When to take a "sabbatical" from church

That is well written, and she makes good points.

I remember having a debate about this in priesthood a few years back. I think the general consensus is that it is not a good idea, because once you stop…it is soooooooo hard to get back into again. I always found that a bit odd, because if it is something so hard to do or something hard to make us do…why do it?

But, there is a point to be made that it is like exercising. Taking a year off of exercising may not be the best thing for your health. And church is like spiritual exercise. Seems like most would agree it is healthier to keep doing it regularly.

Perhaps the balanced middle ground is to take small sabbaticals here and there, take some weeks off and go do things as a family, go 6 weeks in a row then take one off….but a full year is too much. I don’t know for sure.

I remember when she wrote about this at the time and wondered then as now about how the other ward members felt about her being gone and their having to pick up the slack with visiting teaching, compassionate service, callings, etc.. I can see how the fatigue and burn out would force a change but a total sabbatical says to others (like the bishop) that you can get along fine without the church and association with members and you don’t feel their ministry in your case is important. And then when you come back it’s “hope things are ok and you can call me to something now” and I’ll be here for you until the next time I decide to bail. I don’t have near the negative feelings about this that I did then but there’s still something about it I don’t like.

Kinda like the difference between being TBM or a practicing member from this site? Your sabbatical is just a little different than hers. I take her at her word that it was either step back for a year or step away forever.

What does it say when the expectations we heap on the members cause people to burn out and feel like they need a sabbatical? Anxiety over meeting multiple obligations only makes it harder to hear the whisperings of the spirit.

I like that she called attention to the sabbatical year. The first thing that always comes to my mind when we talk about burnout is that we have a weekly sabbath day that we don’t take advantage of. When I got burned out Sunday felt like a day where I had twice the workload of the normal weekday. Church felt like work and sometimes church lasted longer than the time I spent at my job. :crazy:

I’ve seen the scripture:

he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

But I have yet to find the scripture:

he went to the 3 hour block, PEC, ward council, EFY, the seminary kick start meeting, choir practice, and did all his HT on the seventh day. On the eighth day he destroyed all of his creation.

I said it in another thread, I’ll say it again here. Even god got a day of rest, not so for the Mormons.

Having a lay clergy means the members have to step up to the plate (it also means that the people staffing the callings have day jobs). That makes it a difficult problem to address, if anything at all gets done someone’s got to do it. It might be helpful to reduce the number of callings, scale back some programs, and eliminate some meetings.

But, there is a point to be made that it is like exercising. Taking a year off of exercising may not be the best thing for your health. And church is like spiritual exercise. Seems like most would agree it is healthier to keep doing it regularly.

Healthy exercising includes rest periods. In the church we call someone to a new position at the same time we release them from another. There’s little to no time to unclench. This also assumes people progress smoothly along the path. If you are injured sometimes taking a year off is the best thing you can do for your health. I should know, I’m now a full year outside my exercise routine due to injury… and I still can’t start it up again. I may have to discontinue my exercising permanently. 👿 In the article she mentions that she felt like the options were a one year sabbatical or a permanent one. She was injured, her time away could have been permanent without a sabbatical.

Oddly enough I didn’t get injured exercising, I just won the crummy genetics lottery. Some people got it, some people don’t. Do we tailor the spiritual exercise to the needs of the individual or do we expect everyone to step up to the p90x challenge and keep pushing them when a femur snaps? Give me one more push-up. One more. One more maggot!!! Of course that’s easier said than done. Tailoring a calling to the individual has traditionally been a thing that leaders have had to feel out over time as opposed to, well you know, just asking someone. :eh:

It can be tough. Church culture is almost set up to force someone to step completely away to take that sabbatical. Let’s say a RM that is married in the temple wants to take a sabbatical from callings for a little while. I imagine that in some wards they’ll hear sentences that include the phrase “priesthood duty.” They might reach the point where they say, you know what, I’m gone.

This isn’t all on church culture. Neither party really likes to talk openly about the need to rest. No one likes to appear weak.

I have to admit, I envy Jana Riess the ability to make that decision. My husband would never, ever, ever allow me to take a year or even a month off from church. He’d murder me and then divorce my corpse if I even suggested it 😮

But I really like the idea of being able to choose what’s best for the individual. I don’t really like the idea that you’re either all in or you’re all out. There’s absolutely no room for healthy boundaries and self care in that attitude. It’s the corollary to the idea that the Church is either all true or all false.

I would LOVE a sabbatical from church. I don’t think year is needed. But like Joni, my spouse would have none of it. I am sure it would make a divorce close to probable, but then again it might change the dynamics of the marriage. No murder (except maybe my checkbook for alimony).

That is true about 100% or 100% out being black and white. I was released just a few years ago from being in several bishopric’s in a row and another VERY time-consuming calling for a LONG time. I have backed off. I have some inactives that I know very well as my home teaching families and they have told me “don’t visit me” so I just catch them every once in a while in their yard and have a chat. So compared to when my Sundays were 6 AM to 3 PM + home teaching + FHE, I have backed off. I had to sit in for someone in ward council and it made me very glad I wasn’t in that role all the time. I would probably have to ask to be released.

But I think part of the issue is to why more are burning out is that the pace of life in general is just getting busier. Back a generation or so there was more free time, so you could take a bit more free time and allocate that to church service. Now we have so little free time (and we feel guilty when we try and relax in front of the TV). All work and no play makes people burned out. I know my work takes up a TON of time. A 10 hour day (plus and hour plus of commutes) is nothing. Then they kids are involved in all kinds of sports, band, choir, etc. Often both my wife and I just say, “that is enough for today – I have to get to bed!” That is the norm today.

It is interesting that people are so conditioned to think that it is only possible/acceptable to “worship” God by sitting in a certain geographically assigned building during certain hours, with certain geographically assigned people, listening to institutionally mandated talks and lessons.

Sure, we can find meaning in it. By default our brains seek patterns and try to assign meaning to every event in our lives. But to be honest, church on Sunday is pretty much the same experience it was 10 years ago, and 20 years ago. It will be the same in 5 years, and 20 years from now. The topics are the same, the gender and age divisions are the same. The songs remain the same. Members will still subconsciously feel that the atonement expires every Saturday at midnight and have to fill up again by taking the sacrament the following morning, and that their communal church attendance and associated ritual is building their salvation through sheer endurance. They may even feel the need to be professional church members like unto professional athletes, entering every single church marathon and high-fiving all the other professional church members at each finish line before packing up for the next church race. Many of them feel likely happy and meaningful.

But they will sit in church and not notice that in large measure, the spiritually uplifting stories, faith promoting anecdotes, and scriptural accounts in the lessons and talks are often events that did not occur on a Sunday between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm.

So I am all for the freedom to take a Sunday off and not have half the ward murmuring about laziness and unfaithfulness.

Minyan Man wrote:

For me there was a definite moment when I would go to church & feel anger afterwards.

I would pray & only feel empty. The sabbatical lasted many years.

I am there.

I go to church and just go home full of rage and anger. There is no solace. There is no peace.

Prayer is still a positive in my life, church is not. I wasn’t angry a year ago, but the anger has slowly been growing. I keep trying to work through it and find the other side. Instead, I keep finding more things to feel angry about.

Right now due to some health issues in our extended family, my wife and I have taken a “sabbatical” from all callings. Even HT/VT. We told the bishop we needed to be clear from any obligation for the extended future. He then released us from everything. Very good man.