Tag: ministry
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Put A Song Back In Your Pastor’s Heart With A Sabbatical
Sometimes, when we hear of how some of our pastor friends are struggling in their ministry, we remember the story of the parakeet who lost his song. Lester the parakeet’s sad story began one day when his owner inadvertently sucked Lester into the vacuum bag while cleaning his cage. After removing Lester from the bag,…
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Imagine The Best Job In The World!
Imagine what a difference it would make if every pastor in every congregation could look forward to a three-month sabbatical every four years! Imagine especially what a difference this would make to pastors serving smaller congregations. Nothing silly about that! Imagine what a difference it would make if high school students saw the ministry as…
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Pulpit Exchanges
I just read a very exciting—and a very disheartening—article in a church newsletter. Two pastors in Montana did a pulpit exchange for one Sunday. The article refers to this as an “opportunity” for two pastors and two congregations to “link up” as those sharing life in the same community—and in Christ. News of two churches…
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Ministry Sabbaticals 101
At Christian Home Exchange, we believe that the world will be a better place once pastors and all Christians take seriously the word, “Go,” as in “Go, therefore …” (Matthew 28:19). Many refer to the world these days as the Global Village, but it seems to me that most of us are just sitting around…
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Leadership Matters And So Does Your Sabbatical
A certain type of self-understanding is essential for the parish pastor who wants to be a great leader. I appreciate Anthony B. Robinson’s insights into the importance of the pastor’s self-understanding for leadership in the parish in Robinson’s article, “Leadership That Matters.” Robinson draws his insights from James MacGregor Burns (Leadership, 1978), Edwin H. Friedman…
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Make Your Dream A Reality With A Home Exchange
In 1988, we did a home exchange with a Norwegian pastor and his family. It was a dream come true—well almost. My wife, Diane, and I actually dreamed of doing a home exchange with someone in a country where everyone spoke English. Six months before our family headed to Norway, we were all learning the…
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Cheer Up Church – Creativity and Home Exchange
Charlie Peacock sings, “Cheer up, Church, you’re worse off than you think.” Many churches are feeling a money crunch, due to the economy. Take our congregation, for example. There is no way our church could afford to provide a clergy sabbatical–apart from taking a creative approach to our life and our ministry together. In fact,…
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Getting Ready For Home Exchange — Closets, Drawers & Cabinets
Our next home exchange is scheduled for August 2012. We are doing a home exchange with a pastor and his family from England, as part of our 3-month ministry sabbatical. As I looked over our home exchange agreement, I saw one line in the agreement that was exciting and a blessing: “Sufficient closets, drawers and…
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Home Exchange Membership Discounts
We have loved the idea of staying in someone else's home for about 30 years. Back when we first started to look for a place to stay, it was called, "sublet." Dell was working on his doctorate (DMin. at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN) and we needed a place for our family to stay…
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Life Stewardship and Home Exchanges
Recently, during a conversation, I mentioned the idea of using a home exchange for sabbatical time “off ” and the person responded, “What about my things?” My jaw dropped. “What about your things?” I thought. This person is a pastor, nearing burnout, needing a sabbatical, and their main concern is for their “things”? I guess…