October Sabbatical Planning

You may recall last year we started talking about a time of sabbatical in the near future. 

After serving the church for five years, an anniversary we reached back in August, I am due

a sabbatical, and so we’ve been planning for it for a while.  Earlier this year, we applied for

a grant from the Lilly Foundation to cover both my activities and the church’s activities in this sabbatical time.  Early last month, we learned we did not receive the grant.

So, what does this mean?  First and foremost, it means we won’t have an extra pile of money to cover our plans for sabbatical time, so we have to shift our plans.  But, as we wrote the sabbatical grant, we also created Plan B in case we didn’t receive the grant.  And we’ve already started working on enacting that plan with the sabbatical team:

Mary Masi-Phelps, Doug Hyde, Sharon Hobbs, Barb Worth, and Jess Babb, and myself.

Here’s what we know for sure: I will be on sabbatical from Wednesday, January 27 to Tuesday, April 27.  We’ll have a sabbatical sendoff celebration in and after worship on Sunday, January 24.  We’ll also have a sabbatical reunion celebration in and after worship on Sunday, May 2, a service in which we plan to have a conference minister with us

to preach and lead a reunion ritual.

We also know we’ve been setting aside some money for the last five years to cover sabbatical expenses for the church.  By putting this money into pastoral coverage, we plan to have worship leadership ready for every Sunday while I’m on sabbatical, hopefully with one pastor for the entire sabbatical.  Special services in Lent like Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, will either be lay led or done in collaboration with FCC Norwood and Pastor Michele.  In addition, Michele will be available for pastoral care coverage during

my sabbatical.

And we also know that my sabbatical time activities will still be focused on learning photography and resting.  Without the grant money, I will not be able to do all I wanted in learning photography, and my family will not be able to take the trips we wanted to take.

But we have already reimagined our plans as a family, and we’re looking forward to spending time together doing some things we wouldn’t normally be able to do.

What we still don’t know for certain is what worship will look like in this time, or what other church activities might occur in this time.  But we are deep in planning, using the sabbatical grant plan as a jumping off point.  Though we are disappointed to not have the grant available to us, there is a freedom to being able to shift away from those plans based on what we’ve learned in the over six months since we submitted the grant.  Using the Worship Design Studio for worship liturgy, as we have so far this program year, has been a part of that planning.  There’s also been more inspiration for gathering the congregation for potlucks. 

If you’ve got ideas for something you’d like to do in sabbatical time, reach out to one of the sabbatical team members and let them know!

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information in the future.  We’ll share church plans as they become clearer.  And we’ll ask for information and feedback as we move forward with those plans to make sure they are of interest to the congregation as well as not too much of a burden on our already busy schedules.

Because of all the work we’ve put into these plans, my disappointment at not receiving the grant has turned to curiosity, anticipation, and joy.  My hope is that as we continue to communicate about our collective sabbatical plans, you will join me in that curiosity, anticipation, and joy, so we can truly celebrate together at both our parting and our reunion, January 24 and May 2.

Pastor JT