The 5 Steps to Your First Sabbatical as a Church Leader

Burnout is a significant issue for many pastors, with nearly 42% considering leaving their roles due to exhaustion. This episode discusses five essential steps for planning a sabbatical, focusing on the importance of rest, renewal, and strategic re-entry back into ministry.

• Acknowledge the need for rest to prevent burnout 
• Get leadership buy-in for your sabbatical 
• Develop a structured sabbatical plan with clearly defined goals 
• Delegate responsibilities to ensure the ministry thrives during your absence 
• Plan for a smooth re-entry to maintain the benefits of your sabbatical

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Did you know? It was recently reported that almost 42% of pastors have seriously considered quitting in the past year. I mean, burnout is real and one of the best ways to prevent it is a well-planned sabbatical. But how do you step away from ministry without everything just absolutely falling apart? Well, today we're going to talk about it. Thank you for joining me on the Healthy Church Staff podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:32

My name is Todd Rhodes, I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and today we're going to break down five essential steps that will help you plan your first ever sabbatical if this is your first one so that you can rest well and recharge and return even stronger. Okay, so let's hop right into it. Okay, I said five steps, let's start. Oh, I don't know. Let's start with step one. Okay, step one is the acknowledgement that you need the rest. Okay, as with most things, the first thing you have to do is just kind of acknowledge the need. All right. So I don't know how many times. If I had a nickel, for every time I would mention that ministry is a marathon. Here I probably would have, I don't know, 45 or 50 cents at this point. But ministry, honestly, it is a marathon, it's not a sprint. So if you keep running and running and running without stopping, sooner or later you're going to burn out. Even Jesus took time away to rest and pray. You can see that in Luke 5, verse 16. Took some time away to rest. So a sabbatical isn't about escaping. That's kind of what we think. It is a lot of times right I'm good, I don't need a sabbatical. Well, you do need a sabbatical every so often. It's not about escaping, it's about renewing your strength and it's about making it not the sprint but the marathon and staying strong for the long haul.

Speaker 1: 2:07

So here's a question you can ask yourself have I been feeling drained or uninspired, or maybe overwhelmed? That might be every day for you in ministry. I get it. But if you're feeling drained or overwhelmed you know, overwhelmed for an extended period of time, it's probably time to really consider a sabbatical. So recognizing it is one thing. I get that, but hopefully you recognize it. How do you get the green light to step away? I mean, that's probably the next challenge and that's actually step number two.

Speaker 1: 2:47

After you acknowledge that you probably need some time, step two is to get some buy-in from your leadership, and many churches most churches actually don't have a formal sabbatical policy, so you're going to have to be an advocate for one. That might sound weird, you going to your bosses and saying I need, you know so much time off. But here's what you need to do. You need to share with your board or with your team why a sabbatical benefits both you and the church. Because it does prevent long-term burnout and it does create space for the team to grow.

Speaker 1: 3:23

So set your expectations. I mean, this is not just time off, right, it's not. It's not an extended vacation. Matter of fact, if you go in and you say, hey, I need four weeks off, I need, I need a four week sabbatical, I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to take a extended vacation, go lay on the beach Uh, I doubt that you're going to find many people that are going to go for that.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Okay, so you got to set the expectation. It's not just time off. You have to set the expectation that, look, this is going to be a strategic season of renewal and if your church is hesitant, you know you can point out some biblical examples of rest. You know Exodus chapter 20 has some really great examples of how of biblical rest and how churches with sabbatical policies see greater staff retention and health. You can even draw back to that example in Exodus I think it's chapter 20, verses 8 through 10, I think, is where that is. So, all right. So once you've got your leadership on board and you know it's not going to be, it's not going to be one meeting, everybody's going to be on board. Yeah, todd, go ahead, take your sabbatical. We'll give you full pay, and you know it's going to take a little bit longer than that and you're going to have to work through a plan and I can help you do that if need be. But once you get the leadership on board, the next step is actually coming back, and chances are you're going to have to come back to your leadership. If they're agreeable to at least looking at this, you're going to have to come back with your leadership, with a plan, okay, and your next step that's step number three is actually coming up with a plan that actually works. So you need to structure your sabbatical and it needs to have a purpose to it, not just vacation.

Speaker 1: 5:17

A sabbatical should include, I think, three different things Okay, you need to have rest, you need to have renewal and you need to have re entry. All right, three R's. We'll call them Okay, but they're all three really, really important and you should build these into your sabbatical plan. You could actually use the rest, renewal and reentry as part of your written plan that you could take to your leadership. So let's talk about them really briefly here.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Rest is that you need to step away from work and ministry responsibilities. That means that you're probably, if you're taking a sabbatical, you need to actually leave town. Taking a sabbatical, you need to actually leave town. Okay, it's not just coming into the office, it's actually changing, changing everything that you're doing so that you can rest, so that you can get yourself in a different environment and rest Okay. So that's the first R. The second R is renewal, and with renewal, what the idea behind that is? You need to invest in personal and spiritual growth. So it could be things like retreats, it could be reading, it could be travel, but the renewal should be there should be a personal aspect to it, right, but there should also be a spiritual aspect. It could be a study. Some people don't call it sabbatical, they call it a study break, but there needs to be some kind of a renewal aspect. So you got rest, renewal and then re-entry and that's simply plan how you're going to transition back in. Well, now, sabbaticals are, and this step is really important.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Don't wing it If you don't have a structure. I tell you what if you're like me the first day, you're going to love it the second day. If you don't have a strategy, even when I'm really tired and feel like I'm starting to get burned out, and I make some plans to get away like a vacation or something, love the first day. 48 hours into it, man, I am bored as a gourd and I am ready to take a hostage because I, even if I'm tired, I got to do something. So don't wing it. You got to have a structure, or else you're going to feel lost, you're going to feel bored or you're just going to waste your time, and that's not what a sabbatical is. You know, one pastor spent his sabbatical focusing on deep prayer and time with his family and mentorship under a seasoned leader. So that's a really good plan. It takes all three of those R's in, okay. So now you've got that step, you have a structure, okay. So let's talk about making sure that your church thrives while you're gone. Okay, and that's step.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Number four is you're going to have to delegate, and some of us are really good at delegating, like we delegate everything so that we don't do anything. That's I'm talking like that's me. I can delegate, okay, but I don't delegate everything I'm I always have more on my to-do list than I can get done. Uh, but some of us don't delegate at all, and sabbaticals are really hard for people that can't delegate. So you're going to have to delegate.

Speaker 1: 8:19

You're going to have to have a plan not only for you while you're gone, but you're going to have to have a plan for who's going to do what you do while you're gone, okay. So train your team in advance. Don't just dump everything on them in a week you don't you know a week before you leave and say, hey, I'm going on a sabbatical next week, I'll be gone for three months. So, hey, you're preaching. You need to identify who's going to cover what. All right, and that's according to what your role is.

Speaker 1: 8:46

If you're a pastor, maybe it's preaching and pastoral care, maybe it's operational or budget stuff. But if your absence reveals gaps in your leadership, that's probably it's not a bad thing. It actually could be a good thing and it allows your team to grow a little bit. So you want to be. You want to. You want to be missed, but you don't want to be missed too much, right, I think? I think that's that's what they say. So you know.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Another part of the plan here with your team is set up some communication boundaries. I mean, are you going to be completely unplugged? I mean, are you going to be, you will not know how to get a hold of me or will you have an emergency contact, because there are some things that you're going to want to be, you're going to want to have some connection with, even if you're trying to unplug. Okay, so the last thing that you want to do is come back from sabbatical and only to burn out again really quick, and that's that's why this final step is absolutely key. And this is this is the last step, and you've got to plan your re-entry before you leave. If you try and do it while you're gone, it's not going to work. If you try and wait until you get back and pick up all the pieces, that's not going to work either. So a sudden return to full-time ministry can undo all of your sabbatical benefits.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Have you ever taken a vacation? My wife and I, donna and I like to take cruises. So sometimes you take a cruise and you're so relaxed and then on the way back your plane is delayed or your flight is canceled or there's a storm or something happens or maybe it's just a late flight. I've done that. Chicago. Sometimes I'll go to Chicago to go to the airport because I'm just dumb, right, it's a three, three and a half hour drive and you know it always looks great. It's $300 cheaper than flying out of Detroit. So I'll fly out of Chicago and, oh, it's cheaper if I take the red eye, okay. So I'll take the red eye back into Chicago. I'll get back in at like seven in the morning and then I've got a three and a half hour drive and my vacation was wonderful. I am so relaxed, dawn is so relaxed and we get back and by the time I get home it feels like all the benefits of that vacation are gone because I didn't plan my re-entry well. So plan your re-entry well, plan for a soft re-entry, okay.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Fewer meetings initially, some intentional prayer time, kind of wean yourself off of the slower pace and what you did on your sabbatical. Take some time to debrief your team and that also allows you to evaluate, kind of what you learned during your time away? What rhythms do you want to keep and maintain going forward? What things do you think maybe drove you to needing a sabbatical in the first place? Maybe you need to make some changes there. But a sabbatical is successful not when you return to ministry because you got to return sometime. Just because you're back doesn't mean your sabbatical is successful. But when you get back and you return refreshed man, that's the sign of a really, really good sabbatical. So are you ready to take your first sabbatical?

Speaker 1: 12:18

If you've ever taken one, or if you're considering it, drop a comment where you're listening to this or watching this. I'd love to hear your thoughts, or you can just send me an email. I read all of your emails. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Podcastatchemistrystaffingcom. All right, very good. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you and always enjoy spending time here on the podcast with you. So join me again tomorrow right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. You.