Tag: pastor
-
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,…
-
Stewardship Of Self And Clergy Sabbaticals
Ministries increasingly encourage stewardship of self for pastors. In his book, Clergy Self-Care, Greg Sumii writes, “Pastors are human with limitations and yet many are ministering beyond their limitations.” Stewardship of self is something pastors need to model for others in the parish as much as we need it for ourselves. In an online article,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
RSS Feed Begins For Clergy Sabbaticals Blog
Today, we have set up a news feed service. The URL for our news feed service is https://feeds.feedburner.com/ClergySabbaticals. We are committed to the goal of reaching the world so Christians learn about the value of home exchanges for affordable travel, sabbaticals, Christian fellowship, and outreach.
-
Best Job In The World – Being A Pastor
Parish ministry is still the best job in the world. But who believes this anymore? And why should they? Attitudes about the church have changed so much that it was inevitable that young people look askance at the idea of a career as clergy-person. Over the years, we have talked with so many clergy who…