Mike Woodruff Discusses His Sabbatical

In this episode of On Good Work, host Ben Dockery speaks with Mike Woodruff about the themes of work and rest, mainly focusing on what he did (and did not do) during his recent sabbatical. Mike shares his personal experiences, the structure and habits he maintained; misconceptions of a sabbatical; and his various travels and speaking opportunities. In this conversation, Ben and Mike discuss the Sabbath, the challenge of identity beyond work, and the joy found in simple moments. Enjoy the conversation.

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:03)
Welcome to On Good Work, a production of Lake Light Institute. On this show, we talk with people about the good work they do, what they love, what they wish they could change, where they see hope, and where they meet God in the midst of the daily work they do. My name is Ben Dockery. Thanks for learning with us.

Today, my guest is Mike Woodruff. Mike is the chairman of Lake Lights Board. He's the senior pastor of Christ Church and has served in that role for more than 25 years. He is involved in a number of ventures, including a weekly newsletter, an email that goes out. You can find that at thefridayupdate.org. In his own podcast, beneath the headlines, Mike is husband to Sherry, father to three boys, grandfather to two young granddaughters.

and he recently completed a sabbatical. And he joins me today to talk about themes of work and rest.

All right, Mike Woodruff, thank you for joining me on Good Work as we talk about work and specifically today as we talk about rest or talk about Sabbath and not in theory, but the practice of Sabbath and the practice of a sabbatical, particularly what you have been doing in 2025. I thought it'd be fun to start off with a list of true and false questions because I know I've had a lot of misconceptions on what a sabbatical is, what pastors do, what faculty do when they're on these.

So if that's okay, let's start off with sure true and false questions. So first number one you get a sabbatical every year true or false

Speaker 1 (01:42)
Well, if you ask my fraternity brothers, not only do I get a sabbatical every year, I only work one hour a week. no, I actually, when I came 25 years ago, stepping out of a consulting job in a little bit of downward mobility in terms of pay and other things, I negotiated a sabbatical every five years. Now.

I've been here 25 years and this is my third sabbatical. doesn't really, know, negotiating it and actually taking it are two different things. But I get a sabbatical and the Christ Church policy is a sabbatical every seven years.

Speaker 2 (02:20)
Okay, so on the sabbatical, one of my assumptions is your schedule changes, that you probably stay up later and sleep in a little bit longer because you don't have to be in the office and all that stuff. But did the sabbatical change your daily schedule?

Speaker 1 (02:38)
It did, but it actually changed it in the opposite direction. So I have been an early riser since my late twenties and I actually got up earlier during my sabbatical and I wasn't setting an alarm, but there was a lot of excitement about the day. And so I was up often before five because I got to read and study and do the things I wanted to do. I was

I had an extended devotional time, which was rich, and so I was, yeah, I would look forward to that. So, yes, it did change it, but not in the direction that people might think.

Speaker 2 (03:17)
think you might be alone in that sort of directional change. Most people, I'm sure, would go the other way. So same thing with your diet. And by the way, just so listeners know, I read some notes from what Mike was doing day in and day out at the end of his sabbatical. So I created these questions based on some of these notes that I saw. So what about, did you eat like you're on vacation? Did you gain a little weight, unfortunately? And what was the last few months like when it comes to just basic diet?

Speaker 1 (03:44)
Yeah, you know, I'm feeling really odd here and people are just going to think I'm even weirder than they might already think. But so, you know, there's different ways people think about a sabbatical. And some people think a sabbatical is vacation, a sabbatical is time off, you get to do whatever you want to do. It's three month vacation, you're retired, whatever. And I'm not against those sabbaticals. That's not been what I have felt like I've been.

So I feel like sabbatical is an investment that the university makes in a faculty member or a church makes in a pastor in order that their service, in order that they grow, in order that they're healthy, in order that their service is going to be of even greater value to other people. So I asked the question, what would it look like for me to come back with energy?

So I was, I noted, and I know you, you know, I cleaned up my sabbatical journal and I cleaned it up not just for you to be able to look at it before this, but also just to give some sense of report back to the elders. And so there's lots of things that I wrote in my journal that you did not read, because I just pick them out before I sent them on. But I, you know, I sort of came at this and said,

Uh, yeah, I could tell in this frame at the end, uh, before I went on sabbatical, were two, two occasions where I found myself getting angry inappropriately. I mean, there's, you know, there's righteous anger. Uh, but that isn't what I felt like. Uh-oh, that suggests I'm, I'm a little bit, uh, I'm running a little thin. So when I asked, what would you, what do I need to do in order to come back with energy? And I said,

I need to finish some of these projects. I need to make some of these decisions. I need to get some of this stuff off my to-do list because the storm clouds are hanging over me and I'm not staying up with what I need to get done. you know, there's some people during the off season, yeah, they're going to sleep in and they're going to eat and gain weight and they're going to show up at Spring Ball and they're going to be out of shape and gassed and it's going to be horrible. And there's some people that say, I want to take Spring, I want to take my

my off season and I'm going to work out and I'm going to do calisthenics, I'm going to put on 20 pounds of muscle, I'm going to watch film, I'm going to be ready. And this time, this isn't necessarily what I've done in the past, but this time I said that's sort of metaphor for me. So I did not gain weight, I actually was very disciplined in a lot of different ways, partly as an experiment, partly as

If I lose discipline in one area, I think it just would spill over to other areas. So I'm like, how do I interject structure in my life? Because I had three months off with very little, you know, things to do. So that was, you know, sort of how we approached this. And in sharing this work, so, I mean, I did some travel, some of it I just did alone. So I'd go someplace and I'd come back because I didn't want to be gone for very long. And then we got some travel together at the end.

So anyway, I want to justify my, you know, people thinking what in the world you get this vacation and you completely are, you know, yeah, you're pathological about it, but that was how I was.

Speaker 2 (07:22)
Yeah, well, I I was what I was looking at some of the notes and you know don't know what details you took out but at some point I was watching like you you'd recorded Nick you're cutting weight across this thing Yeah, you're coming back and better shape than when you left which is you know, yeah honorable and probably probably So you just took your hands the next question I was gonna ask I was gonna say so did you stay in like bluff? Did you say me like force area for the entire thing? Yeah, we're what did it look like in terms of? travel in

Speaker 1 (07:51)
Well, obviously we had another grandchild and so, you know, went to Iowa as soon as, as soon as the, that was appropriate. I am on a couple of boards and I, I am downsizing my involvement in these boards. These are mission related, Christ Church mission related. I do them.

both to serve in the broader community, but also because I learned from being in these settings. So, but I went to two board meetings, one in Portland and one in California. I went to a study center. So I started the whole thing again at the St. Mary's on the lake. I assume you're gonna, you you're gonna get to that one.

Speaker 2 (08:39)
yeah, I'm coming back to that and

I'll get through some your other travel schedules specifically as well, was just curious if you- yeah, yeah I-

Speaker 1 (08:47)
I

was, I was, it was a mix of both. And February, was gone a lot, less so in January. And in the last couple of weeks, I've been back here. Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:00)
So in the past, you have taken a lot of time to write. And so one of my assumptions coming into this is like, Mike might come out with a new book when he gets back from sabbatical. Did you come out with a new book on the back?

Speaker 1 (09:11)
No, and when we talked about it early on, know, a year out, I've got a sabbatical coming and trying to figure out, you know, what's that going to look like? are we going to structure that? Sherry's comment was, don't write another book. And those are, for me, I mean, some people are, I'm not a good writer. I'm a decent editor, but it did a lot of edits for me to.

know, winnow things down to something I think other people are gonna care to read. So that's always been a race. I've written two books, know, I've had two previous sabbaticals and I wrote books. So Sherry said, don't write a book, work on your heart, not your head. And so that was a big part of it. I did do, which is exhausting by the way, I far rather have had her say, why don't you write an even bigger book? But there is no book coming out.

Speaker 2 (10:09)
Yeah, you did write because I saw some Friday updates. So you did, you know, stand that sort of sequence. A lot of people subscribe to this. They would have the answer. But what did you do with Friday update during your sabbatical?

Speaker 1 (10:22)
Yeah, two months on and one month off. So we're going to release and maybe by the time this drops, we'll have already released a slightly repositioned Friday update, tying it to the lake light, doing a couple other things that are slightly different. right. And running the Friday update. I mean, I started that because I felt like the life I am privileged.

to lead in terms of study and reading and reflecting and being in interesting meetings and other things puts me in touch with lots of material that it doesn't fit into a sermon. It's not gonna fit into a sermon. And I was like, I just gotta get this out. So I don't work to sort of write the Friday update. These are just things that I'm running across as I'm, you know, in the course of my week and I write them down and package them on, well.

It might be a mystery to some people. I used to get emails from people saying, you're streaming out the Friday update at two o'clock in the morning. You need to, you know, you need to relax. And I'm like, yeah, I was done with it on Wednesday and it got scheduled by somebody else to go out on Friday at 2 a.m. So I'm writing this during the course of the week and it goes out when it goes out.

Speaker 2 (11:40)
Yeah, so you continue that a little bit. What about on Sundays, not just Fridays, but what about Sundays? During the sabbatical, do you just skip church for a couple of months or do you, how do you handle Sundays?

Speaker 1 (11:51)
Yeah. So, and you know, again, we decided, Sherry's like, I'm not, you know, she's, I'm not on semantical. And so there were some Sundays when we went to other churches together. There were some Sundays when she came to Christ Church and I went to a different church. So I went to church every Sunday and I went with a desire to just

You know, not to be the critic, is, and by critic I don't mean a negative critic, but not to sort of be a student and go, okay, what are they doing? What can I bring back to Christ Church? How do I learn from this? But just to go and sort of sit and say, okay, Lord, I just want to sit under your word. I want to be in a time where I'm going to, you know, pray a prayer of confession and hear the gospel. So.

We did that. went to a handful of churches around here. I preached a couple of times at friends churches, which people see as heavy work. It wasn't really, I mean, I was going to visit friends and they're like, hey, can you preach? Yeah, I can do that. So I was in church every, I think now maybe when I was traveling overseas, I missed the Sunday. That's possible, but I'm going to say I was in church every Sunday.

Speaker 2 (13:12)
Okay. Yeah. All right. So you again, we've talked a little bit. You didn't stay here the whole time. You had a couple different trips and I was just kind of clipped off, you know, several of those went to one you've already mentioned you went to Iowa, grandchild number two, baby Kennedy was born actually born on my birthday. So will remember her birthday. Yeah, maybe easy for me. Jason, if you ever listen to this and forget your daughter's birthday, just send me a text. I got you.

But one of the places you went was to Oxford. So tell us a little bit. What did you do in Oxford? What was on the schedule when you went there?

Speaker 1 (13:44)
So one of the boards that I'm on, one of the other directors was the provost at Wheaton. And he was hired by this Mark Lanier, an attorney who has made a lot of money, not just millions, but billions of dollars. And he set up this theological library, theological study center.

She's got one in Houston and I went to Houston and it, cause he invited me, says, look, you can come to Houston for free and be in just hang out the library. it's spectacular. I mean, it's just, it's spectacular. And he says, what would you really gonna do is you got to go to Oxford. At Oxford, he said, we, recently bought Princess Di's family estate. So the Spencer family estate, which is, I don't know how many acres it is, but it's a big castle with lots of.

acreage and they have retrofitted it. putting in this library. It's just outside of Oxford, the town, which is of course where the university is. And I stayed, yeah, so I stayed for free, uh, in these just spectacular, they're not dorms. They're, I don't know what it is, but they have professors staying there on sabbatical. They, they open it up to some pastors and then you have access to the libraries. And then just to.

the grounds and there's lots of other people there. yeah, mean, if I was assuming that Sherry would join me, if I was younger and smarter, I would move to Oxford and just try and hang out there because the conversations were so rich and the people that were there were just, was, again, in the weird zone in which I live.

I wouldn't necessarily want to hang out in the locker room after game seven of the World Series as much as I'd like to hang out at the library at Oxford with a bunch of field agents. was wonderful.

Speaker 2 (15:49)
Yeah, that sounds great. And Mr. Lanier, if you're trying to expand your library in Chicago, you know, a lake light expression of that, we're open to, we're open to, you know, negotiating that with you. So yeah, you were in you were also in Houston at the library down there. That sounds like that was a and if I remember right, there was like a big weather event in the middle and you I almost didn't do the whole purpose of why you went is that some notes about that.

Speaker 1 (16:13)
Yeah, well, there was, there was not a big weather event. There was a really small weather event at which Houston absolutely went, panicked. And so I had gone down a day, half a day early to visit with my niece and her family. she's a PA down there and, and so I'd gone early and to take them to dinner and just see them. And I get this call from the center and they're like, Hey,

You better get here because all of Houston's gonna shut down and you're gonna need to food and you know, we may be closed for days. And I'm like, had this, I hadn't been to the campus yet. I had this image of a tiny little dorm room and I was gonna buy a jar of peanut butter. I was gonna be locked in this dorm room with a peanut butter and bread. was like, what have I done? Why am I here? But when I got there,

When I got there, it was this incredible condo and I bought some food and I was shocked because the line, it took me like a half hour to get into a parking lot at the grocery store. I'm like, what is going on? Houston is exploding. And then, no, I realized, everybody was stocking up on food. they got some snow.

on the grass. None of the snow stuck to the street. They were closed for two days. I mean, Houston was. Yeah, I'm trying to eat healthy. I go out that night. The next day, snow storm was Sunday night. The Monday night I go out, because I've been, the campus was closed. I was able to, you know, I mean, my conduct was great. And Tuesday morning, although the campus was mostly closed,

My friend opened up the library for me and I had it to myself, which is, know, I'm driving around, all these restaurants are closed. Like I've drive for 20 minutes. I finally found an In-N-Out burger. It's open. I'm like, okay, well, you know what? I guess I'm gonna have to not eat a salad. I'm gonna eat an In-N-Out burger. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2 (18:16)
Yeah

So I mean, one of the things you did for Lakeland was you taught this class on CSLS, which obviously has been super influential in your life and but gave you a concentrated time to think about that. And so I saw that, you know, both in Colorado and North Carolina, maybe one other place that I may have missed, you gave talks at CSLS during the sabbatical as well. So tell us just a little bit about what you did and where those places were.

Speaker 1 (18:52)
Yeah. So, um, yeah, when I was in Colorado, there was a men's ski retreat that I have gone to. don't ski since the stroke, but I snowshoe and I go hang out at this and I speak at this men's ski retreat for the last, I don't know, four or five years. that's... And so, uh, I go in, I went in a day early. There's a church there that I've...

Speaker 2 (19:13)
in Beaver Creek.

Speaker 1 (19:22)
given Hawke's app. So last year it was on the news and this year it was sort of a lake light, you know, lake light live, whatever that gets called. And he asked about a do or talk on CS Lewis. And so then I also did it, we, and I, earlier this month we went to North Carolina. Initially, as part of my whole sabbatical plan, I wanted more contemplative times.

And I'd signed up for this, uh, uh, pastor's fly fishing retreat, alter fly fish. Oh yeah. No, I'm like, Oh yeah, this is what I got to do. And I never actually believed it was going to happen. And I, I'm going to call this guy, you know, eight times like I'm getting ready to book this. getting ready to book this and I'm planning all these things around this. I plan out, okay, we're going to see one friend we saw.

I went in and saw Anson in Charlotte and preached to his church. That was fun. And then I supposedly had this whole week. It was going to be Tuesday through Friday night in which I was going to be fly fishing and then see another friend, two other sets of friends and all this stuff was going to happen. So I planned all this stuff around this altar fly fishing trip and then it gets canceled. So I filled that. Sherry's like, well, you know, let's.

go visit these friends and let's go see my mom and we did that. And then I saw my brother and yeah. I, one of them said, when I said, Hey, I'm, I'm, want to come and see you guys. We're like, great. Why don't you preach and why don't you just see us lose class? So I just did a one hour lecture on Louis. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:07)
Yeah, and I know we got a couple more of those booked later this semester, so that's great. So let me shift from travel experiences to some other planned experiences that I noted. And one of them was, as I read it right, it was a ruthless moral inventory. So what is that? What's the value of that? Is that something that anyone who's listening should look into and think about, or is that something uniquely for extended time away on a sabbatical?

Speaker 1 (21:37)
So I mentioned, you know, we sort of said, okay, what I had to do, work on my heart, not my head. And so I set up a number of things. So I said, okay, what does that look like? Well, I need somebody to coach me on this. And so I ramped up meeting with the guy that I'd been talking to, former pastor, works and sort of that, you know.

as a counselor slash spiritual director. And so I said, okay, I need more of that. I more scripture, I more silence, I want more journaling, I want more of those things. And so I started the sabbatical, like the first, so it was January, February, and March. So I think it was January 5th because of, it was that Monday, I went to St. Mary's on the Lake in Mundelein.

the Catholic seminary and retreat center for a silent retreat. And I sort of jokingly said I failed that both because my, goal was, or the agreement was I was going to turn on my cell phone and sort of engage in technology and check in with the world in the evening. And if there was something that I needed to know about, Sherry would have texted me. So I'm there all of about seven hours and when I turn on my cell phone,

It's not just that I've heard from Sherry, but heard from Jason. Hanism is in delivery. So this is our grandchild through Hanism labor. Everything's great and fine, but there were some complications and some wrinkles and all this. so obviously I didn't keep my phone off. I was very engaged over the course of the next 48 hours with all of that. But also,

So I just found it very hard to get the popcorn popper to stop popping. so I was trying to, know, taking these walks and memorizing scripture, I'm listening to scripture, I'm journaling, I'm trying to just unwind, listen to the Lord. And what it felt to me like was that my heart was a cage full of greyhounds.

And they were just begging, they were just anxious to get out. just couldn't sort of settle. So I went back. I, you know, it ended, the silent retreat ended, it was three days. And I came back home. And then the next week I went again, saying, okay, I gotta try this again. And I didn't have the language of the Ruthless Moral Inventory, which I was sort of familiar with this as an

as a step in AA and also just familiar with it as a spiritual discipline. But I said, I'm try and go at a deeper level looking at my heart. And I am going to suspend every self-justifying reflex and try to really own the darkness and whatever, turning this to shame.

look at things in the past, whatever comes up, you know, as I am reflecting and journaling and whatever the spirit of God brings up to sort of look at that. so I did that and it was about a day and a half and it was a lot of journaling. Yeah, I mean, it's, look, it's horrible. But it's also, I think it's helpful. And to the extent that we can really get to know ourselves better.

And I'll just say, I didn't feel like I finished it. And, and I'm not sure that I finished it yet. The image that I had when I was talking with, uh, the spiritual director, and when I was also talking to Sherry about it, as I said, it feels to me like, uh, in that Voyage of the Dawn Treader to go back to C.S. Lewis, all roads lead to C.S. Lewis. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader used to get turned into a drag.

At some point, he doesn't like that and he's got this ring on his arm that is causing all this pain and he's trying to not be a dragon. And he meets with Aslan and he undergoes this process of confession. It's Louis being brilliant and writing about confession. And he rips the dragon's skin off. He's clawing at his scales to get them

but they keep coming back on. And then eventually Aslan has to do this. And so Aslan will rip off the scales. And then he throws them into the water, which is clearly a metaphor for baptism. And he changes back in a noble way and all this. And I said, I feel like I went as far in the ripping off of the scales as I could. But I'm not sure Aslan would be done.

So, yeah, I put a bookmark in it. I don't feel like I'm done with that, but it was helpful. And there's a sense of praying and liberation. I feel like, again, conversations with some friends and obviously with Sherry. feel like, yeah, I didn't necessarily learn anything new about myself. I just learned that the...

It just goes deeper. The sentence there, you peel back the ending and go, yeah, okay. I've seen this. So I'm glad I did it. And obviously in the, with John Oberg, when he was speaking about the 12 steps, this is one of the steps in AA and his book, Steps, writes about this in some way. And there's more to it than I've explained, but yeah, that's what I did.

Speaker 2 (27:49)
Yeah. And if somebody, mean, if somebody is thinking, I may try something like that myself, either silent retreat side of it as an expression or, you know, finding a resource like that. I'm assuming I haven't done this yet, but you can throw this in chat. GPT and it'll tell you, know, what's a good resource or where would you go to just, mean, Google.

Speaker 1 (28:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, ChadGVT. Well, look, I think people have very different understandings of what a silent retreat is. And for some, might just be, well, I'm just not going to talk. But I mean, it's a lot more than that. So for me, the silence is a little bit more about the heart and it's about disconnecting. So obviously, a digital fast, that was part of what we did.

and part of that, didn't want to spend, know, really my fear, and this sort of drove my little crazy, you know, hyper tasking. I did not want to say to myself, little one to anybody else, yeah, I had a sabbatical and I watched a lot of Oprah reruns and gained some weight and got nothing done and watched a lot of Netflix. And to me, just, that is draining. And so.

I would say there's more to it. I think the spiritual, mean, look, hey, take 24 hours and go to St. Mary's of the Lake, or anywhere. I mean, you don't have to go somewhere, although I think you might have to get away from things. And unplug and see what you learn. Again, if you fail...

My experience is not the first time I to Rio de my experience was that I failed and we to keep going back to this.

Speaker 2 (29:37)
Yeah, yeah, my only other thought on that is, I mean, I think you did this is tell someone you're going to do it and then report back afterwards because holding yourself accountable and then knowing that you're going have a discussion with someone on that can be really helpful. Let me throw one other experience that it looked like that you participated in. And then I want to ask you some questions just a little bit higher level about work and about Sabbath, more on a theoretical level than just what your experience was through this. you did something called a generosity project. So help people understand what was that and

and maybe what was a benefit or what was an example or whatever you feel like sharing.

Speaker 1 (30:12)
Yeah, so this is John Mark Comer. He was a pastor in Portland. He's now got a ministry called I think I think it's just called practicing away. And he's finishing a PhD focusing on you know, I think I think he did his dissertation on some aspect of Dallas Willard's work, but maybe not. Anyway, so Comer has lots of resources out podcasts and books and other things.

And his practicing away is a, I think they're all four weeks, but I think he has nine different practices, fasting and silence and Bible study. we did, Sharon and did generosity. It's, you you read something, you watch a video on something, you get discussion questions, and then there's some thing you gotta do. So the first one was, we had to recklessly give money away.

And which, which we did initially when I was doing my silent retreat. I failed because I'm like, I'm not around anybody and I'm not even talking to them. Walk up and hand money to somebody. That's going to be weird. But eventually, uh, yeah. And then the next one, was to give stuff away that you weren't using. then the third week, I think it's to give something away. really don't want to give away. So was just, it was generous. Uh, and.

Speaker 2 (31:22)
like hand out cash

Speaker 1 (31:42)
Yeah, we were planning on doing another one. So that was just a, yeah, that was that.

Speaker 2 (31:48)
Okay.

Yes. And again, it sounds like something that could be appalled at the place itself. Well, I want to ask some questions just more reflectively around, I mean, one of the purposes of this podcast is to think deeply about work that's designed for work. Anytime you talk about work, scripturally, there's always this balance or this connection to rest as well. So not sabbatical necessarily, but Sabbath particularly. One of the resources I saw that was on the reading list that you had spent some time in.

was Abraham Heschel's book on Sabbath, a Jewish thinker and writer. And he ties the idea of Sabbath to the idea of meaning and that people actually find meaning in the middle of rest, which is a key thing. talk to me a little bit about maybe what you learned from that book. I know it's a pretty thick, short read, but thick read, lots going on there, but maybe some connections to resting or ceasing from your work in the way that it surfaces meaning or identity and who we are.

Speaker 1 (32:43)
Yeah. So look, I, I, in addition to failing a silent retreat, I feel like I had been a failure in, Sabbath keeping. And part of that is because I just, I feel like we've got a very undeveloped understanding of that. And it's been a sort of a inflection point for me for a long time. So Sabbath.

so, so again, rest, I want to, I want to say people think rest like, taking a nap or rest like amusement, right? So, to muse is to think and you add the alpha in front of it means to not think. it used to be that the Sabbath was a time of reflection. was, it was, I need some time away from work to.

reflect on my life and to make sure that I am doing the right things and I'm going to examine my heart and I'm going to think about how I spent the last week. What did I do right? What did I do wrong? How do I want to live differently? And now that would be very contrary to the way people sort of engage with Sunday. I mean, to the extent that we even have, we don't have a Sabbath. Sabbath turned to Sunday and Sundays have turned into weekends. And so weekends are

are just another day and in many people's thinking and if it to the extent that it has any sort of religious, I'll use that you know sort of pejorative sense, any sort of religious overtones it's I'm not thinking about work.

I'm at nothing, which I would argue is really missing the mark. look, my world, my life is spent reading. I mean, my day job is studying the Bible and write. So for a lot of people, they work with their hands. And this was helpful. One of the helpful takeaways that I have learned about the Sabbath. If you're working with your hands all

a week, then you probably need a Sabbath that's not working with your hands. But if you're only working with your head, then you probably need a Sabbath that has got you working with your hands or doing something else that's restorative, that puts you in a different space. I think the thing, know, was, yes, Heschel, I listened to some podcasts from both Jewish thinkers.

Christians and some secular Sabbath people and part of what I took away this time was that is that part of the part of what we need to learn in the Sabbath is our limits and just to just to accept the fact that we can't do everything and to sort of learn to trust God with what we can't do because those limits are real

But we just try, you know, there's, we, we often try to ignore them or hide from them. So yeah. again, a bookmark in that I did not, I have not been able to put a bow on that by any means, but it was helpful to sort of take some of that on.

Speaker 2 (36:08)
Yeah, well, I mean, one of the other things about work and not working and meaning active rest, you're resting in a mindset is that it also can change the way you think about who you are. And so you stepped away for a period of time, which intended to be on a weekly practice, but you stepped away from quote your identity or even our names themselves often derived from the work we do where you've got bakers and tailors and Smiths and Millers and whatever else.

Speaker 1 (36:35)
or doctor this or pastor this or

Speaker 2 (36:38)
You

get on an airplane and it sounds as what do do? So it becomes who you are, it becomes the way you identify yourself. So I don't know, stepping away for a while, it help you reframe that or did it challenge you or did it reinforce some thinking around your identity and your work or? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 (36:54)
Yeah. So first of all, I've been talking with some pastors that are older than I am and who have retired. And they all have had a sort of a crisis of identity because, I mean, this job is weird and it can make you weird. And one of ways that

One of the things that is weird about it is it's one of the last privileged voices in society. mean, almost everybody else gets yelled at. You stand, you try and stand in front of a room and talk. People are pushing back or walking out or whatever. I mean, that, that day may come.

Speaker 2 (37:41)
All of those cool board superintendents are amening, right? Right, right, yeah, yeah!

Speaker 1 (37:44)
Oh,

mean, yeah, look, it's a privileged voice. And so you walk away from the position and you lose that voice. And as much as I want to say and believe my identity is not as a pastor, my identity is as a child of God, my identity is as a husband, as a father, as a friend, the fact of the matter is for 40 years.

I'm pretty certain that if I'm at somebody's house and we're going to sit down for a meal, they're going to ask me to pray, right? Which is fine. mean, that's fine. People don't have to not ask me to pray, but that's how they see me. I am seen as a pastor. so, yeah, so I'm trying to step out of that somewhat into, mean, look, one of things that I heard early on and I go, there's a lot of wisdom there.

We're all interim. I'm, yes, I am the senior pastor, the lead pastor. I've been here for 25 years, but it's not my church. It's an interim job. I know there'll somebody that will take over when I'm done and we're all interim and we just, we serve in this spot. And so I am trying to figure out, I think it's wise for all of us to sort of occasionally add 10 years on to our age and just say, okay, when I'm 74,

Well, that means Sherry's this old. That means my kids are this old. That means the roof is this old. That means, you know, whatever. That means the car is this old. That means the grandchildren are this old. What other issues are I going be dealing with? My knees are going to be 74 years old. What does that likely mean? And how do I prepare for that? So I did do some, not as much as I want. didn't check that box off the Excel spreadsheet. But I did some thinking about how do I get ready

for the future. yeah, it's, I think those questions of identity and Orberg writes about this in the 12 steps, right? I how much we're wrapped up in our identity. I tried to step away and imagine that and I did some lifting, but I didn't do enough.

Speaker 2 (40:07)
Yeah. And I mean, not for now. I think I wasn't trying to imply just to be clear that someone's being wrapped up or being known for what they work and do is all negative. Just clearly there's a way to... I mean, as we heard recently, Nancy Roberta was talking about the first thing God does to introduce himself is say, he's a worker. Like, hey, this is how I'm going to explain who I am. I'm going to work for six days to introduce myself to you and record that for...

Speaker 1 (40:35)
As LakeLight is trying to advertise, there's a real upside to the privilege, the opportunity to be, you know, to use the gifts and abilities that God has given us and to steward the time and the resources and all that and to, you know, the whole cultural mandate we see in Genesis 1. So, that's all.

Speaker 2 (40:56)
So

speaking of good work, let me ask this. I want to go joy. What was something that was, I went to the Ash Sherry, hey Sherry, you're looking from the outside, you're in my sabbatical, this probably really brought him joy. This was an investment, this is an energy creator, life giving, all that. What would you say is a point or something that was joyful during the middle of your sabbatical?

Speaker 1 (41:18)
Well, I mean, the obvious first answer is a grandchild. So, I'm not sure where second is. It's so far down the list. And again, you just sort of marvel at newborns. Again, I said this before when Brunes was born, but supposedly the two things adults can look at for hours without stopping is fire, water, and babies. Newborns.

Speaker 2 (41:25)
Anyway,

Speaker 1 (41:48)
You you just sort of keep looking and you're like, okay, I'm sort of surprised I'm not moving on here, but I'm just still looking. So that was great. I'm not sure how Sherry would answer that when she would say, where did you see Mike have joy? And I've generally found that, you know, speaking for her when I don't know. Where did I have joy? You know, I had joy. I enjoyed getting some.

Speaker 2 (42:10)
can read it, I read the other question.

Speaker 1 (42:17)
some things done that had been hanging over my head, know, unfinished project. It's worth noting. The people who are tired at the end of the day are not the people that worked hard and got something done. They're the people that maybe did, maybe worked hard but didn't get something done or maybe just didn't get something done. You know, when you win, when you...

When you finish something, there's energy. So I had some things that I just had to get cleaned up. mean, I started before my sabbatical even officially began. I cleaned my office. And, know, I'm usually bringing in a book or two and a week, a new book, and they just stack up. And eventually I just look like a complete, you know, lunatic old professor in an office that is.

So I cleaned my study at home, I cleaned my office. Some nice meals, just, you know, casual reading things I wanted to read. Those are all sources of joy. Yeah, just, you know, down to, because I did try to say, if I can't find time to, you know, relax or take a nap or read something I want to read now, I'm not going to fight, you know, then that's on me. So there were some of those moments.

Speaker 2 (43:41)
So I mean, I pulled out a couple of things that I think were just fun facts. This will be quick hitting it, we close up here. Some questions here. So one of the things that could be like giving, seemed like it was if you were doing it by choice, is a rock walk. Am I saying that the right way? So what is that and how did you do that?

Speaker 1 (44:00)
Yeah. So, um, I am, uh, I am likely coming to the end of my running career. My boys had said I haven't been running for 15 years. was jogging, uh, at best. Um, so I'm, am, so I've never been fast, but I have run 45 days a week for the last 45 years as it's been part of.

Speaker 2 (44:17)
Categories are helpful, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:30)
how I manage.

Speaker 2 (44:32)
And that's Chicago winners. That's why.

Speaker 1 (44:34)
Chicago

winters. So the temperature, I mean, I used to run it as long as there wasn't snow on the ground. And then I hit, I think it was zero was I wouldn't run it was below zero. And then that's climbed to like, you 20 now, but it's not in rain. So, I mean, we lived in Washington state, so it was raining and everybody ran in the rain. did everything in the rain. had pickpinks in the rain, right? It was raining. It wasn't really raining like in the Midwest. It's just misting. So you just got used to doing everything in rain. So yeah, I

I've run forever, but I just don't have that, yeah, there's no there there. So I ran a 5K a couple years ago. And first of all, if you told me my time, know, 30 years ago, I would have said, oh, just shoot me, please. I don't want to ever be a guy that's running that. But I was running and coming back from the stroke, very glad to be able to get back to running.

So I ran like a nine minute first mile and a nine oh five second mile and then like a 16 minute third mile. And Sherry's like, happened? I'm like, nothing. There was just nothing there. So, okay. I'm, that's reality. And so I now am rucking. So I got for Christmas a 25 pound ruck vest.

And I try to see off the streets because I don't look weird, back in the open lands and other places, I put on this vest and I walk five miles, six miles. it's, yeah. So, I mean, it's amazing how much 25 pounds feels like when you're carrying it.

Speaker 2 (46:20)
Yeah, okay. Pushups, that was another thing that was on the list. You did a bunch of pushups, though, Clay.

Speaker 1 (46:26)
Yeah. Yeah. I got a friend who's crazy into rucking and pushups and burpees and all these things. And we got into a little bit of a contest. so I was, yeah, I did a lot more pushups than I ever expected I would do, but every, every day. Well, yeah. mean, I'm 95 % of the time. And yeah, mean, if you do, you can do a lot more. So, I when I started, I couldn't do many.

Speaker 2 (46:42)
Every day, every week, what was the-

Speaker 1 (46:56)
Uh, and now I can do a lot more, but yeah, that's a little embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (47:04)
All right, Journal. Regularly, looked like you were recording, you know, know some of it because I saw some notes, but that became a part of your practice. Yeah, that was a daily practice, weekly practice. What was the?

Speaker 1 (47:17)
Yeah, so that's an on and off track. Louis, again, CS Lewis, Louis stopped keeping a journal because he felt like it made him too self-absorbed. And it gets a risk. But I think the bigger risk to me is that not reflective. And you're going and you're not stopping. starting actually backing up to the beginning of COVID. So I mean, I've kept journals off and on since college.

And I certainly keep them when I travel and I keep them on sabbaticals. And I almost never go back and reread them. I did for the first time when I was doing my silent retreat, I was rereading some journals, just trying to figure out like, who am I? What am I talking about a lot? What am I worried about? What am I praying for? How have I seen God work? So, yeah, mean, starting with COVID,

I felt like, and so in First Samuel 30, I believe, is where David has had a really bad day. He's working as a, he's sort of a thug for hire. He's got this band of mercenaries and they're running themselves out to foreign gangs because John is trying to kill them and he's, know, it's a bad season for him. But they're out on a raid and when they come back, their wife and kids have been kidnapped.

And it says that the whole group turns against, he's got these, you I mean, he's got a bunch of bad guys with him and they're turning him and he fears for his life. And the verse says, David encouraged himself and the Lord. And then he says, okay, here's what we're going to do. And they go out and they recapture the people that are kidnapping their wives and kids and they get them all back. So early on in COVID, I said, okay, this feels like anything.

You know, this feels like a bad moment. I need to figure out how to encourage myself in the Lord. I've got to be able to lead well. And so that's when my devotional life sort of went two acts, three acts, and I started to spend a couple of hours a day. And I jumped back into journaling and thinking and processing. So I kept a journal every day. I mean, that's...

part of, you know, silence and scripture reading and prayer and some devotional reading and journaling and pushups. That was my morning.

Speaker 2 (49:53)
Yeah, and rough walks. Okay, good. And I know, sir, remember, it was another thing that was a part of that. You won't have to go into that. think that one's a little bit more self-explanatory. But those are, mean, just sort of fun things that I drew out of there. So let me close with this. Let me ask, as you're jumping back in, we're recording this on April the 1st. It is a busy season in the church calendar Easter. It's just a few weeks away. This will, you know, you'll preach your first sermon back this coming Sunday. And then I think this podcast will be out a week after that. So shortly after that. But you're jumping back in and, you know,

What are you looking forward to? Like when it comes back to, you know, just the work of pastoring and stepping back into your role and I you're going to change a few things or tweak some knobs around, but as you come back in, what are you looking forward to as we close this up?

Speaker 1 (50:34)
Yeah. Well, so first of all, mean, I've got to say, a privilege. anybody listening to a podcast about my sabbatical, I mean, I just want to say I'm very thankful for the sabbatical and I've felt, I very much wanted to be a good steward of it. And I'm very thankful for the staff. So I'm thankful to the, you know, the church and the leaders of the church and I'm to the staff who have, you know.

who are very capable and doing good stuff. I stepped back in and I'm trying to say, mean, it was clear, I went into the sabbatical saying I am not anywhere close to wanting to retire. And that was completely obvious. yeah, I know I've got energy. I wanna serve and I wanna be part of this team and I wanna do that.

there's no expiration date that I can think of. I'm 64 and not 34 or 24. So what I heard a friend say is, them my fastball, but I have to look at my pitch count. And so I said, yeah, think there's wisdom there. I have to figure out where do I serve? Like, what can I do at this stage of life? What's the best use of my?

And so I'm stepping back in and I want to be a I don't want say boss, I want to be a better steward of all the talent that's there. So obviously Renew is, there's Renew and Lakelight and there's the church and then there's some extra, I mean, and there's obviously family stuff, but then there's extra board commitments and whatever else it would be. And I want to try and I think increasingly,

where the fruit of my life is going to show up is in speaking and writing. And then just being a, the fruit of my life hopefully grows on other people's tree. So I figure out how to help other staff serve better, raise their game, get the opportunities that they need. So I am looking forward to all of that. There's so many good things happening at Christ Church. And yeah, I just feel.

I'm excited about

Speaker 2 (53:01)
Yeah, great. Well, I mean, it's a unique, very unique guest on this. thank you for being the boss. Yeah, interviewing someone that the chairman of the board that you report to and give updates to on a regular basis. But thank you for, you know, providing us with an insight into that and really helping people think about work and specifically about rest and what sabbatical is and so for resting well and coming back ready to give.

Looking forward to this to this next season. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah one last thing When you come back one of the things you're looking forward to I'm gonna tell you you're excited about this May the first you're teaching a class so Thanks for catching that before we signed off

Speaker 1 (53:44)
Yes,

well you did tell me that you wanted to say this.

Speaker 2 (53:46)
Here's the last thing I want you to do is tell us about what's happening on May the 5th.

Speaker 1 (53:50)
And

I am excited. wouldn't have mentioned it except I thought you were going to ask. yeah, so one of the big things that I was working on that was a sabbatical project was thinking about when I come back, what do I need to do? How do I lead? What does it look like to pastor at this moment, know, in 2025 and beyond, in the next five to 10 years, whatever.

So that led to lots of reading and reflection and discussions. So I was privileged to have an opportunity at Oxford to sort of share some of these ideas with some professors and have them help me sort of think more clearly about some of this. So we have, Lake Light has this trip coming up, and I see a...

Istanbul, Constantinople, we're coming up on the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, which gave us Nicene Creed. so, so yes, you have a trip coming up to that. I, I step into this to say, okay, I'm teach on, I'm going to teach again. I taught last year on CS Lewis. I had to teach on this, the Council of Nicene, which is actually really interesting. I mean, it's for Chicago's Greek politics and all kinds of things going on.

But as I got into it and it was reading and studying and reflecting, I thought, okay, there's this claim to truth and it is important and it shapes us and it shapes the church and we need to understand that. We need to understand the context of our lives. And so I eventually, and it was a lot of iterations, but I eventually designed this class, four weeks, four lectures, one around how we got here.

And by that, mean West. What's the West? What's Western civilization? How did it develop? And how is it shaping us? How has it shaped us? How have we gotten here? The second lecture looks at where we are today. What's going on? What are the forces and factors beneath the headlines that are shaping how we are living and thinking that we may not even see until they're

pulled out and we realized, this is very different than how I am thinking differently than I would have 20 years ago. was more so than 200 years ago. And am I thinking better than I was? Should I be thinking differently? And what's going on? What's shaping my life right now? And then the third sort of anchors all this in the Nicene Creed, the claims of truth and the biblical truth claims and what that looks like. And then the fourth one is

So that was it looked like to live today and looking, because I do think this is a challenging moment, a bit of a fragile moment. Lots of people are being, you know, apocalyptic and I'm not in that camp. But I do think we need to look at, yeah, what we find in scripture, what we find in church history from people like Dustin and Benedict and Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King and, you know, how are they managed in moments?

of social decay or societal pressure. So I'm very excited about the class. It's gonna start in May and be on Thursday nights. That was a big thing that I spent a lot of time thinking about.

Speaker 2 (57:26)
Yeah. Well, thanks for doing that. We are looking forward to it. If you are listening to this and it is prior to May the first, jump on lakelight.com and on the events page, you will see a handful of events, but one of those is a class. see Mike's picture, but also the name of the class is Truth in the Noise. Again, that starts May the first, Thursday nights. You can take that online or you can come in person and we'll be meeting at the Christchurch Lake Forest location, but online or in person. Love to have you join us for that. And again, Mike, thanks for being a guest on

I'm on Good Work today and I keep up with Good Work.