And so there's this fear that if the pastor's not in the pulpit, no one's coming. And as such, even today, African American clergy hold a different level of responsibility and authority within the church than you would normally find within some of our Euro-Caucasian, which is not - they're not as highly dependent upon the personality of the pastor. If you trace our rooting back into slavery, you'll find that the pastor was really one of the most revered and respected persons and one that the congregation had an absolute dependence on. And I think it traces back to the role the preacher and the pastor played in an African American church and community. Your Baptists, your COGIC, your different varieties of Pentecostal and AME and AME Zion. It is absolutely unheard of in predominantly African American traditions. WESLEY: Well, Ailsa, if I can put a little racial spin on it, it is very common practice in our Euro-Caucasian Christian denominations and even within the Catholic traditions to grant that time off. It's not a profession that always ends well, and I'm grateful to have a congregation that said, we want your story to end well.ĬHANG: Well, how common is it for clergy to take time off, to take sabbaticals like this? I can't tell you how many pastors leave ministry or even commit suicide or die in the pulpit. WESLEY: So the congregation was very open and accepting, and I think they saw the long-term benefit of giving breaks and rest as opposed to burning a pastor out. But strangely, the message resonated with so many members who wished they were in a position to take that kind of time off and rest as well. WESLEY: So, you know, I was afraid to share. What happens if they're all right without me? What if they find out, yeah, you know, we really don't need this guy? If I'm gone, what happens if the church doesn't survive without me? What happens if membership goes down? And let's be honest, what happens if people stop giving and then the budget's affected and then we've got to start laying off? I was the scared one, thinking to myself one of two things would happen. WESLEY: You know, I think they were more willing than I was. Well, how did your congregation react when you first said, hey, I need some time off? And I began to wonder, why is this becoming so hard when it was so natural? And why am I not enjoying it anymore? And that just began a journey of self-reflection of kind of realizing I don't feel as close to the God I talk about as I want to be.ĬHANG: Yeah. Shift the movements around and cross my fingers and pray that no one would hear something they already heard that sermon writing would start on Tuesday and by Saturday, I still had nothing on the page. I reached the point where, sadly, Ailsa, I was picking up old sermons and trying to find a way to give them new titles and. And in the sermonic field, as a pastor, there's a lot of creativity required of you. One was starting to lose that joy and that energy for something that I loved. There are a few signature moments that let me know something was a little bit off. WESLEY: Well, I think it began probably a year before announcing the sabbatical. So may I ask, when did you start to feel this distance? Like, what did that feel like? And as we just heard, you said that you felt so distant from God that one of the greatest mistakes of pastoring is to think that because you work for God, you are close to God. You know, you've been preaching for 30 years. Glad to be on with you all.ĬHANG: Well, we're really glad to have you on. Reverend Wesley joins us now to tell us about what the last year has been like for him. And I need you to know, secondly, I feel very distant from God.ĬHANG: Little did Reverend Wesley know he had accidentally scheduled his sabbatical to start just as a global pandemic was picking up steam. This ain't nothing but intermission, baby. Well, Reverend Howard-John Wesley is the senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va. At some point, we all need a break or a sabbatical, you know, time to recharge our batteries, maybe think about a different way to approach life.
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