Flashback to March. I have multiple tabs open on my laptop and am gnawing at my fingernails. Scanning my checklist for the umpteenth time, I confirm all requisite documentation has been completed and uploaded into the Lilly Clergy Renewal Program’s application portal. The “submit” button is looming. This is it.
For months, I have been planning a sabbatical using the exact same tools I typically use to work: spreadsheets, calendars, outlines, shared documents, emails, project management software, Zoom and more. The irony is not lost on me.
The continual hum of church life presses on, and my exhaustion penetrates to the bone. I am fortunate enough to love my work, and I wouldn’t trade my years in ministry for anything. Yet reaching the seven-year mark at my current parish has made it impossible to ignore my need for rest. My ministry has unfolded amid political polarization, pandemic, and sweeping church decline. I’ve watched colleagues leave because of hypocrisy, conflict, spiritual trauma and toxic power dynamics, and I wonder whether one day I’ll do the same.
Despite what my Apple Watch, countless lifestyle articles and self-help books promise, five-minute breathing exercises, digital boundaries and better sleep habits can’t solve this kind of weariness. Sabbaticals exists because ministry is as beautiful as it is brutal — and sometimes faithfulness requires more than simply pushing through.
Rest is woven into creation
Preparing my sabbatical application forced me to ask what 12 weeks of rest could actually accomplish. Looking for an answer, I picked up a copy of Ruth Haley Barton’s Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. Barton argues that the balance between work and rest isn’t simply a strategy for avoiding burnout; it’s a deeply biblical rhythm woven into creation itself. Reflecting on Genesis, she writes, “In a very real sense, work gives meaning to our rest because without work, there would be no reason to rest. But rest gives meaning to our work as we step back from it, behold it, take the time to call it good, and savor its fruits.”
Exhaustion isn’t simply a symptom of ministry. It’s part of a broader cultural habit of measuring our worth by our productivity.
Reading Barton made me realize my exhaustion isn’t simply a symptom of ministry. It’s part of a broader cultural habit of measuring our worth by our productivity. Pastors may feel that pressure acutely, but we are hardly alone. Whether we’re leading congregations, raising children, caring for aging parents or simply trying to keep up with the demands of daily life, many of us have forgotten that God built rest into creation itself.
We’ve forgotten that after God created, God rested. The seventh day was not a mere footnote; it was the culmination of divine design. Barton summarizes, “As it turns out, sabbath rest is not an optional reprieve in the midst of an otherwise frantic or obsessive life. It is the goal of all existence.”
Sabbath is a communal practice
If Sabbath is woven into creation, then it cannot simply become another individual wellness practice. The biblical vision of rest has always been communal. Creating lasting rhythms of work and rest requires more than individual resolve; churches have to structure themselves around them. Barton argues that staff and congregants must all intentionally make room for Sabbath by protecting a full 24-hour Sabbath in a church community, arranging pastoral and staff coverage and resisting the urge to fill every hour of the church calendar. Without those shared commitments, Sabbath quickly becomes another ideal that’s impossible to practice.
Becoming a community that prioritizes rest and work equally is profoundly counter-cultural; it requires devoted, long-term visioning and discernment.
Becoming a community that prioritizes rest and work equally is profoundly counter-cultural; it requires devoted, long-term visioning and discernment. In one successful church model that Barton describes, once leadership began bravely speaking up about their need for rest and more sustainable weekly rhythms, congregants shared similar struggles in their own lives as well. Turns out, everyone was exhausted.
What kind of disciples are we becoming?
At the end of August, I will receive a decision on my Lilly Clergy Renewal Application. In the meantime, I want to know if my own congregants are just as tired as I am. I suspect that they are. After all, we put productivity and growth at the center of all that we do: counting butts-in-seats, building bigger and better programs, and driving vastly ambitious stewardship campaigns. I’m not naïve enough to believe we can cease focusing on these things in professional ministry. Ironically though, I wonder if by playing the numbers game, we’re effectively driving away the over-scheduled young families we’re hoping to attract—and slowly burning out our most dedicated volunteers.
Reclaiming rest is not a trendy self-care strategy. It’s essential, not only for our own survival but to be a faithful disciple of Jesus. Sometimes, I wonder what sort of disciples we are becoming. Are we becoming disciples of productivity and the status quo — or of reclaiming our purpose as God’s beloved from the foundations of our very creation? In the beginning, God made us to labor and then to leisure: pause, behold the goodness of creation all around us, and call it blessed. May we know in our hearts that, yes, the grace of the Lord is sufficient for us. In the work of our hands, we are enough for God. In our rest, all the more.
