A sabbatical and the small church pastor: Part 4.

Dahlia of the day: Fuzzy Wuzzy.

The small church can benefit from the pastor going on a sabbatical or time of refreshment.

Many years ago I served as the Associate Pastor of a church in Central Washington Presbytery. Shortly after arriving at that church the PCUSA pastor in a nearby town announced that he was moving. The senior pastor of the church I was serving went down to lead worship on the first Sunday that the other pastor was gone. He was shocked at what he discovered. That pastor had done EVERYTHING for that church. No one there knew how to turn on the heat in the sanctuary. It took a while for people to figure out how to turn on all of the lights in the sanctuary. I don’t believe that they were able to figure out how to use the sound system. The pastor had been at the church for 25 years and had always done all of those things. (I have no idea of what they did when he went on vacation.) The church had to find people to do all of the many tasks that the pastor had done.

It could be very healthy for the smaller churches to have the pastor “gone” for a period of time. People would need to be found to cover all of the things that the pastor does. People would have a greater “ownership” of their church.

Notice—this could be very threatening for some pastors. Many pastors have the need to be needed. We do things that other people could be doing. Why? So that the church will “need” us.