Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2021, Dr. Tamilio
I am getting ready for my sabbatical. It starts in a month and a half and will last throughout the summer months. This is my first sabbatical since I was ordained in 1999, because I have never stayed in a church long enough to get one. Most churches grant a sabbatical (a time for rest and rejuvenation) after seven years. I stayed at my first church for five years and my second and third churches for four years each. This September, I will have been your pastor for nine years!
Most pastors spend their sabbatical researching and reflecting on a particular aspect of their ministry. Some begin working on a Doctor of Ministry degree. Some go on a pilgrimage to a place like the Holy Land: Israel, not Fenway Park. Originally, I wanted to explore evangelism and study current trends in this area. But recently, I had a bit of an epiphany. Evangelism is an outer topic. There is an inner one that propels church growth. That inner topic? Spiritual development. People are hungry for this. I am hungry for this!
June 6 will be the twenty-second anniversary of my ordination. As I look back, I realize a few things. I have had some great successes and have made some mistakes. I rejoice with you over the former and beg your forgiveness for the latter. But that is not my point. As I reflect on my ministry, I realize that I have spent a great deal of time in my head. When I sit down to write a sermon, for example, I sink my teeth into scholarly articles to unearth the historical context and the literary devices used within a passage. Then, I try to relate it to today. (All of you can be the judge in how successful I have been in doing so.) When I am not doing that, I am engaged in writing some sort of scholarly article or another.
At this point in my life, my publications are vast — and I am proud of that. My work has appeared in scholarly journals as well as the popular press. I will continue to do this type of work, but I am realizing it is not enough. You can only live in your head so much. The spirit gets a bit dry.
I plan to use this summer to explore Christian Spiritual Formation. I am doing this for me and for us. I am doing it for myself for some of the reasons I already stated. I want to deepen my spiritual wells. I want to plumb the depths of my soul and strengthen my relationship with God. This work cannot be done when you are busy. You cannot grow spiritually when you are running around writing sermons, teaching classes, running Bible studies, going to meetings, and everything else a pastor/professor does. This is why pastors and professors take sabbaticals every seven years: to recharge their batteries. But they do so not just for their own benefit, but for the well-being of those they serve.
Getting back to what I was saying earlier: this is connected to evangelism. Evangelism is about church growth. Essentially, it is about marketing: it is about us marketing our church to others so that they will want to visit and, once they come, they will want to join. If you market anything it helps to know what you are marketing. What will people find if they come here? Lots of things, of course. This is a loving, caring community. It is a place where people can get involved in outreach endeavors, not just by giving money, but by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work as well. Active engagement! It is a place where they can learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ because the teaching that occurs here tries to discern the historical context of the biblical text and then seeks to connect it to people’s lives in contemporary and practical ways. This is a place where we take the Bible seriously, but not literally. Actually, as I often say, we take the Bible so seriously that we don’t take it literally.
But this isn’t an institution of higher learning. People do not come here to earn a degree. People come to church so that they can deepen their faith — so that they can grow spiritually.
Carey Nieuwhof writes the following, “For too long, too many North American Christians have thought that sitting passively in the back row to get fed is what’s required of them, or that the main goal of finding a church is to attend one you ‘like.’”[1] Nieuwhof, “a former lawyer and the founding pastor of Connexus Church in Barrie, Ontario, one of the most influential churches in North America,” says that for churches to grow they need to reach those people in the back row and get them actively involved in the life of the church, particularly in its mission work. I agree. Mission is important. Christ made it clear that we are to serve God in the service of others, particularly the marginalized. But my question is, how do we prepare people to do this? Answer? By feeding their spirits. By enabling them to grow spiritually.
One website entitled Born of the Spirit says that there are three steps involved in growing spiritually:
- Define It
- Focus Intently
- Receive Coaching
The site says, “If we can define something, we can go after it.”[2] We have to know what it is we want and what we are offering others who walk through this door. People will be gripped by a congregation that has spiritual depth.
But that is not enough. We have to help people to focus intently. This requires practice: practice, practice, practice. Spirituality is not just some nebulous thing. It is a spiritual practice. It is rooted in prayer, worship, and the study of Scripture. We already provide all of that. The key is to incorporate it into a clear focus: growing disciples who seek to grow in their spiritual relationship with God.
This relates to the third point: receive coaching. A team is not going to perform to its potential unless it has a coach. That is my job, and I take it very seriously. But even coaches need coaching. “Whenever flight attendants review airplane safety before the plane takes off, they always say some version of, ‘In case of an emergency if oxygen is needed and the masks come down, put your own mask on FIRST, before assisting others.’”[3] Why? Because you cannot help others breathe if you can’t breathe!
During my sabbatical, I am going to learn to breathe. I already know how to, of course, but I want to take deeper breaths. I want to grow in my relationship with God. I want the scholar and the pastor to be more infused. Don’t get me wrong: it isn’t as if this isn’t the case, but we can also grow spiritually. By me doing so, I can help those who come through these doors put their masks on. Once those masks are on, I want them to breathe deep: to allow God to saturate their entire being so that they know that they are finding something here that they cannot find anywhere else — at least not with the same depth and integrity.
That’s how I will be spending my summer. Amen.
[1] Taken from Carey Nieuwhof’s blog.
[2] Taken from bornofthespirit.today/the-word-and-the-spirit
[3] Taken from illustrationideas.bible/put-mask-first.