Hi, my name is Pete Gazzara. I want to welcome you today to the emotionally healthy leader

podcast. Our topic today is sabbaticals, part one, what they are and why every leader needs one.

This will be a part one of two. And on the second one, I'll talk about how to plan for a transformational sabbatical

time away. So I invited on social media many of you to send me questions around sabbaticals,

and I was quite stunned by how many I received case studies, questions, etc. They were outstanding, very rich.

Everything from, you know, how do I respond to the notion that sabbaticals aren't biblical?

How do you advocate for sabbatical when it's not the current practice? What makes a sabbatical

different from a vacation? Does everyone need a sabbatical or

just ministry leaders? How about marketplace or non-paid staff? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts

about people who aren't working within the church vocationally. How do you measure a successful

sabbatical? How about if you're burnt out? How much time is enough? How do you do a sabbatical with elementary

and toddler, elementary school kids and toddlers? How many people, you know, have boards that are

against it? What do I do then? So many people quit their ministries or roles and they move on rather than do the

short-term work of creating a sabbatical rest. And so, and the necessary work in creating a

theological foundation for everybody to get on board to such a notion. And now again,

some of you listening, your pastors, your leaders, others of you are board members or people of

influence in the congregations, perhaps you're a marketplace leader in a company, or maybe you

are a leader in a nonprofit organization. Maybe you're listening from some country around the

world or tentmaking. And so the question is, what is a sabbatical? And why does every leader need one?

So I will get into specific case studies in part two. At the same time, I'm going to mention

a number of questions that have come up along

the way. And I can't say everything here on this one podcast because as you'll see, there's so much

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