This is a continuation from the post about the word “sabbath” and sabbatical and is an extraction from an email we sent out earlier in the year.

A pastors need for sabbatical is something that few people truly understand, which is why a second Hebrew word comes in really handy here – the word “yada” or “to know.”  Yada is wonderfully different than what we often mean when we say we “know” something.  For us of the modern West, we say we know something when we know a fact – like the capital of Canada or the number of legs on a spider.  Yada is something different though.  It is to know something in an experiential way, the way that the serpent told Eve that she would know both good and evil after eating the forbidden fruit and the way that Adam knew Eve that brought about their children (Gen 3:5, Gen 4:1).

In these last 10 years, my wife Carrie and I have come to know what drives pastors to need sabbatical.  We know the weight pastors carry on behalf of others that no one sees.  We know the grief and pain and heartache pastors take on in caring for their people – in “grieving with those who grieve.”  We know the dysfunctional $#*% pastors buffer and absorb in order to hold their people together and redirect them in the Way of Jesus.  We know the hurt pastors experience when people they love and have been gracious to cannot find it in themselves to return the favor and instead, say, “You are no longer good enough to be my pastor.”  We know the heartache of joining people in their darkness and walking with them towards the light only to watch them decide that they love the darkness more.  We know why the legendary Peter Drucker called it one of the hardest jobs in America.

There is a reason pastors need sabbatical to keep going.

Beyond what most pastors know though, because of the ministry God has called us to, we have come to know other things as well – things that are straining, taxing, and even traumatizing.

We know the stress and strain of bootstrapping a church start focused on poor and homeless people in the heart of a recession and to a community that has consistently said it wants less of church and Jesus – not more.  We know what it means to work all the hours, all day every day for years without days off, weekends, or holidays.  We know what it means to have to miss out on years of family vacations and get-togethers for lack of time and money, with a family that struggles to understand.  We know what it is like needing to respond to emails and finish bulletins in the labor and delivery room because Sunday is coming and there is no one else.

We know what it is like to follow God into homelessness with a one year old.

We know what it is like to hold off mad men from coming in to kill people in our church and then step back in the room and preach like nothing ever happened.

We know what it is like to lead a church in finding the Way of Jesus on the homosexuality issue (that alone is something most pastors avoid like a cat avoids a warm bath).

We know what it is like to have people we love and care for try their darndest to drive a knife into our gut, slash our throat, or beat us to the ground.

We know what it is like to have strangers in the community we are called to reach attempt similar things.

We know the terror of running with all we’ve got from violent thugs with one of our babies in our arms.

We know the horror of running to save our whole family from similar thugs who are out “hunting” for the night.

We know what it is to walk with people through such horrible things that we once thought were beyond the pale – and too many times live with knowing there is nothing we can do for them.

We know – yada, in an experiential way – all of these things and more.  They stay with us, and they need Sabbath.  Our souls need time and space to heal and become renewed – and that chance is just what God is giving us.

This doesn’t mean that we haven’t known some really beautiful things or experienced God in special ways because of or in spite of these things – we have.  These things that we know need their place too; their chance to breath.

This also doesn’t mean we are leaving our church.  The hope of this sabbatical is why we are still here.  If we were going to leave, it would have been the fall of 2016.  I (Nathan) was an absolute wreck.  Some very difficult and painful things kept piling on and there had been no relief in a long time.  I could hardly walk down the hall or from my car to the church without falling down and sobbing.  Almost no one else knew.   Carrie knew.  I couldn’t hide it from her and she wasn’t doing all that well either.  She was pregnant though.  At least for a while.  We lost our son and we’re not at all convinced it wasn’t related to the stress in our lives.  We would absolutely have walked away then, but God kept us somehow and the potential of a sabbatical gave us hope that there could be comfort and healing in our future if we could just hold on.

We love our church so much and we love the God we get to serve.

We are not okay, but God is making a way for us.  We are so grateful for all the prayers and support you have given that have gotten us this far and we would love it if you would join us in thanking God for this opportunity and pray with us for God’s Spirit do its work in us during this time.