First Week Relaxation
First things first, WELCOME!
I thought it would be beneficial to begin tracking my progress through my sabbatical and since I am Asian, what better way to do it than digitally. On Sunday, May 15, 2016 I finished my last Sunday as the youth pastor of Friendship Baptist Church. It was an unpopular move but a necessary and spirit driven one. The father-son Blackaby authored book Spiritual Leadership states it best,
God doesn’t want people to do what they think is best: he wants them to do what he knows is best, and no amount of reasoning and intellectualizing will discover that.
While speaking during the second morning service my last Sunday I mentioned that if everyone who asked me why I was leaving would take me out to lunch then I would never go hungry again. It’s understandable people have concerns there is more to the decision to leave because, from the outside, who would give up what seemingly is a great ministerial job with great pay, flexibility, great students, and great leaders and volunteers to go on a……sabbatical.
When asking the normal southern baptist church attender what a sabbatical is you are probably going to get a weird look and some sort of answer about people in the “Bible days” doing it. In a small town church ministers may feel like they will be chastised if they are not doing everything and being everywhere. In short, that can put a strain on the marital relationship, parental relationship, and limit time for spiritual growth. For us, we knew that God was calling us to end this chapter in our lives, begin to pray about our next steps, and take this time to grow closer to Him.
Starting this past Monday I became Asian Daddy full-time. When asked how the week has went I mentioned that it has felt like it was a month long. Lots of relaxation, lots of spending time with my boys, folding clothes, washing dishes, cutting grass, reading, and praying. Every sabbatical is different and honestly I have never met anyone or talked to anyone that has taken one. With that said, I look forward to spending some time blogging about the different aspects of my experience in this time with the Lord.