Written by Ronnie Martin, director of leader care and renewal for Harbor Network and pastor-in-residence at Redeemer Community Church in Bloomington, Indiana.
If you compiled a list of the most important Christian practices, what would you include? Prayer? Reading God’s Word? Serving your church? Community engagement? All vital things, but I wonder how many of us would include Sabbath near the top of the list. Planning an intentional day of rest can feel ambitious at best and completely implausible at worst.
It’s true that rhythms of rest may change based on your stage in life and ministry. But consider this: What if the Lord modeled Sabbath for his image-bearers so we can better experience his love, mercy, and grace in our lives? What if we pastors stopped reducing Sabbath rest to a concept and instead took steps to make it an actual practice for the sake of personal sanctification and missional fruitfulness? As Nicholas J. Weyrens writes, “Sabbath is an opportunity to step into a divine ‘Nope’ . . . It’s a defiant resistance to this age’s principalities and powers, a courageous submission to the ‘One True King.’”
God’s divine “No” is connected to an equally important divine “Yes.” When we receive the Sabbath as a gift from the Lord, we embody our limits as his creatures, and the Spirit helps us to experience his love in ways only possible when we stop. In a day when anxiety levels are high due to politics, financial instability, and the fraught nature of both social media and 24-hour news cycles, a pastor’s disciplined practice of Sabbath is a gift to the church as well. Congregations need leaders in whom God has cultivated a rested and renewed soul.
Take a moment to imagine the effect that practicing the Sabbath could have on you, your congregation, and your neighbors. Pray for the wisdom to incorporate this God-ordained practice into your rhythm of life.
—Ronnie
