investment.
If your association, state convention, or any of our entities have a sabbatical plan for SBC ministers, feel free to comment on it and post a link.
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Photo: Surf fishing at Padre Island, my idea of part of a sabbatical plan. Wiki Commons.
Sabbatical? What’s that? 😉
My small church, less than 200 members, gives our pastor vacation time and sabbatical time. Vacation time for him and the family to get away, and sabbatical time for him to get deeper into the Word. We have a plurality of elders and numerous deacons who take up the slack. He has been here 8 years. If he were called to another church, we as a body would be able to cope for we have experienced men able to fill in until another pastor answered the call. Pastor Blake worked with our church when he first came to prepare us… Read more »
Mike, what’s your church’s policy? How many years before the pastor is eligible for a sabbatical, duration of the sabbatical, how often he can take it? etc.
thanks
I need to dig out the church bylaws from wherever I have it stored and get back to you.
On our last personnel policy update, sabbaticals of 4 weeks were offered to full time ministry staff after 7 years of service. This is a local church. Our full-time CDC director was able to take a month in the summer for her to take her children to visit her entire extended family that lived 15 hours away for 3 weeks–something that changed her family for the better and not possible with regular vacations. Our association offers its DOM 3 months sabbatical after 10 years of service. Since I’m married to him, we took 3 separate international mission trips–not really rest,… Read more »
William,
I think it was one week each first 5 years and two weeks each second five years and three weeks each third five years. But the I find it i will post a positive answer.
Thanks Mike. One or two weeks isn’t a sabbatical, just extra vacation. I wouldn’t turn those down but I’d like to see a month or more for extended faithful service to a church.
I think many pastors would have a hard time explaining to their congregants, who themselves work full time jobs AND volunteer many hours in ministry at church, why they needs several weeks paid leave in addition to their usual allotted vacation time. Ministers should enjoy benefits that reflect those of the average congregant. I doubt most church goers get 4 weeks additional paid vacation for faithful service.
Moz
Moz, As a bi-vocational pastor working a full-time job on top of full-time ministry, I know full-well why pastors need a respite. They not only carry their own burdens and the burdens of their families, but also the burdens of their congregations (not to mention labor in the Word and in prayer). It may not have sounded super-spiritual when Paul told the Corinthians not to “muzzle the ox” and Timothy that “a laborer is worthy of his wages.” Paul was using familiar phrases to help them understand that a pastor’s job is extremely difficult, and he is constantly under the… Read more »
William, I certainly do not disagree with you regarding the high calling and significant workload of a pastor. Having been a bi-vocational pastor, I find your comments to be quite accurate. However, I also find that in a healthy church, many lay church members working in as elders, deacons, bible study leaders, youth leaders, AWANA leaders, etc. also carry their own burdens, the burdens of their families, and also the burdens of the people in their ministry. Why then does the pastor need an addition 4 weeks of paid vacation above and beyond what the average church member receives? Once… Read more »
Moz, I respect the fact that many people volunteer their time and resources in larger churches (I would consider anything over 50 a larger church at this point). All the volunteers you mentioned are a great blessing to the pastor. However, as far as Scripture is concerned, only the pastor is an indispensable office for the local church. The pastor is the only paid office mentioned in Scripture. Thus, if deacon or lay volunteers at the church are experiencing ministry burn out, they can delegate duties and simply take time off from those volunteer positions. Many bi-vocational pastors in plurality-of-elders… Read more »
Also, whatever volunteer work a congregant or deacon may do to help the pastor, they should not do it begrudgingly. If a man is working upwards of 60 hours a week and has little time for his family, he does not have time to be volunteering or working as a deacon. At least not weekly. He should be focusing on his family, his primary responsibility, and to committing himself to attending the regular stated meetings of the church. If he is so overworked that he cannot tend to the spiritual needs of his family, he should not be adding to… Read more »
I think moz does raise something that will be a question of SOME church members, simply because people have different understandings of what a pastor does. Many will understand the stress and recognize the need for time away, while many others may wonder what makes the pastor’s job any different from theirs. On the one hand, I agree that being a pastor, especially if you are a senior or solo pastor, where “the buck stops here”, there is lots of pressure, since the pastor is not only the one responsible for the overall leadership of the church, preaching, counseling, and… Read more »
“…because people have different understandings of what a pastor does.”
That may be the key phrase, Andrew. And we might add “expectations.” In a church of 100 if 75 have different expectations, guess what? You get burn out.
I wouldn’t have a hard time explaining it but would test the waters first with a few leaders in the church.
When pastors continually complain about their work load, burdens, difficulties, and allegedly unique pressures of the work, I’m inclined to recommend a few days off spent working alongside laypeople in secular occupations. I’ve heard far too often from laypeople who are weary of pastors and staff offering themselves as harried, hammered, and hectored in their service. Get a grip or get out. That said, a sabbatical every 5-10 years may be presented as beneficial to both parties. He gets a change of pace, some time and space to ponder new ideas, and relief from a relentless schedule. The church gets… Read more »
I am one who has spent 38 years preaching and teaching. I spent about 20 of those years as an M in Peru. The idea of a sabbatical both intrigues me and intimidates me. It intrigues me because the ideal result is not an extended vacation; it is, instead, an opportunity for the minister to hone his (in the case of pastoral leadership) or her (in those roles, such as administration, education, youth, and children’s ministries) skills. The IMB did not grant us sabbaticals. They did, however, provide and require attendance at conferences where our skills would be honed.These conferences… Read more »