Slowing Down into Spiritual Disciplines
By Brett Payne
For pastors in the public view of their congregation and community, sabbatical is a time to slow down, get separation, rest, and fundamentally address their needs and the needs of their families. For many of these leaders, the challenge of rest and relational engagement can be complicated by driven personalities and exaggerated expectations. Their needs have often been ignored for years. Slowing down and paying attention to themselves and those around them may mean that they are confronted with unresolved relational experiences. I’ve been coaching pastors and leaders through sabbaticals for over seven years. After working with hundreds of leaders, it is very clear that sabbaticals are both desperately needed and very challenging. On sabbatical, many leaders experience renewal by having space to slow down into the spiritual disciplines. However, the challenges of slowing down are often daunting.
Slowing down is often unsettling and uncomfortable for leaders. Many of the most central disciplines require slowing down. Sabbath, communion, prayer, scripture meditation, small group (listening!), solitude and silence, and examen are some of the disciplines basic to our participation in the life of God and the body of Christ. In recent years my experience of communion as something received from another believer has become deeply meaningful. For me, the reality that all spiritual disciplines ground us both in the life of God and in the life of the body of Christ is profound. Slowing down enough to enter the sacredness of that reality is a beautiful invitation. However, basic experiences of relational disconnection may also be named in the slowing down – whether estrangement from children, a slowly growing silence with a spouse, pain from childhood, frustration with God, ungrieved loss of a parent or sadness about the friend who has moved away. Many pastors in recent years have been confronted with the painful loss of congregant friends who have dropped out of church for a range of theological, personal, and political reasons. It is in our life with God and others that slowing down can bring incredible connection (as in the experience of receiving communion) and reveal painful experiences of disconnection, including in Christian community.
I recently challenged a very godly and compassionate care giver to engage in meaningful solitude and silence by taking a two-day solo retreat. The idea of doing this felt to them overwhelming. They had never done something like this before and were nervous about the unknowns. This is someone who has confronted some of the most painful and traumatic realities of the pandemic with courage and compassion. Though generally doing well, they could name a very real need to experience a greater solace in the presence of Christ. However, for someone so active and engaged in outward care for others, the idea of taking time to slow down for their own needs was guilt producing. The startling reality is that so many of us struggle to slow down enough to have any kind of weekly sabbath experience. When I coach leaders who are on sabbatical, I encourage them to see the direct connection between the slowing down of sabbatical and the weekly rhythm of sabbath.
For some leaders this journey to slow down or lean in can be fraught with the unknown of their own story, experiences, and relational pain. This slowing down is not just about resting but about abiding. When Jesus invites us to abide in Him and become fruitful, He always invites us to become fully aware of what is true in our lives. It is fundamentally the experience of reconciliation with God, self and others that brings freedom, connection, and joy and this requires “… truth in the inward parts.” (Psalm 51) Reconciliation is making peace – not just a calmness of our emotional center, but a new awareness and acceptance of all that is true. I can still remember the pain of emotional neglect felt by my five-year-old self, but I am reconciled to it. In that space I now see my wife and son and embrace my present experience of connection instead of only those feelings of disconnection. We cannot experience true peace and reconciliation without slowing down and engaging in connection in our most basic experiences of ourselves. When we learn to slow down into spiritual disciplines, we will be able to actively receive the comfort of Christ in our emotional and relational pain and will then be able to more fully comfort others with God’s loving presence. By slowing down into spiritual disciplines, we can abide and rest in the eternal presence of Christ.
