Archive for the 'Sabbatical' Category

There is something to be learned from Trueman’s thoughts about busyness.  Why not read this and then find time to take a walk?  Waste just a little time.

One of the amazing things about modern American culture is surely the pathological fear of wasting time.  It is especially evident in the attitude to children.  Public school kids have their lives scheduled from morning till night; homeschool parents seem to regard any second of the day from the age of two that isn’t used to learn Latin poetry or the cello or conversational Swahili as time that is wasted.  It’s a far cry from my childhood, when school ran from 9 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon, and then I was free to ride my bike, walk on the common, or just sit around with friends.  And it continues in to later life: all the technology we have, and people seem to have less free time than ever.

The rest here.

My sabbatical is winding down.  It has been a tremendous blessing.  And, I am praying that our flock will be blessed because of it.  My friend Darryl Dash is also on sabbatical this summer.  I can relate to much of what he said recently in a post.

On June 1, I began a three-month sabbatical. This is new for me. I’ve taken vacations before, but the last time I was off for a significant period of time was when I was a teenager some 25 years ago.

Although the entire three-month period has a serious rest component to it, I really wanted to focus on rest the first month.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

It’s hard to rest. You would think that it would be easy to pause and to enter into an extended period of rest. It isn’t. I found myself fidgety and restless for the first few weeks. It’s probably because I hadn’t found a rhythm for my sabbatical yet – but I wonder if the real reason is that resting is learned behavior. We’re much more used to doing than we are to pausing and allowing ourselves to be refreshed. Temperament plays a role as well.

I was tired, but not the way I thought. I thought I was physically tired. I wasn’t. I don’t think I’ve slept more in the past month than I do normally. But I’ve discovered that I’m weary in ways that I hadn’t even grasped before the sabbatical began.

An example of this is that I’m an introvert who can masquerade as an extrovert. Steve McCoy reflected on this in his own life recently. I’ve read three books in the past couple of weeks that have helped me understand the toll that this takes, as well as some of the adjustments I need to make so that I’m serving as myself, not as someone else.

This is an example of two or three areas that have been out of whack in my life, and have caused me to be drained in ways I hadn’t recognized up until now.

Not everyone understands. No surprise here: not everyone gets why pastors need sabbaticals. . .

Read more here.

I understand that the pictures linked to here will not be of interest to many who read this blog – - sort of like being invited over to see vacation slides – - but, the primary audience I target is our church family.

The picture to the right is our youngest daughter, Mary Beth, at Grindelwald First.  While the mountains and flowers are beautiful, there is nowhere that the glory of God shines brighter than in pretty girls, created in His image.

Allison, Christopher, and I returned from Switzerland yesterday.  Jamie, Ben, and Mary Beth had returned a few days earlier.  As a family, we enjoyed the trip of a lifetime and learned so much.

I wouldn’t want to choose just one lesson we learned, but certainly we were amazed at how the glory of God shines in His creation. 

You can watch the below slide show if it is of interest – - click here to see these pictures – - or here to see more pictures of the Brauns family than anyone other than my children’s grandmothers will want to view.