Baptist Spirituality

I started reading Laurie Haller’s memoir of her sabbatical, Recess. She was a recipient of the very same renewal grant for which I am applying, so I thought that perhaps her book would help me discern my own journey and anticipated sabbatical.

Within the first few chapters, she explores what it means to leave a church and family behind to travel on sabbatical. She states that she feels far from home, asking, “Why have I chosen to exile myself from my community of faith” (p. 30)? And, within a month of her trip, the terrorist attack on United States soil happened on September 11, 2001. This pushed her further into crisis: “I find myself fighting this leave. I have lost the life I was leading. I don’t know why I am here” (p. 36).

Why have I chosen to exile myself from my community of faith?”

Haller brings up an important and cogent insight: What does it mean to truly enter sabbatical and to, as my church’s operation manual states, “be released from all pastoral duties” for a season? Does it mean it will bring times of feeling exiled, not only far from home, but from one’s identity? Or will it be, as she tries to wrestle with in forthcoming pages, the ability to empty oneself only to rely — truly rely — on the Holy Spirit?

I find as I read the memoir that this scares me. I am afraid and intimidated to take on a proposal that I hope will lead to intellectual and spiritual growth, as well as a revival for the church. It is not as if I don’t look forward to this growth, either for me or the church. It is just that I’ve come to the realization that I will be confronted with my own emptiness and insecurities, my own concerns.

I deeply love my ministry and the church I serve. This will be a season to step out without a safety net to see what God has in store for me with an eye towards renewal. But healing always comes at a cost and with no little pain.

I think what really frightens me is having to release my whole self to the Holy Spirit. I always feel that I am at my best when I walk by the Spirit, to minister out of the Spirit-filled living I committed to so long ago. There is a fine line, however, between being Spirit-filled and having to lose all sorts of control entirely at the Spirit’s behest. I feel that, like Haller, I too might come to a point of crisis and ask, “What am I doing, and what have I gotten myself into?”

Thinking through this, I quickly realize what my wife might say to all of this: You can’t fear what has yet to pass. You just never know what thrills might be in store, so why worry? I guess only time will tell.