Maurer Family Renewal Sabbatical
September Newsletter Article
This summer
my family and I were very blessed and are very thankful to have had a family
renewal sabbatical. In the midst of my
weekly ministry responsibilities, evenings at home with the family can be a
rarity and times to worship with my family without other responsibilities are
few and far between. Many people tell us
to take advantage of this time while our children are young because it goes by
so quickly, and we do make intentional choices to work at that. Yet this extended, focused time is something
that our family will always have to help carry us through the more hectic times
in ministry that come with the territory.
That is why
I made my primary goal for this season spending time with family. So often when the kids ask to do something, I
say, “no, “not right now,” or “maybe another time.” During my sabbatical, I said “yes” or “in a
minute” and stuck to that. We went
fishing, camping, hiking, rode bikes, played games, and went to various places. After all how can I be an effective minister
of the Word, if in the process I leave my family behind in shambles?
My
secondary goal was rest and renewal for myself.
As an introvert who is called to minister in settings that require “extroverted
energy,” my batteries can easily run low at times. On top of that, I live in a family of
extroverts (yes, I would even say that our 10 month old is already an extrovert). In many ways this is a wonderful
blessing. At the same time, it also
means that family life does not leave much space to recharge. I’m sure that many of you either experience
similar realities or “remember those days” too.
So within this extended time with family, I also had two weeks, one at
the beginning and one at the end of the summer, in which I spent time in
silence and solitude. From those times,
I was reenergized to more fully engage with my family and now with the ministry
that God has called me to at Bethel.
Looking
back, these were the goals that I needed to accomplish at this time in my
journey; and I believe that I did so.
And yet, it was a challenge at times as a very task oriented, goal
setting individual not to be taken in by everything else that I could have
accomplished with 3 months of “unstructured time.” Many of those things would have been very
good and beneficial, and yet they are also things that I can do later or that have
limited application. While spending time
with my family and resting was planting seeds that I trust will lead to a
fruitful harvest in the months and years to come. As such, the other goals that I had became
“icing on the cake,” if I did anything with them at all.
As you may
have read in my blog, http://thequest.blogspot.com
(which is still available), I also did “do” a number of things. I read (including our congregational
history), exercised, gardened and worked on scripture memory. All of these things were good, but all of
these things are also a danger to me in my life as a “doer” if they get out of
balance. I am a person who tends to gain
a sense of self worth from accomplishing things. While God does call us to do things and it is
important to put our faith into action, God also calls us to “be,” to “be still
and know that God is God,” to dwell in the love of God that we receive because
of who we are as God’s creation, rather than because we have earned it. God calls us to receive our primary sense of
self worth from Him, rather from what we do or what we have or who we know.
As we enter
into another church year and as we prepare to focus more deeply on our
congregational vision with the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations
study, I invite each one of us to consider, as honestly as possible, where is
it that we get our sense of self worth from.
Is it from God our creator, or from some other external reality? And are we spending out time on the things of
life that really matter or on superficial realties that are like the earthly
treasures that moth and rust destroy (Matt 6:19-21).
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