Sabbatical Moments

Everyone needs to experience a sabbatical in some form. While the concept is usually associated with a longer period of time, the value is understanding the underlying principles and striving to create those moments in your rhythm.

Start by asking yourself, “when is the best time for me to experience sabbatical moments?”

You may create sabbatical moments daily, weekly, monthly or annually. The goal is to intentionally schedule these moments with purpose.

Most organizations that offer sabbaticals require a proposal with a description of your intended activity and goals.

Google founders created a sabbatical concept with their 20% rule. This rule allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on personal projects. The purpose was to encourage creativity and innovation, to help employees develop new skills.

Clearing the mind of work opened up their minds to refreshment and innovation.

Using these guidelines, explore what a sabbatical experience would like in your rhythm. Ask yourself, “when is the best time to …….?” and fill in the blank for what you would like to accomplish. Then, schedule it.

Evaluate your experience and start working on your next sabbatical moment. With each experience you will learn what works best for you. You will grow and face your work with more energy, clarity and intent.

A Hard Reset For Your Ministry

In part two of the visioning process you want to create a system where you occasionally perform a hard reset to your ministry. 

This term is familiar in regard to the devices you use but there is also application to your Student Ministry. A hard reset restores a device to its original settings by deleting all data.

Seldom in organizations do we go to this extreme, but in visioning, the fresh start is helpful. It will help you examine your current structure in light of your current reality. All structures and activities were created for a reason but as current reality shifts, we seldom have a system that allows us to shift our programming. 

In my experience, we would perform a hard reset every three years. Too often creates chaos and not often enough may be too late.

In reality, most of the primary programming will remain on the white board but the process will force you and your leadership  to evaluate more critically. The result is renewed focus and a better understanding of strategic nuance. 

Investing in the process will create a high level of evaluation well into the future. 

Renew Your Vision With a Reset

Visioning is art. 

With this understanding, we can see why creating and sharing vision is such a challenge for so many leaders.

When you create art, you want it to be appreciated and to varying degrees understood. The art of vision is about the experience of a desired future. One can learn different approaches to visioning but in the end it’s up to those who will interpret the vision that informs us whether or not we have art.

In Student Ministry the challenge in our art is that we have such a varied audience–teens, parents, staff, supervisors and outsiders. The best art in student Ministry needs to be simple. 

Art begins with a blank canvas, supplies, and the time to create art. 

In order to create art I’ve asked three simple questions.

1. Are you seeing new faces at your weekly events?

2. Does your meeting room look the same as last year?

3. Have you changed anything on your Student Ministry calendar in the last year?

As you consider your answers to the above questions, let the art begin. 

Stay in front of the canvas until you have art.