Soul Shepherding’s Sabbatical Guide for Pastors has been downloaded over 30,000 times so far. We (Drs. Bill and Kristi Gaultiere) are thankful that pastors, leaders, and missionaries like you have found this resource helpful and then shared it with your church staff or ministry colleagues.
At Soul Shepherding, we provide Sabbatical coaching to pastors from megachurches and smaller churches, men, women, ministry couples, and Christian leaders in education and business.
This article will give you answers to the initial questions you may have about Sabbaticals and planning a Sabbatical, including:
- What is a biblical Sabbatical?
- Things to do (and not do!) on a Sabbatical.
- Common timing and lengths for Sabbaticals.
- Pastor stress statistics and the need for prolonged rest.
- Help in planning a Sabbatical.
To meet the growing need for Sabbaticals, we’ve expanded this free article into some new resources to help you experience a renewing Sabbatical. If this is exactly what you’ve been looking for and you want to dive deeper, we’ve created an all-in-one Sabbatical tool kit with short videos, practical tools, and personal coaching from one of Soul Shepherding’s Sr. Spiritual Directors who specialize in Sabbatical coaching. You can access this at SabbaticalGuide.com.
Ready to explore? Let’s begin…
What is a Sabbatical?
Over the years I’ve worked with lots of pastors and leaders from diverse Christian traditions and most do not understand the heart of a Sabbatical. Their church members or ministry partners especially don’t understand the spirit of a biblical Sabbatical.
A Sabbatical is not a long vacation. It’s not a time to read books on leadership or visit successful churches to learn from them. It’s not a time to write a book, do research, or work on some other special project. These are good things to do and it’s not that you can’t do any of them on a Sabbatical, but they work against the spirit of biblical Sabbath rest.
Also, a Sabbatical is not a job search, and it’s not an elder imposed leave of absence to discipline a pastor. When these activities are done in the name of “Sabbatical,” it breaks down the trust of church attenders.
The purpose of a Sabbatical is extended Sabbath rest!
The biblical precedent and Christian tradition is for pastors to go on Sabbatical once every seven years. Typical Sabbaticals today are from one to six months long, with three being a standard.
A true Sabbatical is a season of Sabbath for prolonged rest. It’s like stringing together a number of Sabbath days. It’s an extended time in which you do no work. You do no pastoring, no leading, no ministering, no visioning the future of the church, no sermon planning. You don’t try to accomplish anything big. You just “do nothing”!
Yes, nothing! Of course, we don’t do nothing as an end in itself — that’d be an empty legalism — our purpose is to worship our Creator and Redeemer (like the Bible teaches in the Sabbath commands of Exodus and Deuteronomy). This is what Dallas Willard taught me when I was meeting with him for personal mentoring for a number of years. He explained that the key to Sabbath rest is: “Do nothing! Don’t try to make anything happen!” Just be with God.
But most of us in Christian leadership can’t rest and BE that freely. So, Dallas would say, “First, you need to train in extended solitude and silence with Jesus.”
Eventually, after your body stops jittering, after your thoughts stop flitting about, after you start feeling your emotions, after your ideal self that performs and pleases is dismantled, after you experience your nothingness and nakedness before God, after you experience unconditional love, then you can hopefully begin to really rest in your body and soul.
We’re putting the words of Psalm 23 to the test. “The Lord is my shepherd,” we say with David. “I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
Ahh! There it is! He restores my soul. This soul restoration comes as we submit to the Lord as our Shepherd, lying down and being still in his presence.
I tell pastors, including all kinds of men and women in ministry, that to help you do nothing you need to do something. At SabbaticalGuide.com, we coach you in using some spiritual practices as “something’s” that can help you to relax in God’s sovereignty and care. Even if you feel led of the Lord to have a project focus during your Sabbatical, give strong consideration to devoting the first third or more of your time away with resting in God’s lovingkindness and mixing into your project other extended times for prayer and soul care. I call this “relaxing and rejoicing in the presence of the risen Christ” in my book Your Best Life in Jesus’ Easy Yoke: Rhythms of Grace to De-Stress and Live Empowered.
Why Do Pastors Need Sabbaticals?
When I met with Dallas Willard he’d ask me, “Bill, how is your ministry to pastors going?” We shared a great concern for the well-being of pastors. One day he told me, “Pastors ought to be the happiest people on earth — let’s work with God to make it happen!”
In Dallas’ endorsement for Hilltop Renewal Center in Idyllwild, CA (a great retreat center where we’ve been blessed to lead some of our Soul Shepherding Institutes), he emphasizes the need for pastor retreats and Sabbaticals:
I can state without wavering that the single greatest need of the church today is the restoration of ministers. What is required is a quite different approach to their life and work. It is a matter of leading them into a massive shift of the dynamics of their personality under God, and one that cannot be done by more books and conferences. They need to be taken out of the circulation for a sufficiently long time to re-vision and re-structure their lives in communion with Jesus and his kingdom.
While some pastors and other Christian workers are afraid to step aside from their church or ministry for a Sabbatical, most would like to do this if given the opportunity! But Elder Boards, congregation members, and donors often don’t understand the need for a Sabbatical. Most of them are coming from the business world where they feel fortunate if they get four weeks of vacation a year. And yet today even many secular companies like Nike and Google offer Sabbaticals for their long-term employees!
Pastoral work is extremely stressful and a lack of spiritual rest is especially hazardous to the effectiveness of pastoral ministry!
It’s very difficult for pastors and leaders to say no to the needs of the people they care for and to the unending opportunities to do God’s work and grow their church or ministry. But if they don’t care for their own souls under God, respecting their personal limits and nurturing their own relationships with God and their family, then their ministry eventually collapses.
Of course, people in other jobs work extremely hard and have great stress too. But if doctors, attorneys, teachers, or other professionals go through a divorce they usually don’t lose their jobs! If their spiritual life grows stale, probably no one worries about it. If they struggle with pornography, alcohol abuse, or other emotional problems, it’s usually no problem for their work life — or if it does get in the way, once they get help they can go right back to work.
But pastors and missionaries are called to a higher standard. Rightly so. Their work is sacred. They minister the Word of God to their congregations. They baptize new Christians. They marry the bride and groom. They conduct funerals. They care for hurting marriages and families. They help people who feel far from God get re-connected.
More than any other workers, pastors are Christ’s ambassadors to hundreds or thousands of people. We need our pastors to be morally fit and spiritually healthy! Their message needs to match their character or people won’t follow them.
Pastor Stress Statistics Document Their Need for Sabbaticals
Many research studies have shown that pastoral work is acutely stressful, draining, and dangerous for the pastors and their families.
Here are a few of the statistics on pastor stress:
- 90% work 55 to 75 hours per week
- 90% feel fatigued and worn out every week
- 91% have experienced some form of burn out
- 70% have a lower self-esteem than when they entered the ministry
- 70% fight depression
- The average seminary trained pastor lasts five years in professional ministry
When pastors are over-stressed their marriages and families suffer too:
- 80% feel unappreciated and left out and unappreciated by church members
- 80% feel pressured to serve in ways that do not fit their gifts
- Over 50% say that the most destructive event in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry
- 80% wish their spouse would choose another profession
Pastors get so preoccupied caring for others that their own souls suffer:
- 72% only study the Bible when preparing their sermons for others
- 70% do not have a close friend
- 50% do not regularly meet with an accountability partner or group
- 44% do not regularly take a day off
- 85% have never taken a Sabbatical!
Eventually most pastors reach the end of their rope!
And some spouses of pastors are ready to scream!
Church elder boards and the boards of Christian ministries and mission organizations need to see these statistics and realize the risk of their pastors and other ministry leaders burning out. A Soul Shepherding Sabbatical is an insurance policy for pastor/leader wellness and leadership health.
Your Next Steps
Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, Drs. of Psychology and founders of Soul Shepherding, have created a comprehensive resource for planning and executing a Sabbatical that will enable you to return to ministry refreshed and restored. At SabbaticalGuide.com you’ll find everything you need to get started on planning a renewing Sabbatical today: short videos, lots of practical tools, and one-on-one Sabbatical coaching with one of Soul Shepherding’s Sr. Spiritual Directors. We’ll help you get your Sabbatical approved and implement it so it’s a blessing for you, your family, and your church or ministry.
We are here to support you. Contact us with your questions and let us know how we can help! We pray that this Sabbatical guide for pastors has been an encouragement to you as you consider the rest and renewal you need to continue as a leader in Jesus’ easy yoke.