God Is Faithful — And That's Why I'm Stopping

I'll be honest with you, the hardest part of sabbatical isn't leaving. It's what the leaving forces you to confront.

When you stop, you find out real fast what you are trusting in.

Fifteen years ago, Marci and I stepped out to plant The Door with nothing but a dream the Lord put in our hearts and a promise we kept coming back to: "I will build my church." (Matthew 16:18) We didn't have much. But we had that. And God has been faithful. More faithful than I had the faith to imagine at the beginning.

To witness what He has done at The Door has been one of the greatest undeserved gifts of my life. I am grateful. Deeply, genuinely grateful. And I believe the next fifteen years are going to be even greater.

But before I run toward what's next, I need to stop.

In our human nature, we refuse to rest because somewhere deep down we believe it all depends on us. We are the ones in charge. We are the ones holding it together. If I'm honest, this is what I often believe. 

Sabbath was never just a rule. It was a revelation. God built rest into the very rhythm of creation not because He needed it, but because we do. The sabbath rest He wove into Genesis wasn't a pause button on productivity,  it was an invitation to re-anchor. To remember who built what. To return to the only identity that doesn't shift with the season.

When God took Israel into the wilderness, it was not as a punishment, but as formation. He stripped away every false source of security until all that remained was Him. "The Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness… that he might humble you." (Deuteronomy 8:2) The wilderness wasn't abandonment, it was an invitation to intimacy through dependence. 

That's what sabbatical is for me. A wilderness moment. A stripping back to the question that matters most: who am I when I'm not doing anything for God?

My righteousness, my right standing, my identity, none of it is built on what I produce. It belongs entirely to the Lord. Psalm 127 says it plainly: unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. He gives sleep to His beloved. Not His most productive. His beloved.

This is really what sabbatical is, an extended sabbath. A longer form of what God intended for every seventh day. A deliberate retreat into His love, so that when we return, we return as sons and daughters, not just workers. Refreshed in the Lord. Rested in His love. Re-anchored in who we actually are in Christ.

Several years ago, our elders made a decision I'm grateful for: every staff elder at TDC is required to take a sabbatical every five years. Mandatory. Not simply for rest and refreshing, though both matter. The deeper intention was re-anchoring, pulling a man out of the current of ministry long enough to remind him that his identity doesn't live in his role or his influence. It lives in Christ alone. This next eight weeks, that rhythm lands on me.

Marci and I are stepping away with open hands. I'm not going in with a plan, I'm going in with a posture. I want to seek what the Lord has for this next season, to listen more than I strategize, and to come back not with an agenda but fully dependent on Christ.

I also want to get my ministry right. My first ministry is not this church. It's not the pulpit or the leadership or the building of TDC. My first ministry is Marci, Kate, Joshua, and Deacon. It is far too easy to let the urgency of ministry quietly push the most important things to the margins without even noticing. Sabbatical is my chance to refocus on my first ministry, my family.

And here's what I hope you take from this blog, not that my pastor’s on sabbatical, but for you, wherever you are: God built the rhythm of rest into the bones of creation for a reason. Daily retreat into His Word. Weekly sabbath. Seasonal stillness. These aren't interruptions to the mission. They are the fuel for it. The soul that never stops never really discovers what it's resting in.

Lord willing, I'll come back full, re-anchored, and more convinced than ever that my life belongs entirely to the Lord. Jesus said He would build his church. He has. And He will continue to do so.

God is faithful. Love you, church family.

Christ is all,