Tomorrow will be my penultimate Sunday before my sabbatical kicks in on June 1st. My last sabbatical was just before we came to Cotton End. I'd had 10 years in ministry at that time and I really needed the break that a sabbatical afforded. This time, while the rest will be welcome, I get the feeling that I ought to enjoy the opportunity to reflect rather than just let the time drift by.
My plans are suitably vague. If the weather is okay, I hope to make some furniture. I need the good weather because I will have to work outside. I hope to do some work on my role as chair of governors in a local school. It will be good to have the time to sit down and work out some boundaries of the role and some of the responsibilities etc. School governance is getting more complicated and demanding, and I wonder how much longer it will be possible for ordinary folk to fulfil such a role while they continue to do their day job. Perhaps there's a challenge there too for church leadership. What kind of demands does the 21st century church put on its leaders?
Maybe there's a little sabbatical project there too, who knows!
Probably the thing I need to make sure I do is to take the time to reflect deeply on where I am in ministry (not geographically speaking) and where God wants me to go. The sheer pressure of the daily demands makes doing this kind of considered reflection really difficult, so a sabbatical should afford the time to do this without either the pressures or the strains of day-to-day ministry.
It will be interesting to see what shape my blog takes during these next three months.
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