Smiling wide, my 2-year-old son handed me his latest artwork. Swirly-twirly lines covered every inch of the paper.
“Oh wow,” I smiled.
He pointed proudly to the paper and said, “This mommy’s head.”
I gulped — it was an accurate depiction. If there was a picture of my thoughts, it was this one.
What can I say? My 2-year-old gets me. I venture to say, dear reader, that he gets you too. Is this an accurate depiction of your swirly-twirly, stressed-out, over-exhausted, frustrated, grief-filled head right now? This 2-year-old gets us.
Our minds are muddled from nearly two years of the pandemic, social unrest, online worship, Zoom fellowship, mask wars, vaccine wars, grief over those we’ve lost … and now a new variant. These layered crises translate to high numbers of recent resignations and burnout in the church.
I know this because I almost was one.
I can tell you the exact moment my soul broke. After nearly a year of online worship, pastoral care Zooms, video production, deaths of without funerals, personal grief, and months without childcare, my unprocessed stress led to one, culminating moment. It was January 2021, and my family was in our first (but not last) quarantine from COVID-19 exposure at our daycare. While worrying about my family’s health and potential spread to my congregation, I got the call I always dread. A congregant was losing their fight with cancer. From my quarantine, I prayed over the slowing breaths in the receiver; I prayed for God to receive this servant into God’s everlasting arms.
This was not my first congregant to die without their pastor present during the pandemic. In my own grief, I yelled to God: “I can’t do ministry like this!” The reason I couldn’t be with someone as they died was because I was in quarantine. I was in quarantine because of daycare exposure. My children are in daycare so I can work. I work so I can live out my calling. But I can’t live out my calling because I’m in quarantine because I need childcare, and the only reason I need childcare is so I can work.
At this moment, I knew a great truth. I felt in my heart, in my bones, in my weary soul. I was burned out.
Burnout. That elusive thing pastors are warned about: take care of yourself or you’ll burn out! And I did my best to follow that self-care advice. Well, I had done well until 2020 turned into 2021. Then, burnout came for me all the same. I could barely function. I couldn’t focus. It took hours to write what used to take minutes. I was so tired, yet I had trouble sleeping. I began having anxiety attacks. I was not myself. I worried I couldn’t be the mom my kids needed. I worried I couldn’t be the pastor my church needed. While I knew I was still called to be pastor to this particular church, my body told me something else: I couldn’t continue like this.
I processed all of this with my family, friends, and therapist. One wise friend suggested a middle ground between burnout and sticking-it-out: a sabbatical. So, I downloaded sabbatical application forms, but as I read them, my head swam, and my burnout deepened. Every single sabbatical offering came with more work. It demanded more of me when I could not physically, mentally, or spiritually give anymore. This wasn’t sabbath. This wasn’t resting. This was a project. This was one more thing the world required of me.
So, in prayer, I asked: “God, what do you require of me?”
And God reminded me that after creating the entire world, God chose rest. God reminded me of the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8), where God demands we chose rest too.
So, I chose rest. In conversation with my executive presbyter, I wrote a proposal for a “Purposefully Resting Sabbatical.” With unanimous session approval, I applied to my presbytery’s newly created Self-Care Grant program. With presbytery funding and funding from a congregational donor, I took a 10-week resting sabbatical during the summer of 2021.
I dedicated 10 weeks to sabbath. I rested. I reflected. I reconnected. I retreated. I read. Purposefully resting – giving myself permission to stop and breathe – was not easy. In all honesty, the first weeks were a struggle. Yet day by day, week by week, the burnout edged off. Slowly and surely, by the time I reached the end, I felt markedly different — restored and ready for ministry again. It’s now been four months since I returned, and I can say with certainty: I am no longer burned out.
I am no longer burned out, but I fear I’m one of the only ones. I see a noticeable difference between myself and my colleagues who haven’t been gifted rest. Their exhaustion feels palpable. While I feel ready to face the newest challenge, my colleagues view the next challenge as soul-sucking. I yearn for rest to renew my siblings in ministry. I believe we can rest and gift rest to our community. The PC(USA) has a sabbatical system in place, where pastors can take three months of leave after six years of continuous service. However, I wonder if we can we pivot our sabbatical programs to care for burned-out pastors in this time of crisis? Can we use our sabbatical system to give Godly purposeful rest to every exhausted spiritual leader?
Our sabbatical programs are designed for another time and place. I say this with as much authority and experience as I can: The church needs something new and better for its leaders. We continue to live through a time of great upheaval. We cannot keep going unless we stop to process what we’ve been through, to grieve what and who we’ve lost, to take it off our hearts, and to put it into God’s hands. We cannot see the new things God is doing here and now unless we take a breath to honor how God has gotten us through until now.
Friends, let us re-envision sabbath, so that we all may be renewed for God’s great work ahead. I took a resting sabbatical. My church did not fall apart. Instead, the church was strengthened by a new voice, providing preaching, pastoral care, and session moderation. Instead, the church was strengthened by a pastor who came back restored and re-energized.
In my son’s drawing of “Mommy’s head,” a heart lies right in the middle of the swirling chaotic lines. For when our heads are all muddled, there’s no room for the heart to grieve, to love, to give. If we clear away all that muck – if we rest enough to give it to God — what’s underneath is our heart.
God gets us. Let us rest. Let us gift rest to one another. If God rested, so can we.
