I’ve been handling a couple of recurring themes over the past few weeks. First there has been the question of the Christian Sabbath and then there has been the question of whether or not pastors have jobs, whether they work or whether their role is leisure. The two issues dovetail neatly into another question that has come up on Faithroots, it’s about whether pastors should have a day off, in effect a Sabbath, that is at a different time to the rest of the church.
Now, if a pastor has been paid in effect to enjoy leisure, if they don’t have a job, then it would seem to me that the answer is obvious. Why would a pastor need a day off when their church has raised support in order to enable them to have the whole week off? Why would they want time off from that? Come to think pf it, why would we give pastors or elders sabbaticals? Surely, they are already free to enjoy the benefits of sabbatical periods every week of the year! I think this indicates another risk with the view. If we see a pastor as set aside for leisure then the risk is that we won’t see the need for them to have breaks from their duties. We will expect 24/7 availability and we won’t understand tiredness, exhaustion or burnout when those things happen.
Of course, my position is that pastors do work, so I don’t accept the premise above. If that’s so, then does this mean that a pastor should have a different day off in the week to compensate for their loss of Sunday because they are working then?
Well, my advice would be that there is benefit to having a day set aside from their employment responsibilities but that this is not the same as what we understand as a Sabbath. The rest of us have evolved a system whereby we work for our employers for 5 days a week, so Saturday has become for many a day off from employment but an opportunity for family things. In the same way, your pastor will benefit from having time when they are freed up specifically for family and household matters including hobbies, outings, DIY, housework etc. In some respects this also remains part of what they are paid for anyway, they live out their family life within the church family and model Christian family.
However, when it comes to sabbath and Sunday, I’d encourage pastors to enjoy that Sabbat with their church family and not think of it as work. Yes, they will be preaching, leading worship, offering hospitality, praying with people etc but so too will others in the church who are not paid by the church. We should think of those things not as examples of the pastor having to work on another day but rather that if Sabbath rest is about enjoying the fruits of our weekly labours together with God’s people in God’s presence, then that’s what the pastor does on a Sunday too. He doesn’t need an extra day to do this, apart from God’s people. In fact the idea that he might have a day on his own in the week to escape from church life and that he might call this day a “sabbath” is nonsensical.
Pastors should enjoy their God given work and they should enjoy their God given Sabbath too.
Faithroots 