Sabbaticals can be incredible reset buttons. They are a rare and beautiful space to breathe, and recalibrate. But the truth is, they don’t come often. Most leaders are navigating intense schedules with no extended time off in sight.
Sabbaticals can be incredible reset buttons. They are a rare and beautiful space to breathe, and recalibrate. But the truth is, they don’t come often. Most leaders are navigating intense schedules with no extended time off in sight.
Although Sabbaticals are the most immersive way, we often leave our imagination of deep rest to something out of reach, and certainly not now.
But is no-rest-in-sight sustainable for life and leadership?
Beyond sabbaticals, we want to introduce rhythms of rest that can be incorporated along the journey.
To be sure, slowing down takes intention. It often requires saying no, canceling plans, or setting healthy boundaries. But what’s at stake is more than just your productivity or energy. It’s the well-being of your soul.
And a burned-out soul can keep working for a while… but for how long? And at what cost?
So let’s draw out some of the gifts sabbaticals offer and explore how you can begin to experience those right now.
A core part of sabbatical is slowing down enough to notice. Many people don’t know how their soul is really doing until they get quiet. Here’s the first invitation: creating regular space to ask: How is my soul?
Not just “What happened today?” or “What did I accomplish?” but questions like:
“When was the last time I felt deeply connected to God?”
“When was the last time I was fully honest with a trusted friend or mentor?
“What do I need?”
"Where do I sense God's invitation?"
Deeper soul-awareness rarely rises to the surface when we’re moving at full speed. But what is the danger of a leader, not taking the time to reflect?
If you need help getting started, our 90-Day Journal offers daily prompts designed to help you cultivate reflection as a rhythm.
2. Airplane Mode - Unplug to Be Present
One of the most profound shifts leaders experience during sabbatical? They unplug. They go on airplane mode. They stop scrolling. And they start hearing God again.
In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt describes just how deeply our phones influence our ability to be present:
“The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently with themselves when they are alone.”
Rest sometimes begins with a simple habit for the right time: airplane mode.
Maybe you don’t have to wait until you’re out of phone service to finally make it happen.
Try it. Start small. An hour without your phone. A dinner without texts. A morning without news or notifications. See what emerges in the absence of common distractions.
Various leaders we’ve worked with have had to take this seriously—using burner phones during their time of rest, radically limiting digital input. Only a few trusted people had their number in case of emergency!
Radical? Yes. But can you relate to the desperation? The need to recover back to the present?
Ask: What is technology doing to my soul? Where would my attention be, if it wasn’t held up elsewhere?
Rest isn’t just individual. Sometimes we picture hermit-ing up in the mountains by ourselves as rest. But what do we see biblically, in ancient Hebrew culture? In the Old Testament, rest also included worship, delight, shared meals, and community. Your soul craves this kind of rest too.
So instead of treating rest as a solo mission, let it include people. Share a meal with friends. Go for a walk with someone who makes you laugh, or pay attention to your walk with God.
Watch a movie with your kids, make the popcorn, and goof around. Rest is there, too.
If you tend to fill your rest time with emails or solo work "just to get ahead," pause.
Ask yourself: who could I spend time with, that can help my soul rest?
Many leaders fear sabbaticals because they’re not sure what to do with the quiet. The idea of being alone without something demanding your attention can feel unsettling.
But let’s explore an important difference: isolation drains. Solitude restores.
Solitude is intentional. It’s space made to meet with God. It’s where clarity returns and your soul can exhale. Isolation says, “You’re on your own.” Solitude says, “You’re with God.”
There are several moments included in the gospels when Jesus went off to be in solitude. But did he go “alone”? Not at all... solitude was his time to commune with the Father.
Do you see alone time as isolation?
Could you see it instead of a place full of God’s presence?
If you’re needing rest but being alone feels intimidating, try these small, practical steps:
For a full, downloadable guide to Silent Prayer, Click Here.
Silence can feel foreign at first, but it is a deep well where our souls can meet with God's voice. Consider this beautiful passage, 1 Kings 19:12 (NIV):
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."
You don’t need to wait for a sabbatical to start resting well.
What you need is permission. And maybe a little guidance.
That’s why we created the 90-Day Soul Care Journal. It's a tool to help you take those pauses with some guidance. It's about ten minutes a day, but sets a tone for the whole thing.
And if a sabbatical is something you're exploring, check out our Sabbatical Resources, including planning tools, reflection questions, and guidance options to help you take a real rest and come back ready to go.
Many ministries & churches don’t have a formal sabbatical policy. If that’s your reality, you may need to make the case for your own sabbatical.
Sabbatical, as a concept, simply wasn’t part of the organizational vocabulary. It wasn’t in the staff handbook. No leaders had ever taken one.
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