Taking a Sabbath


Sabbath. It's a funny word.  Unfortunately, this word is buried deep in the Christianese lexicon, and not many people actually practice this very important spiritual discipline.

When I was in my third year of Master's Commission, I was given a lot of responsibility and found myself with a very large workload.  So much so, that I stopped taking a day off.  Monday, which was supposed to be my off day, was filled with planning, writing, and studying.  I had cut all the fun out of my life to get the job done.

I loved it for the first few months, but after after 3 months of consistently working 16 hour days, I broke.  I couldn't do it anymore.  Something had to give. I just didn't know what.  Thankfully God knew exactly what I needed.

While driving back home to Georgia for Thanksgiving, I listened to Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.  I got to the chapter called Tassels.  I wept for the next 3 hours.  I realized I had been sinning for months.  I had neglected the fourth commandment, "Keep the Sabbath day and make it holy."

I believed, like many Christians believe, that the Sabbath is synonymous with Sunday.  It's the day we go to church. We worship God.  We spend time with our families.  My Sunday's had long left this model.  I worked in kids church on Sunday, and then collapsed on the couch for two hours just to go work again that night running multimedia for Sunday night services.

God gave us a model of taking a Sabbath.  When he created everything in the 6 days, he took the seventh day off.  He did no work. He made the day holy.  

It took a few months, but after delegating some of my responsibilities and asking for help, I finally got a consistent day off.  I haven't looked back since.

Here are some tips to help you start taking a Sabbath and enjoy this wonderfully refreshing spiritual discipline.

1. Pick a day If your in full or part time ministry you know that Sunday is not a day of rest.  You need to pick a day that fits into your schedule to shut everything down and spend time with God and your family. Mine is usually Friday. Don't be afraid to experiment, and if your schedule prevents you from taking that day, don't get hung up on the day, just pick another that week and take it.

2. Relax Many people who try to take a Sabbath find that they can't do a full 24 hours.  They get uncomfortable and anxious about all the work they could be doing.  STOP.  It will take some practice, but eventually you will find that it gets much easier. Try not working for a few hours and then gradually increase that time until you get to the full day.

3. Trust God God required the Israelites to take a day and he promised that he would fill in the rest.  Work like crazy for 6 days and trust God to fill in the gaps for the day you take off.

4. Focus Take this day to spend time with God. Focus on your family and your friends. You'll find your life become much more fulfilled and your relationships with those you love much stronger simply because you made some time for them.

Taking that first step is not always easy, but it's worth it.  I challenge to take your Sabbath and discover the wonder that God has built into our lives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Numbers You Should Track in Your Ministry and Why

Image
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash I’ve heard business entrepreneurs say that you have to know your numbers. The same is true with your ministry. How many attended this week? Last week? How many volunteers? First time guests? Baptisms? Small Groups? If you don’t track it, and by tracking, I mean write it down in a spreadsheet, you’re losing out on valuable information that can help you keep your ministry healthy and growing. I’ll admit I didn’t always do this. In fact, my first few years in ministry it was an afterthought. Sometimes, I would remember to count how many were in the room and tell my pastor, but I never wrote it down. Then after one Easter, my pastor came into staff meeting agitated. I could see it all over his face. He told us that we didn’t have as many show up for Easter as we did the year before. He counted the weekend as a failure. I was shocked at first and then began to wonder, how many did I have? How many last year? Or the year before? I had no Idea. I h...
Read more

A Discipline Plan That Works

Image
When I first became a children’s pastor on my first Sunday, I sat and observed how the volunteers were managing their service. These were college students with little to no training, just a heart for kids and doing the best they could. Their stories and games were good. Their energy was excellent during worship, but they had one glaring problem. Discipline. The kids did whatever they wanted; whenever they wanted. I asked the leaders what their discipline plan was, and it was a convoluted three strikes and you’re out system, but the only consequence for any infraction was less candy. Essentially, a kid could misbehave all service and instead of getting three pieces of candy, they’d only get one. It didn’t take much for some of the kids to figure it out and exploit it. Rules and consequences were the first thing I changed when I took over, and the leaders were thankful. I was a certified teacher and spent many, many hours studying classroom management. I knew their system was neve...
Read more

How to Have a Kids Lead Team

Image
Maybe you’ve seen this. You have a fifth or sixth grader completely checked out. They may have been engaged a few years before, but it’s getting close to their time to move on, and they have senioritis all of sudden. You thought it was only for 12th graders, but now you see it in 12-year-olds. But what do you do? Do you encourage them to engage? Talk to their parents? Let them move on to youth? In my first ministry, this problem was rampant. I was the fourth kids pastor for those sixth graders, and they were over it. They didn’t care and a few of them did whatever the wanted causing major distractions. Putting a discipline plan in place helped a little, but it didn’t solve the problem. That’s when I decided to begin a kids leadership team. We still had Sunday School, so for the ones who came, I’d teach a little about the Bible, and then train them how to run sound, lead worship, and do puppets. They helped me make videos to remind kids of the rules and to go to the bathroom...
Read more