Patrick Lafferty Sabbatical
A special letter from Pastor Patrick Lafferty:
By now you may have heard, we will be on sabbatical this summer–a kind provision afforded by the Session, but ultimately a generous gift from you.
Sabbaticals envision what their root word–sabbath–intends: a rest from regular labors, like a field lying fallow for a season in order for it to be purposeful and productive in the next. They offer the opportunity to account for what’s been misplaced, unravel what’s been tangled, and remember what’s been forgotten.
Our Personnel Committee asks any staff member who embarks on a sabbatical to have a plan with a purpose. Mine is to follow Jesus’s words to his disciples to “come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while,” (Mark 6:31); to believe Him when he elsewhere says, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide,” (John 15:16); and as Paul exhorted the elders in Ephesus, to, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock’ (Acts 20:28). In other words, the sabbatical is for that rest that allows for extended focus on renewal, identity, and priority.
It will mean both detaching and attending, thinking and praying, listening and learning. It will offer the privilege of being uniquely present to Christy and our children.
Meanwhile, it will be a typically full and exciting summer here. One clear and abiding strength of GMR is its team of Session, Staff, and Diaconate working in collaboration to fulfill the church’s purpose. You can have every assurance that purpose will continue as smoothly as you’ve come to expect.
Just last month, we heard our favorite songwriter give a concert in Black Mountain. In typical fashion his stories between songs are as rich as his music. Between two songs he confided that he still needed to “learn these songs”--not learn how to play them, but how to live into their beauty. The comment struck me. I need to “learn these sermons” I’ve given these last seven years–not to learn how to speak them, but to live them. A sabbatical is not necessary to learn a sermon. It is a blessed setting, though, in which to try.
On behalf of my family and me, we thank you for this gift–this uncommon privilege–of rest, reflection, and recalibration.
Patrick & Christy