The Church of God in Texas

As many of you know, after eight years of ministry at Parkgate, I was blessed to be offered a three month sabbatical this past summer.  It was a wonderful blessing, but there were three key lessons from that experience I want to share with you.  They may not be earth-shattering for you, but that were critical and eye-opening for me.  Here they are:

1.       It should be a non-negotiable to have time away, especially with your spouse, for personal and focused Sabbath rest.  Never in my life have I had more than a vacation or a few days at a conference to get away and those times, as wonderful as they are, don’t begin to get at what I am talking about.  During my sabbatical, Julia and I spent nearly a week at a facility in Wisconsin associated with Pastors Retreat Network.  From Sunday night to Friday morning Julia and I were in a self-guided spiritual retreat offering complete and total rest with each other and with God in ways I simply never experienced before.  There were no interruptions and no formal agendas beyond a guided noon meal conversation with the director, his wife and the five other pastor couples with us.  Julia and I reconnected in meaningful ways and my ministry-crazed and sometimes erratic connection with God was deepened too.  Pastor’s Retreat Network (www.pastorsretreatnetwork.org) has several facilities, including one in Texas.  Rest assured, a retreat like this will become a regular part of my year from now on.  If I want to make it in ministry for a lifetime it will be a non-negotiable.

2.       I need to be very diligent and creative to stay fresh in my walk with God.  Maybe this isn’t true for you, but spiritual disciplines have never come easy to me.  I have always struggled to maintain a good, steady routine of personal prayer, scripture meditation (that isn’t really sermon preparation), etc.  I desperately long for a much deeper connection with God and for Jesus to grow in me, but I find myself dry due to the ruts I get stuck in.  While away at the retreat I became acquainted with a wonderful book by Donald Whitney called Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health.  This book, for me at least, has become like a cup of cool water for the dry and thirsty soul.  It is filled with solid teaching, but very practical and creative ways to deepen and further your walk with God.

3.       My conviction was re-enforced again that we only have limited opportunities to connect with people far from God, so we had better be sure not to punt.  I visited many churches, including some very large ones, and in each case I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone far from God who is genuinely searching for spiritual truth.  Sadly, in many of the cases, I am not sure they would have found any real answers in the places I visited.  I say this not to be critical of anyone.  Someone may have made the same observation when they came to visit me some Sunday.  All I am saying is that I witnessed, over and over again, services that seemed designed to please the already convinced with very little thought given to the stranger in the room or the person far from God.  I also saw far too much attention given to what I would call trivial subjects instead of highlighting the Gospel or key aspects of our life together in Christ.  I don’t know about you, but we have guests in our church nearly every week and I also know people who worship with us regularly who have not yet surrendered their life to Jesus.  I never know how many opportunities we may have with them so I want to do my best to always be clear and offer them next steps to take.  I was disappointed to see many churches appear lax in their intensity here and I don’t ever want that to be our story.

I am certainly convinced that I have more to learn than I ever have to impart, but I do hope these three lessons might prompt you along with your spouse and maybe your ministry team to think through some of these important issues to come to a better, God-honoring place than you are today.

On the journey with you,

Jim