Looking Ahead: Sabbatical

First of all, thank you to all of you who sent good wishes and prayers to my family for my father's recovery from a stroke. He is making progress each day, and can now use a walker to walk. It was good to be with him and my mom for several days.

As part of how UU churches support their ministers, our contracts include a plan for us to take a sabbatical every several years. We “earn” one month of sabbatical time for each year of service to a congregation. The Board of Trustees and I have agreed for me to take a four month sabbatical later this year, from April 15 to August 15, 2015. A sabbatical is an opportunity to be free from the daily and weekly demands of ministry, in order to delve more deeply into activities that can refresh and renew one's ministry, and thus be a benefit to minister and congregation.

My first hope for this sabbatical is to work on the completion my book, Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community. This book is an expression of the spiritual side of our work on ecological sustainability. My goal is to share the book with A2U2 members and friends, and with the wider world, as part of our witness to the environment. Some of you have seen earlier portions of the book, which I used to create the class Spirituality: For Searchers, Skeptics, Activists, Mystics and All Broken-hearted Lovers of Earth, and which I posted in a blog online called Finding Our Way Home.

My second hope for the sabbatical is for Margy and I to consider greater alignment with our ecological values in our own living situation. This process is not always simple, so by having time to dedicate to the question, we hope to take some steps closer to our ideals. Perhaps we might move to a smaller house, or one located nearer to the church, or find other ways to lower our carbon footprint. This time will give us the space to take stock in our personal lives of the values we have been proclaiming here at our spiritual community, and then to bring back to all of you our experience of that process.

On a personal note, one more hope for the sabbatical is for Margy and I to pursue her long-time dream of travel to Ireland.

The Committee on Ministry will coordinate preparation and support for the sabbatical time. On the practical side, 2 months of the sabbatical will take place during the summer season when I am usually on vacation and study leave. During the other 2 months (April 15-June 21) the Pastoral Care Team, the Worship Committee, and our Intern Minister will lead our continued church life—we are much more prepared for this sabbatical because we have strong lay leadership already in place. On 5 Sundays, a visiting minister will lead worship. Since I won't be taking vacation or study leave during the summer, I will take 2 weeks of vacation in the last half of November and 2 1/2 weeks of study leave during the first half of February this coming year, and something similar the following year.

To give you a simplified picture of the year, here are all the months, divided in half: Yellow= Time I am at church, while Green= Time I am away on vacation, study leave and sabbatical.

Sep

Sep

Oct

Oct

Nov

Nov

Dec

Dec

Jan

Jan

Feb

Feb

Mar

Mar

Apr

Apr

May

May

Jun

Jun

Jul

Jul

Aug

Aug

I am excited to deepen my participation in our environmental focus, through the work we do this year at church, and through the work I can do while on sabbatical. If you have any questions, please contact me, or the chair of the Committee on Ministry, Rick Grover.