Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership with Ruth Haley Barton

We are wrapping up our sabbatical season by turning our attention to the congregation; how does a congregation benefit from a pastor’s sabbatical. Ruth sits down with her brother, Pastor Jonathan Haley, to discuss the thoughtful and intentional ways he included his congregation in his sabbatical planning, how he stayed connected with them and how they, together, wrapped up the entire experience.

Then, Ruth shares some final thoughts about sabbatical, her takeaways from her conversations this season and things to think about as you go forward with the idea of a sabbatical. Finally, Ruth closes with a meditation inspired by Psalm 46:10 by Henri Nouwen.

Jonathan Haley -- also known as Taylor -- is a husband, father, pastor and endurance athlete. Jonathan was a part of the first Transforming Community, and has served numerous  communities, as well as served on the board of directors for the Transforming Center. Jonathan earned his D.Min. from McCormick Seminary, where he researched and reflected on how a pastor's spiritual practices shape a congregation. In 2018 he enjoyed a 3-month renewal leave, during which he biked across the country, with a personal and congregational focus on "experiencing our bodies as God's gift to us." He has served First Presbyterian Church in La Crosse, Wisconsin as pastor/head of staff for 20 years.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also order the Sabbath Journal, meant to accompany you on your sabbath journey and give you space to share what your soul wants to say to God.

Interested in applying to Transforming Community 19? You can review the dates and apply today!

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Springs of Living Water from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

Are sabbaticals just for pastors? This week, Ruth sits down with guest Andy Crouch to talk about sabbatical from an everyman perspective. Andy has taken full responsibility for his own rhythm of regular sabbaticals by saving up and risking the need to find a new job at the end of his time away. Ruth and Andy also talk about the place of trust sabbaticals take us, the rhythms Andy sees happen when you start to take a regular sabbatical, and of course, since it’s Andy Crouch, we’re going to talk about technology

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His writing explores faith, culture, and the image of God in the domains of technology, power, leadership, and the arts. He is the author of five books including The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place, and Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also order the Sabbath Journal, meant to accompany you on your sabbath journey and give you space to share what your soul wants to say to God.

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Dusk from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

Inevitably, every sabbatical will meet a challenge, a place where the outside world creeps in and threatens to call you back to the work you’ve committed to set aside. When that happens, what is a leader to do? Ruth sits down with Dr. David C. Alves to discuss how to discern the necessary boundaries each individual must create for their own sabbatical, the resistance they may encounter and how congregations can help their pastors set and keep boundaries.

Then Ruth brings back former guest Rev. Dr. Phaedra D. Blocker to discuss their shared story of a time when they had to discern together whether or not to hold firm to the boundaries Ruth and the Transforming Center board set for Ruth’s sabbatical. This period of dormancy for Ruth and the organization coincided with the national tragedy of George Floyd’s murder and the question of if and how to respond publicly was difficult to discern.

Dr. David C Alves is a New Hampshire writer, and the author of both A Sabbatical Primer for Pastors: How to Initiate and Navigate a Spiritual Renewal Leave and A Sabbatical Primer for Churches: How to Love and Honor the Pastor God Has Given You. As well as three other books. David holds earned degrees from Asbury University and two schools of divinity. He is a past member of the Evangelical Press Association. A semi-retired pastor. And a recovering widower. He currently lives in Concord, NH. He enjoys family, friends, and an intimate relationship with, and love for, God and His creation.

Rev. Dr. Phaedra D. Blocker is a preacher, teacher, singer, spiritual director, and consultant. Founder and principal of Word & Wisdom, she is dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations to move toward wholeness and actualize their potential as agents of change and shalom in the world. She serves as Director of the Center for Community Care, Formation & Vitality at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University and is Affiliate Professor in Leadership & Formation.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also order the Sabbath Journal, meant to accompany you on your sabbath journey and give you space to share what your soul wants to say to God.

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Dusk from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

We have two extra special guests this week! First, Ruth sits down with Christine Lee, Priest-in-Charge of St. Peter’s Chelsea in New York City. She and Ruth discuss how Christine discerned what was most important for her sabbatical and how she responded when her plan for sabbatical coincided with a challenging time for her congregation. 

Then, friend of the Transforming Center B.J. Woodworth joins Ruth to discuss how he structured his sabbatical in a very unique way: around brewing beer. He and Ruth discuss practically what that plan looked like and the very surprising spiritual connection he discovered to the brewing process. Ruth also shares about her own sabbatical planning process when she took her first sabbatical.

Both guests provide real life, practical examples of what the sabbatical planning process looks like and the challenges and opportunities pastors and churches face when they embark on this journey.

Christine Lee is the Priest-in-Charge of St. Peter's Chelsea, an Episcopal Church in New York City. She is married to Jimmy, her husband of 19 years, and served as Vicar of All Angels' Church before coming to St. Peter's in October 2019 with a team as part of a church revitalization effort in the Diocese of New York.

BJ Woodworth has served in the PCUSA for the last 28 years as a teacher, church planter, pastor, and spiritual guide. Currently he is the part time Director of Spiritual Life and Taizé Ministries at East Liberty Presbyterian Church. Previously he served for 15 years as the founding and lead pastor of the Open Door, Presbyterian Church.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also order the Sabbath Journal, meant to accompany you on your sabbath journey and give you space to share what your soul wants to say to God.

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Yesterday Today Forever from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

Happy New Year! We are ringing in the new year by talking about sabbatical! Friend of the Transforming Center Rick McCall is back with us, and he and Ruth are sharing their experiences with sabbaticals, what ways Ruth sees it as an extension of sabbath, and why it’s so important for the church to build in sabbatical plans in pastors’ job descriptions.

If you are a pastor or a church congregant, we think this topic of sabbatical is so important to the health and survival of churches and their leaders and the new year is a great time to start thinking about what that might look like in your organization.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also order the Sabbath Journal, meant to accompany you on your sabbath journey and give you space to share what your soul wants to say to God.

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Led By the Spirit from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

We find ourselves again beginning a new Christian year with Advent. This year the lectionary finds us in Cycle A. In this episode Ruth helps us prepare for advent with an invitation to use this season as actual space to practice sabbath keeping. She shares some of the greater themes we find in Advent and helps connect them to what we’ve explored in our understanding of the sabbath. Finally, she closes with some reflections on a poem by David Adam. 

Our hope is that this episode helps prepare your heart for Advent. While we will not be releasing weekly episodes during Advent this year, we invite you to return to season 8 of the podcast Advent and Christmas Reflections (Cycle A) which walks through the Cycle A scriptures. Additionally, we will be providing weekly guidance, which will include spiritual practices, to our patrons. Sign up at the $10 level to ensure you receive every weekly offering.

Cycle A Scripture:

Week 1

• Isaiah 2:1-5   

Week 2

• Isaiah 11:1-10   

Week 3

• Isaiah 35:1-10   

Week 4

• Isaiah 7:10-16  

Christmas Eve and Christmastide

• Isaiah 9:2-7  

Also mentioned in the episode

Eternal Seasons: A Liturgical Journey with Henri J.M. Nouwen ed by Michael Ford

Tides and Seasons: Modern Prayers in the Celtic Tradition by David Adam

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

O Come O Come Emmanuel from Transforming Center Resource Advent Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

We’re wrapping up our sabbath season with a solo episode. Ruth is on the mic to help us discern the something we can do to start our sabbath journey. What are your invitations and resistances? What are the obstacles you face as you attempt to “return to rest?” At the end of the episode producer Colleen and the two share what their souls each want to say to God at the end of this podcast season.

In January we’ll continue the conversation with a short season focused on sabbatical. We have more incredible guests and practical help for you in planning and executing a sabbatical.  

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also pre-order the Sabbath Journal, which will be available sometime in January 2023.

This season of our podcast is sponsored by GoodKind. GoodKind is all about helping people cultivate the GoodKind of habits and holiday practices that allow them to engage with God and one another throughout the year. They have a great tool for Advent, a Sabbath Box to help you practice unplugging, and more. To learn more about them and the products they make, you can find them at goodkind.shop 

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Yesterday Today Forever from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

As we’ve camped out around this idea of a “sabbath community” the last few weeks, we’ve explored the possibility and very real struggles of what that kind of commitment to sabbath looks like for pastors. This week we’re speaking with a pastor whose community is living out that practice in a variety of ways. In Ruth’s conversation with pastor Rich Villodas, he speaks about the power of a community oriented around sabbath and the ideas his church members are exploring as they try to make rest available to all, and not just the privileged few. 

Rich Villodas is the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large, multiracial church in Elmhurst, Queens, whose congregants represent more than seventy-five countries. He is also a key speaker for Emotionally Healthy Discipleship—a movement that has touched hundreds of thousands of people. His award-winning book, The Deeply Formed Life, was released in September 2020; followed by his second book, Good and Beautiful and Kind, in July 2022. He and his wife, Rosie, have two beautiful children and reside in NYC.

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also pre-order the Sabbath Journal, which will be available sometime in January 2023.

This season of our podcast is sponsored by GoodKind. GoodKind is all about helping people cultivate the GoodKind of habits and holiday practices that allow them to engage with God and one another throughout the year. They have a great tool for Advent, a Sabbath Box to help you practice unplugging, and more. To learn more about them and the products they make, you can find them at goodkind.shop 

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Led By the Spirit from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

Today’s conversation is an honest and vulnerable one about the challenges of leading communities in the ways of the sabbath. Ruth sits down with Christine Lee who leads a busy church in New York City. Christine shares her own journey of practicing sabbath herself and the struggles she sees to “lead a sabbath community.” She also speaks tenderly about the fear that is stirred when she considers letting things lie dormant in service to making space for her congregation to experience the sabbath.

Christine Lee is the Priest-in-Charge of St. Peter's Chelsea, an Episcopal Church in New York City. She is married to Jimmy, her husband of 19 years, and they became pandemic dog parents to their rescue puppy, Baxter. She served as Vicar of All Angels' Church before coming to St. Peter's in October 2019 with a team as part of a church revitalization effort in the Diocese of New York. 

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also pre-order the Sabbath Journal, which will be available sometime in January 2023.

This season of our podcast is sponsored by GoodKind. GoodKind is all about helping people cultivate the GoodKind of habits and holiday practices that allow them to engage with God and one another throughout the year. They have a great tool for Advent, a Sabbath Box to help you practice unplugging, and more. To learn more about them and the products they make, you can find them at goodkind.shop 

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Dusk from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

Over the next few episodes we are turning our attention from a leader’s personal sabbath practice towards how they can form and shape their communities around sabbath. We’ll be talking to a number of pastors and leaders about their efforts and challenges in leading others in the practice.

Today Ruth sits down with Jeanne and Jarrett Stevens. As co-pastors of a busy church in Chicago, the Stevens have been saved by rhythms of work and rest. Ruth talks with Jeanne and Jarrett about their own practices of sabbath, the ways they’ve tried to incorporate these rhythms in their church, and the challenges and opportunities presented in this as we emerge from COVID. They also pose the question, what would it look like as a leader to leave a legacy of sabbath keeping in their community?

Jarrett & Jeanne Stevens founded and have served as co-lead pastors of Soul City Church in Chicago, IL for the past 11 years. They have both authored several books. Jarrett wrote “The Deity Formerly Known as God,” “Four Small Words”, and his latest release, “Praying Through.” Jeanne has authored many devotionals, “Everyday Brave,” “Grit & Grace,” and “You are Enough.” She is a contributing author to “Twelve Women of the Bible” and “Real Women, Real Faith.” She has a new book released in May of 2022 called “What's Here Now?” They are both passionate about helping people wake up to the transforming love of Jesus and experience soul-level change in every area of their lives. 

Purchase Ruth’s new book! Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest is out now, wherever you buy books (Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org).

You can also pre-order the Sabbath Journal, which will be available sometime in January 2023.

This season of our podcast is sponsored by GoodKind. GoodKind is all about helping people cultivate the GoodKind of habits and holiday practices that allow them to engage with God and one another throughout the year. They have a great tool for Advent, a Sabbath Box to help you practice unplugging, and more. To learn more about them and the products they make, you can find them at goodkind.shop 

Music Credit:

Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist

Yesterday, Today, Forever from Transforming Center Resource Music in Solitude

Support the podcast! This season, patrons will receive an overflow of bonus content from the episodes, including exclusive conversations between Ruth and guests, clips that we couldn’t fit into the final cuts, and more! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!  

The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!