It is a great privilege and blessing that the elders, leadership team and trustees have approved for me to take a 3 month sabbatical – starting on Monday 11th May till Sunday 16th August. My last (6-week) Sabbatical was 7 years ago.
I wrote a short post last year on the rationale and benefits of sabbaticals ahead of Vanessa’s last year, so in this blog post I just wanted to give a brief overview of what I’ll be doing – partly because people have asked, and partly because I’d covet your prayers for me, my family and the church over this time.
5 Sabbatical Aims
I am entering my Sabbatical feeling very refreshed and energised, for which I am grateful. There are 5 areas of focus for my Sabbatical.
1. Personal renewal in God – unhurried time to spend time with the Lord, enjoying God and being first and foremost a ‘sheep’ and a ‘disciple’ of Jesus without any responsibilities. This is the first and most important business of my sabbatical. This will involve lots of reading, prayer, solitude and writing, down-tooling, conversations, and visiting other churches – though I know I’ll miss CCC very much and be keen to be back!
2. Family time – to give unhurried time to my family. Aside from our joint family holiday I’ll be taking each of them away to different places in Ireland for a few nights. I’ll also enjoy some time with wider family & friends too – including 2 walking trips to kickstart the Sabbatical and cycling the Ring of Kerry in July. FYI – Leanne will be taking her own shorter sabbatical in the month of June, including some personal retreat days at the start. Please pray for her during this time.
3. Reflection (past and future) – unhurried time to reflect on the CCC journey, both looking backwards (with gratitude) and looking forward (with hope). Particularly thinking about lessons learned over the last 12 years of church life, where we are now, and what the future might look like as we move to 4 congregations and develop other ministries in CCC, and consider future church plants too.
4. Study & Networking – To aid my reflection I will be doing two extra things. Firstly I have engaged Jen Charteris from Crosslands to help supervise a Sabbatical Study Project on leadership. Specifically regarding two areas – firstly to understand the dynamics of movements and complexity, and as a result to develop shareable insights (principles, tools etc) that support dialogue and decision making amongst the CCC leaders about how different congregations might evolve and how they might relate to each other in the future. Secondly – to grow in my own ability to lead at a different scale and in a different way as the next season will likely demand. As part of that study I will visit 12 different churches/leaders in the UK (on 3 different visits), the majority of whom are leading multi-congregational and church-planting churches. For those that are interested, the list is below*. I am keen to glean wisdom from them (and hear the mistakes they made, so we can avoid them if possible!!) on many aspects of church life – leadership, culture, structures, HR & staffing, governance, decision-making, maintaining unity whilst enabling diversity, maintaining church planting and movement dynamics in a sustainable way etc.
5. Enable space for CCC and the leaders around me to grow – Jesus is the chief shepherd of the church, and the Holy Spirit is always at work within God’s people, so I am expectant that in my absence God will grow and bear fruit in the lives of other leaders in CCC and in the church in general. This is an important part of the long term stability and health of CCC.
CCC whilst I am away
It is only because of the great team and people around me that I can take a 3 month sabbatical, and I feel confident that the church is in good hands, and as per #5 – I think it will be good for the church in many ways. Maffy and Andrew as elders, with Leanne and Ola on the leadership team, will continue to lead CCC as ‘one church’ as well as Maffy, Andrew and Ola caring for CCC North. Neil with the support of Vanessa and the congregation team will continue to lead at CCC Central, and Emma and the Congregation Team (Scarlett, Leanne and Maria) will lead and provide pastoral support in CCC South. Neil will also be more present and available in CCC South for this time, and we have many guest speakers coming in (including old friends like Sharon and Jez, and the advisory team existing and old – Monty, Joan and Sean).
I will not be attending CCC services or any CCC events during the sabbatical, and will miss the church family. It will certainly be strange for me. I will be off email and whatsapp for 3 months. Leanne and I won’t be talking about church either!
For CCC South, it’s good to know who the different Deacons are who are available if you need support over this time; they are: Leanne, Scarlett, Emma, Maria, and George. As mentioned, Neil will be with us most weeks and is available over the summer too. Maffy and Andrew will also be down a few times to be present and support South.
For North – I want to say a big thank you, as my sabbatical is only possible with the support of Andrew and Maffy taking on extra responsibilities at South and Central – which will probably have a small knock-on effect at North. Do pray for Maffy and Andrew over this time.
Ephesians 3:20-21 sums everything up well as I head into my sabbatical:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
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*Glenabby Church Belfast, Kings Church London, Enfield Town Community Church, The Cornerstone Collective Liverpool, Reach Ministries, Christ Church Manchester, City Church Manchester, Christ Church Newcastle, Peak Trinity, Cornerstone Nottingham, Emmanuel Bristol, Church Central Birmingham. Unfortunately Matt Hatch of Mosaic Church (the church who sent us to Dublin) is having a Sabbatical at the same time so we will miss each other.