"The Transforming Power of Gratitude" by Bruce Epperly
Meister Eckhardt once asserted that "if the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that will suffice." I believe that transformative ministerial leadership is grounded in gratitude. Spiritual leadership involves pausing to notice what's going on in the congregation and the world and then responding with words and actions of affirmation and healing.
Within our congregations, healthy and supportive leadership involves noticing the efforts of those persons upon whom our congregation's vitality depends. In a world in which people's efforts are often overlooked or taken for granted, gratitude warms people's souls and establishes deeper connections between the pastor and her or his congregation. Gratitude assures people that their lives matter - in the congregation, to the pastor, and to God. Indeed, effective leadership involves always having to say "thank you" for the efforts and gifts of others. As the apostle Paul proclaims to the Philippians, "I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now." (Philippians 1:3-4)
1. Gratitude is at the heart of affirmative leadership. Each Sunday morning, I begin worship with the words of the Psalmist, "This is the day that God has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24) The congregation replies, "This is the day that God has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." This simple, but theologically profound, affirmation sets the stage for everything to come in our time of worship. These words of gratitude proclaim that God is here, that this day emerges from God's creativity, and that we can experience wonderful things in the course of this service and the day ahead. Pastor and congregant affirm that the moment we awaken to this new day, a whole new world of possibilities emerges. We may have adventures even if we never leave our neighborhood.
2. Gratitude is the virtue of interdependence. When we say "thank you," we are reminded that none of us ever achieves anything of consequence on our own. Discovering and developing our gifts requires a spiritual village of friends, family, mentors, teachers, and institutions. We are supported by a communion of saints whose commitments have enabled us and our congregants to be faithful in our time and place.
3. Gratitude also gives us a larger perspective on the events of life, our congregation's gifts and limitations, and life as a whole. It is easy for pastors to focus on the limitations of the particular moment, our own personal failures, and the limitations of our congregations. Gratitude reminds us of the chain of causes that makes everyday life possible. Thanksgiving opens us to the fidelity of everyday people within our congregations. We soon discover that despite real limits, graces abound within our churches. Many of us remember the hymn, "Count your blessings" that counsels us, amid the storms of life, to name the things for which we are grateful one by one. In the naming our blessings, we discover anew God's providence and creative activity in our lives, congregations, and the world.
4. Gratitude is a matter of intentionality and action. It involves rituals of thanksgiving that begin with our spiritual practices and extend to words of gratitude to those whose lives shape our ministries and congregations. In my own pastoral work, I have sought to embody the following practices of gratitude, some of which you may choose to embody in your own ministries and personal spirituality. These practices emerge in the challenges of our lives and ministries and do deny our own personal and corporate limitations. They help us discover that our concrete limitations are the womb of new possibilities. Here are some practices I have found helpful:
a. Taking time every day for prayers of thanksgiving for God's blessings in your life and the world.
b. Giving thanks for yourself and your own gifts. I remember a chant I learned at the Shalem Institute in Washington DC: "I thank you God for the wonder of my being."
c. Taking a moment to give thanks for your vocation when you arrive at the church building.
d. Giving thanks daily for particular people in the congregation.
e. Saying "thank you" to congregants for their efforts. Just think of Sunday morning: we can express our gratitude to the lay reader, greeters, choir, professional colleagues, fellowship hour hosts, and acolyte. You cannot say "thank you" or "I love you" too often in life.
f. Saying "thank you" to the office staff for their efforts. Acknowledging every positive effort with a word of appreciation.
g. Saying "thank you" to your professional colleagues at church on a regular basis.
Including a word of thanks in every appropriate e-mail or written correspondence.
h. Giving thanks for those who attend study groups and church meetings.
i. Saying "thank you" to children and youth for their contributions.
Even saying "thank you" to those who suggest, sometimes with a hint of criticism, changes in worship or congregational life.
A ministry filled with gratitude will transform the way you look at each day and inspire creativity amid the limitations of congregational life. We will go through the day in the spirit of Dag Hammarskjold's affirmation:
For all that has been - thanks.
To all that shall be - yes.
[Bruce Epperly is pastor of South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Centerville, Mass., and the author of 35 books, including Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry and Starting with Spirit: Nurturing Your Call to Pastoral Leadership.]
Monday, November 23, 2015
Authors Bruce G. and Katherine Gould Epperly, each of whom has over 25 years of experience in various pastoral roles, invite clergy to see their ministries in the present as part of a life-long adventure in companionship with God, their loved ones, and their congregations. There is a time and a season to every ministry. Healthy and vital pastors look for the signs of the times and the gifts of each swiftly passing season, but they also take responsibility for engaging the creative opportunities of each season of ministry. Those who listen well to the gentle rhythm of God moving through their lives and the responsibilities and challenges that attend the passing of the years, vocationally as well as chronologically, will be amazed at the beauty and truth that shapes and characterizes the development of their ministries.
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Ideas that Impact: The Importance of Gratitude
"What Would It Be? Dissatisfaction or Gratitude?" by Rhonda Mawhood Lee
An Episcopal priest learns a valuable lesson from a run-in with a smartphone. The choice is yours every moment of every day: focus on lack or appreciate the abundance.For years, I had put off getting a smartphone. Though I sometimes felt like the only middle-class American under 65 with a flip phone, I simply did not want to be tied to that more-powerful technological leash. But then I took a job that required me to check email on the road, and joined the smartphone-wielding masses.
The day I bought my iPhone, I had to admit: That little electronic brick was beautiful. Sleek and shiny, it promised to make my life easier.
But 24 hours later, I was ready to throw it through a window. My iPhone wouldn’t save my contacts. For some reason that I couldn’t fathom and Apple user forums couldn’t explain, the names and numbers I entered one minute disappeared the next.
A phone without contacts wasn’t going to keep me in touch with anyone. And my attempts to diagnose the problem were driving me out of my mind.
I know. There’s a hashtag for this: #firstworldproblems. But as trivial as it was -- and as embarrassed as I am to admit it -- my “first-world problem” was ruining my day.
Fortunately, on the morning my iPhone went on strike, a neighbor’s kindness pulled me out of my self-absorbed funk.
Fuming about how I could possibly fit a visit to the AT&T store into my schedule, I pulled into my hairdresser’s on the way to work. My bangs, along with so much else, were getting on my nerves. It was time for a trim.
Again: #firstworldproblems. #whitewhine.
I didn’t have an appointment, but a trim takes five minutes. My hairdresser, Mark, provides this service free between haircuts. Over the 20 years he’s been cutting my hair, I’ve learned that he’s not just a generous soul. He doesn’t want clients taking matters into their own hands, butchering their hair and then telling everyone they go to his shop. Free bang trims prevent that kind of bad publicity.
Mark wasn’t available, but his colleague Jeff ushered me to a chair.
“How’s your morning going?” he asked.
“Honestly, not great,” I answered.
As I opened my mouth to tell him about my run-in with technology, I remembered that two of his cousins had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. I decided not to go into details. Instead, I poured out an unplanned confession, something that had only just then occurred to me.
“I’m just grumpy today. I’m going through a transition at work, and I think it’s making me anxious.”
“Well, we’ll see if we can’t get your bangs the way you want them, at least.” He went to work, combing and snipping.
My bangs trimmed to our mutual satisfaction, Jeff asked, “May I style you up a little?” As I hesitated, he added, “It’s a hot, humid day out there. Maybe I can get you ready for it.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
As Jeff sprayed, blow-dried and brushed, I had a sudden, clear realization. I could stay irritated and let trivial frustrations cloud the rest of my day. Or I could let go of them and relax into Jeff’s skilled, caring hands. It was up to me whether I accepted the gift he had offered.
So what would it be?
Dissatisfaction or gratitude?
Ruin my day over a smartphone or allow a kind person to give the day a fresh start?
Focus on what I lacked or appreciate the abundance in front of me?
The choice was mine. It’s always mine. It’s yours, too. It’s everyone’s. Moment after moment, every day.
That morning, I chose to settle into Jeff’s chair. For the 10 minutes it took to style my hair, I enjoyed the human connection he forged between us, and I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for him. I knew Jeff wasn’t looking for a tip, but I gave him one. It was enough, if he wanted, to buy coffee or a beer after work with a friend -- creating another shared moment of simple pleasure.
I went into the salon that morning for a bang trim and came out with an attitude adjustment. The impact of my impromptu morning styling rippled outward, far beyond one hairdresser’s chair.
The gratitude for Jeff and his kindness shaped my interactions with everyone with whom I met that day. The young mother discerning a career change that would allow her to spend time with her family while offering her gifts of patience and encouragement and her vocation for teaching to a wider circle. The 90-year-old woman who can no longer leave her home, whose ministry is now to pray daily for the world. My parish colleagues, whom I would soon leave to answer a new call, whom I already missed and to whom I made sure to express my appreciation that very day.
That morning, I had faced my own frailty, if only in a small way. Anxious about upcoming changes at work, I had sought control of trivialities: my iPhone and my hair. But when I acknowledged my fear and accepted help, the whole world, and my sense of possibility, changed.
Anxiety, followed by a desperate grasping to control something, anything, no matter how small -- it’s a cycle that everyone experiences at one time or another.
So does the church. Budget goals seem unattainable, so staff members get squeezed. Ministries, each with too few participants, compete for the resources they all need to do the Lord’s work. Parishes focus on helping the poor outside their walls, oblivious to church members who are afraid or ashamed to admit that they can no longer pay their mortgages and don’t know where to turn.
In all these situations, confession -- of our fears and our needs -- and compassion -- for each other and ourselves -- could be the first steps toward a new understanding of the abundance we might enjoy together.
The afternoon after Jeff styled my hair, I finally figured out how to get my iPhone to accept my contacts: reboot it. The machine, like me, had needed to start over. And one man’s generosity had given me the space I needed to realize that.
Buy the book »
Ideas that Impact: The Importance of Gratitude
"What Would It Be? Dissatisfaction or Gratitude?" by Rhonda Mawhood Lee
An Episcopal priest learns a valuable lesson from a run-in with a smartphone. The choice is yours every moment of every day: focus on lack or appreciate the abundance.For years, I had put off getting a smartphone. Though I sometimes felt like the only middle-class American under 65 with a flip phone, I simply did not want to be tied to that more-powerful technological leash. But then I took a job that required me to check email on the road, and joined the smartphone-wielding masses.
The day I bought my iPhone, I had to admit: That little electronic brick was beautiful. Sleek and shiny, it promised to make my life easier.
But 24 hours later, I was ready to throw it through a window. My iPhone wouldn’t save my contacts. For some reason that I couldn’t fathom and Apple user forums couldn’t explain, the names and numbers I entered one minute disappeared the next.
A phone without contacts wasn’t going to keep me in touch with anyone. And my attempts to diagnose the problem were driving me out of my mind.
I know. There’s a hashtag for this: #firstworldproblems. But as trivial as it was -- and as embarrassed as I am to admit it -- my “first-world problem” was ruining my day.
Fortunately, on the morning my iPhone went on strike, a neighbor’s kindness pulled me out of my self-absorbed funk.
Fuming about how I could possibly fit a visit to the AT&T store into my schedule, I pulled into my hairdresser’s on the way to work. My bangs, along with so much else, were getting on my nerves. It was time for a trim.
Again: #firstworldproblems. #whitewhine.
I didn’t have an appointment, but a trim takes five minutes. My hairdresser, Mark, provides this service free between haircuts. Over the 20 years he’s been cutting my hair, I’ve learned that he’s not just a generous soul. He doesn’t want clients taking matters into their own hands, butchering their hair and then telling everyone they go to his shop. Free bang trims prevent that kind of bad publicity.
Mark wasn’t available, but his colleague Jeff ushered me to a chair.
“How’s your morning going?” he asked.
“Honestly, not great,” I answered.
As I opened my mouth to tell him about my run-in with technology, I remembered that two of his cousins had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. I decided not to go into details. Instead, I poured out an unplanned confession, something that had only just then occurred to me.
“I’m just grumpy today. I’m going through a transition at work, and I think it’s making me anxious.”
“Well, we’ll see if we can’t get your bangs the way you want them, at least.” He went to work, combing and snipping.
My bangs trimmed to our mutual satisfaction, Jeff asked, “May I style you up a little?” As I hesitated, he added, “It’s a hot, humid day out there. Maybe I can get you ready for it.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
As Jeff sprayed, blow-dried and brushed, I had a sudden, clear realization. I could stay irritated and let trivial frustrations cloud the rest of my day. Or I could let go of them and relax into Jeff’s skilled, caring hands. It was up to me whether I accepted the gift he had offered.
So what would it be?
Dissatisfaction or gratitude?
Ruin my day over a smartphone or allow a kind person to give the day a fresh start?
Focus on what I lacked or appreciate the abundance in front of me?
The choice was mine. It’s always mine. It’s yours, too. It’s everyone’s. Moment after moment, every day.
That morning, I chose to settle into Jeff’s chair. For the 10 minutes it took to style my hair, I enjoyed the human connection he forged between us, and I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for him. I knew Jeff wasn’t looking for a tip, but I gave him one. It was enough, if he wanted, to buy coffee or a beer after work with a friend -- creating another shared moment of simple pleasure.
I went into the salon that morning for a bang trim and came out with an attitude adjustment. The impact of my impromptu morning styling rippled outward, far beyond one hairdresser’s chair.
The gratitude for Jeff and his kindness shaped my interactions with everyone with whom I met that day. The young mother discerning a career change that would allow her to spend time with her family while offering her gifts of patience and encouragement and her vocation for teaching to a wider circle. The 90-year-old woman who can no longer leave her home, whose ministry is now to pray daily for the world. My parish colleagues, whom I would soon leave to answer a new call, whom I already missed and to whom I made sure to express my appreciation that very day.
That morning, I had faced my own frailty, if only in a small way. Anxious about upcoming changes at work, I had sought control of trivialities: my iPhone and my hair. But when I acknowledged my fear and accepted help, the whole world, and my sense of possibility, changed.
Anxiety, followed by a desperate grasping to control something, anything, no matter how small -- it’s a cycle that everyone experiences at one time or another.
So does the church. Budget goals seem unattainable, so staff members get squeezed. Ministries, each with too few participants, compete for the resources they all need to do the Lord’s work. Parishes focus on helping the poor outside their walls, oblivious to church members who are afraid or ashamed to admit that they can no longer pay their mortgages and don’t know where to turn.
In all these situations, confession -- of our fears and our needs -- and compassion -- for each other and ourselves -- could be the first steps toward a new understanding of the abundance we might enjoy together.
The afternoon after Jeff styled my hair, I finally figured out how to get my iPhone to accept my contacts: reboot it. The machine, like me, had needed to start over. And one man’s generosity had given me the space I needed to realize that.
Read more »
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"A Layperson's Guide to Practicing Gratitude" by Mike Osler
Bigstock/photojohn830
There’s no perfect church. So embrace what you have by practicing gratitude, writes a lay leader.
My wife and I recently relocated, which led us to visit a half-dozen churches in the past two months. Each seemed to have a downside.
The music wasn’t that great, or the message wasn’t what I wanted to hear, or the attendance left something to be desired. They didn’t take Communion by the method to which I’d grown accustomed. Their greeters seemed to have inauthentic smiles. They didn’t have small groups. They didn’t have much of a missions program.
After several weeks, I shared my frustration with a friend. She said, “Just remember, churches are made by man. Therefore, they will never be perfect. Embrace what they are.” Suddenly, my attitude changed.
There is plenty to complain about at church. But what if we stopped looking for what’s wrong? What if we looked for what’s right with our churches? What if we expressed gratitude for what we have? Most of us have much to be thankful for in our churches, but human nature has a way of eroding our appreciation.
In his book “Community and Growth,” Jean Vanier instructs us to “stop wasting time running after the perfect community. Live your life fully in your community today.”
That is wonderful advice. I’d like to expand on it by offering several concrete ways to practice gratitude and appreciate what we have in our church settings -- today.
Start with perspective. Why does a comment offend one church member and not another? The difference is perspective. It’s important to realize that we choose our own attitudes. We cannot control the actions of others or the events that take place. However, we can control our responses to those actions and events. Gratitude starts with us and our perspective.
Move from transactions to relationships. The business of church is complicated, and our interactions can become transactions: “Good morning, is the PowerPoint on this computer?” “How busy is the nursery?” “Who is doing the announcements?”
What if we asked different questions? “Could we grab coffee or lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks, at your convenience?” Then use that time to ask, “What led you into ministry? What are your biggest frustrations? What are your biggest fears for the church? What are your biggest victories? How do you feel about …?”
We were created to love other people. We do it best when we get to know others and appreciate who they are.
Be willing. Churches seem to be forever in need of volunteers and ideas. What if we as laypeople were the first to volunteer? We might offer to teach a Bible study or lead a small group. We might show up to serve meals to the homeless even if our assigned role is singing in the choir. Offer to do whatever the church needs most.
Often being willing to show up at events or being willing to listen to others is the best place to start. If we take the first step, the Holy Spirit has a way of showing us the next one.
Cast a wider net. Instead of putting expectations only on the senior leadership, how can we cultivate a community of leaders who share a common goal? Congregations and staff can easily become frustrated when the leadership doesn’t respond exactly the way they’d like.
But laypeople have opportunities to lead as well. We can reach out to the finance committee, the church council, other staff members and passionate church members. We can foster collaboration between children, youth and senior ministries. We can help our leaders maintain focus on the ultimate goal while casting a net around an ever-wider group of people who share that goal.
My wife and I still haven’t settled on a church. But my frustration has been replaced by genuine interest and appreciation. To be honest, I am looking forward to visiting more churches to see how they worship our great Creator.
I know that when we find our church, it will not be perfect. But just as Christ embraces me and my imperfections, the least I can do is live a life of gratitude and appreciate what’s right with my church..
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"A Layperson's Guide to Practicing Gratitude" by Mike Osler
Bigstock/photojohn830
There’s no perfect church. So embrace what you have by practicing gratitude, writes a lay leader.
My wife and I recently relocated, which led us to visit a half-dozen churches in the past two months. Each seemed to have a downside.
The music wasn’t that great, or the message wasn’t what I wanted to hear, or the attendance left something to be desired. They didn’t take Communion by the method to which I’d grown accustomed. Their greeters seemed to have inauthentic smiles. They didn’t have small groups. They didn’t have much of a missions program.
After several weeks, I shared my frustration with a friend. She said, “Just remember, churches are made by man. Therefore, they will never be perfect. Embrace what they are.” Suddenly, my attitude changed.
There is plenty to complain about at church. But what if we stopped looking for what’s wrong? What if we looked for what’s right with our churches? What if we expressed gratitude for what we have? Most of us have much to be thankful for in our churches, but human nature has a way of eroding our appreciation.
In his book “Community and Growth,” Jean Vanier instructs us to “stop wasting time running after the perfect community. Live your life fully in your community today.”
That is wonderful advice. I’d like to expand on it by offering several concrete ways to practice gratitude and appreciate what we have in our church settings -- today.
Start with perspective. Why does a comment offend one church member and not another? The difference is perspective. It’s important to realize that we choose our own attitudes. We cannot control the actions of others or the events that take place. However, we can control our responses to those actions and events. Gratitude starts with us and our perspective.
Move from transactions to relationships. The business of church is complicated, and our interactions can become transactions: “Good morning, is the PowerPoint on this computer?” “How busy is the nursery?” “Who is doing the announcements?”
What if we asked different questions? “Could we grab coffee or lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks, at your convenience?” Then use that time to ask, “What led you into ministry? What are your biggest frustrations? What are your biggest fears for the church? What are your biggest victories? How do you feel about …?”
We were created to love other people. We do it best when we get to know others and appreciate who they are.
Be willing. Churches seem to be forever in need of volunteers and ideas. What if we as laypeople were the first to volunteer? We might offer to teach a Bible study or lead a small group. We might show up to serve meals to the homeless even if our assigned role is singing in the choir. Offer to do whatever the church needs most.
Often being willing to show up at events or being willing to listen to others is the best place to start. If we take the first step, the Holy Spirit has a way of showing us the next one.
Cast a wider net. Instead of putting expectations only on the senior leadership, how can we cultivate a community of leaders who share a common goal? Congregations and staff can easily become frustrated when the leadership doesn’t respond exactly the way they’d like.
But laypeople have opportunities to lead as well. We can reach out to the finance committee, the church council, other staff members and passionate church members. We can foster collaboration between children, youth and senior ministries. We can help our leaders maintain focus on the ultimate goal while casting a net around an ever-wider group of people who share that goal.
My wife and I still haven’t settled on a church. But my frustration has been replaced by genuine interest and appreciation. To be honest, I am looking forward to visiting more churches to see how they worship our great Creator.
I know that when we find our church, it will not be perfect. But just as Christ embraces me and my imperfections, the least I can do is live a life of gratitude and appreciate what’s right with my church..
Read more »
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"Stopping: The Gift of Sabbath" by Lynne Baab
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"Stopping: The Gift of Sabbath" by Lynne Baab
My friend Jeff, a writer in an advertising agency, oversees his company’s contract with a large relief organization. When an earthquake occurred in Bam, Iran, the relief organization wanted to get out a mailing as soon as possible. Jeff received the assignment on a Friday morning. He was given a deadline of Monday afternoon. He worked all day Friday and Saturday on the project, and by Saturday evening he could see he would likely need to put in two more full days of work in order to make the deadline.
When he went home from work that night, Jeff felt conflicted. For several years he had been observing a Sabbath almost every Sunday, with unexpected and profound blessings. He has discovered that he gets more done during the week if he observes a day of rest. In fact, on those occasions when he goes ahead and works on Sundays because he just can’t see how the work would get done otherwise, he feels off balance, scattered, and perpetually behind all week. This odd arithmetic speaks to Jeff of the way God honors even our small acts of obedience.
On that Saturday evening after the Bam earthquake, Jeff decided to keep a Sabbath the next day, despite all the evidence indicating he needed to work on Sunday. He returned to work on Monday wondering what would happen. All day long he found things falling into place in an amazing way. He met the deadline comfortably, and he went away from work marveling again at the mysterious ways in which God acts.
Growing Observance of the Sabbath
More and more people of all ages are finding joy and fruitfulness in observing a Sabbath. One of my friends, who is nearing retirement after a lifelong career in campus ministry, has just begun to do so. He used to believe people could rest after the work was done. He has finally realized the work is never done. “The Sabbath is God’s gracious five p.m. whistle, allowing us to put down our tools even though the work isn’t finished,” he says.
In my own experience, a surprising number of people in their twenties also observe the Sabbath. Many of them say things like, “The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. We keep the other nine. Why wouldn’t we keep this one?” At Bethany Presbyterian Church in Seattle, where I recently served as associate pastor, a group of 20-somethings has gathered informally after worship every Sunday for several years, spending long hours just being together. As some of them have gotten married and started families, the group has changed shape, but the commitment to a day of rest from work has remained.
The timing for this increase in Sabbath observance couldn’t be better. As our culture spins faster and faster, as a frantic pace becomes the norm, the need for down time is ever more apparent. We are a tired people. Researchers tell us that, on the average, Americans sleep two hours less each night than we did a hundred years ago. Researchers also note that during our waking hours, multi-tasking takes a significant toll, contributing to our stress levels and thus to our exhaustion.
For those of us who tend toward perfectionism or workaholism, fatigue is a dangerous condition. We tend to cope with uneasy feelings by working harder—our “drug of choice.” And, of course, fatigue causes a good number of uneasy feelings. We are lured into a spiral. Working to the point of exhaustion, we feel off balance because of our fatigue, and our knee-jerk coping strategy is to work harder, causing deeper exhaustion. People who study burnout call this pattern “overfunctioning,” and anyone who looks closely can see it all around us in workplaces, in churches, and even in homes.
Overfunctioning has dangerous implications for people of faith. We believe in God’s grace. We believe, as author Philip Yancey says, that nothing we can do will make God love us less, and nothing we can do will make God love us more. Unfortunately, overfunctioning undercuts grace in an experiential way that impacts our hearts. When we overfunction, our conscious minds continue to affirm that living by grace is important, but we are acting as if our actions are utterly significant and vitally important. In many ways, our actions shape our hearts more than our conscious thoughts do, and our hearts begin to creep toward the unhealthy belief that we can earn God’s approval by what we do.
At the end of his space novel Perelandra, C. S. Lewis creates a long ceremony where the angels who rule the various planets give speeches about the paradoxes of the world God has made. One angel reflects on the fact that each of us is truly necessary because God’s love is like a great river, which needs a riverbed to flow in. Another adds that each of us is truly superfluous because God “has no need at all of anything that is made.” God’s love comes to us as “plain bounty.”1
A weekly rhythm of six days of work and one day of rest affirms this paradox that Lewis describes. During the six days of work, we acknowledge by our actions that we are called to be God’s hands and feet in the world, that God’s love does need a riverbed to flow in, and that our work is indeed vitally important and significant. On the one day of rest, we live out the equally important reality that we are superfluous. God has no need at all of anything we can do or say or create or imagine. On that day, we live in the joy of knowing we are beloved because God’s love comes to us as plain bounty.
One of my colleagues, who has observed a Sabbath for more than 30 years, says that on the Sabbath she is no longer identified with any of the roles she fulfills in her working life. On the Sabbath, she is simply a beloved child of God. She reflects that it was only after several years of Sabbath observance that she learned how to step aside from those roles as she began her Sabbath, but now it is like changing into comfortable clothes.
When we overfunction, when we work continuously without a rhythm of work and rest, we are acting as if only half of C. S. Lewis’s paradox is true. We take ourselves too seriously. We move dangerously close to idolatry.
What Does the Sabbath Look Like?
The Sabbath has impressed grace on my heart more than anything else in my life. I have observed a Sabbath for 25 years, ever since my husband Dave and I spent 18 months living in Tel Aviv, Israel. Our experience of the Sabbath there involved a day with many fewer options: no shopping, no movies, no meals in restaurants. We didn’t have a car, so the absence of buses had a significant impact on us and slowed us down incredibly.
We returned to the U.S. determined to bring some of the slow pace of the Sabbath into our lives here. The specifics of what a Sabbath looks like have changed with each life stage, but the common, overarching principle is to cease working. Of course, work includes far more than just paid work. Balancing the checkbook, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, and shopping for groceries also feel like work to me. The Hebrew word for Sabbath simply means “stop, cease, desist.” We need to ask ourselves what we need to cease from in order to make some space for God.
The many excellent books on Sabbath-keeping suggest a variety of possible ways to draw near to God on one’s day of rest. I have heard people talk about their joy on the Sabbath as they walk in nature, pray thankfulness prayers, practice mindfulness, or spend time with children.
It’s important to recognize that setting high goals for drawing near to God on the Sabbath has an inherent danger of continuing a pattern of overfunctioning. What we need most in our frantic culture is to stop our activity. As we learn to stop in a weekly rhythm, over and over, week after week, and year after year, our hearts will absorb something about God’s grace that cannot be learned from careful Bible studies, excellent sermons, or insightful discussions.
The Benefits of Stopping
A day centered around stopping gives us time and space to see our lives more clearly, to notice where God has been present in the previous week, to pay attention to where we have resisted God’s hand in our lives. On every single Sabbath, we might not have profound insights about God’s presence in our lives, but without taking time to stop and notice where God is working, we will see a whole lot fewer of the miracles that surround us.
Sometimes on my Sabbath I sit in our living room and look at the trees through the window. They are amazingly beautiful in their different seasons. As I sit there, I realize that all week long I have rushed in and out of the room without noticing any of those trees.
The trees speak to me of a deep truth. It is right and good that I work hard six days of the week, striving toward the goals that God has laid on my heart. As I work hard, I miss some of the beauty that surrounds me, so it is also right and good that I spend one day each week resting with joy in the goodness of God, my creator and redeemer. On that day I can enjoy the miraculous beauty of the world and I can cultivate thankfulness.
In one Jewish tradition, prayers of intercession are forbidden on the Sabbath because even intercession is too much work for the Sabbath day. Because the Sabbath encourages us to cease striving, to let go of the tasks and goals that fill our minds six days of the week, we have the space to look around us at the beauty of the world God made. We have the space to notice the things we want to be thankful for.
My heart grieves when people tell me why they cannot possibly keep a Sabbath. I long to help people understand the theological danger of continuous productivity. When we are constantly working at something, our hearts begin to believe we are too significant. God is no longer at the center of human life. Our own activities move into center place, and we become idolaters.
Rick Warren’s best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, begins with the profound truth that life is simply not about us. The bookfs popularity attests to a deep ache for purpose and meaning in the midst of the frantic pace of our lives today. We long to understand our place in the universe, to know who we are in the light of God’s love. Over time, the Sabbath helps us live in the truth of who God is and who we are. The Sabbath teaches us grace. It helps us stop racing around as if we are the center of the universe.
NOTES1. C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (New York: Macmillan, 1944), 217.
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