(Above: The family all dressed up for my sister's wedding in Corvallis, Oregon)
Ministry Highlights
Following the last update in the fall of 2021, I began looking towards summer 2022 to where I would be taking a sabbatical.
Like many churches, we're migrating away from the historical pattern of sending pastoral staff away for a long period of time every seven years or so (even though seven is such a nice, biblical-sounding number). Having that rhythm meant that guys were usually half burned out by the time we sent them for rest and then they were gone so long that it was sometimes hard for the church to continue to function well.
The new
trend is that you schedule shorter sabbaticals, more often. So we're looking at doing a schedule with our team that involves sending guys away for four months (and always May through August) every five years. That way we're getting ahead of burnout issues and they're not gone so long that their local congregation is really feeling their absence too deeply.
Usually December through April is a pretty intense period of time I refer to as "tax season." This involves issuing tax receipts for our charity, but also preparing for tax filings for the church, our U.S. charity, our business filings, and then personally in Canada as well as the U.S. Overall it's a crazy time for me. However this time around two additional variables were in play:
1. Our church bookkeeper retired.
2. I was preparing to be away on sabbatical and needed to systemize and train an executive assistant role to cover for me while I was away (and would stay on in perpetuity, allowing me to focus on increasing my more traditionally pastoral duties with the staff and other pressing situations).
This new executive assistant role includes the old bookkeeper job but due to a false start with another candidate, I ended up doing all of the bookkeeping on top of my usual duties (which was a unique trial) and only ended up having six weeks to train the final candidate.
All that to say, January through April was a bit of a blur. In January I was feeling like I didn't need to go into sabbatical rest. By May I was thanking God for his sovereign protection of my mind, heart, body, and soul.
A huge amount of boring stuff I could detail but all to say that we made it and now we're about half way through sabbatical, and things at the church are still functioning thanks to God's provision of an extremely competent woman, the wife of one of our pastoral interns who agreed to take on the executive assistant role.
God's provision is always fully sufficient and his timing perfect.
Just before I wrapped my time in April and headed into sabbatical, the LORD threw one last curveball (He does have a sense of humor). The last Sunday in April we had one of our big all-church gatherings where our four English congregations get together in a larger space to celebrate and worship as one larger church. We also had one of our previous church plants join with us so it was a full house, and really all I was supposed to do was set up food & coffee and do an installation of the four new elder / pastors that I had been running our elder class process with in 2021 (originally we were supposed to do their installation in January but we had to postpone until spring due to COVID restrictions):
Prayer Request #1: Pray for protection over these new pastors, and for their marriages & children (they now have a target on their backs).
Anyway, Pastor Dwight was going to preach that morning but just as we were going out the door, maybe about two and half hours before the service was starting, I got a phone call from him.
I remember staring at my phone, thinking, "This can't be good..."
Sure enough, Dwight had tested positive for COVID that morning.
We could have just done a broadcast from his place but getting everyone together only to do yet another video sermon felt bad. So I offered to preach from his notes, and he talked me through them on speakerphone while I drove over. Then I abandoned the food & coffee set up into the hands of my very capable wife and kids and holed up for about an hour in our offices upstairs to try and rewrite the notes to where I could functionally preach off of them.
Full honesty, there was a moment about twenty minutes into that process where I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. But I reasoned that if the Spirit is able to give us the words to speak to rulers on a moments notice (Luke 12:11-12) then surely He could work through me with such a narrow prep time.
By that time, word had gotten around and a lot of people were praying for Dwight and me and the situation in general, and I think that really was what made the difference in the end, all glory to God. You can watch the entire service here and how it played out (gathering actually starts around timestamp 38:30, sermon starts at timestamp 1:14:40):
Now currently on sabbatical, I'm still running payroll and dealing with a few things each week, but very light duty and it doesn't feel like I'm getting drawn back to the thick of ministry. Sabbatical isn't vacation (though we did enjoy some travels in June, see the Family Update below). Instead it provides the opportunity to invest in other things:
First of all, I have a solid reading list I'm working through, starting with reflective, moving into ministry related, and then finally some executive-specific type works. For those of you who like books and would send me messages asking for this list, here you go, ahead of time:
FINISHED
The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis - **Probably one of the best things I've ever read (and I've read a lot of books)**
The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer
The Intentional Father, by Jon Tyson
Convergence, by Jon Thompson
CURRENTLY READING
Gentle and Lowly, by Dane Ortlund
COMING UP
Biblical Church Revitalization, by Brian Croft
The Disappearing Church, by Mark Sayers
The Reappearing Church, by Mark Sayers
Start with Why, by Simon Sinek
The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker
IF I DON'T RUN OUT OF TIME
7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
8 Habits for Growth, by Darryl Dash
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
In addition to reading a bunch, I'm investing additional time with the LORD, dating my wife, and have plans to take each of my kids on a short camping trip or some other activity, one on one .
Prayer Request #2: Pray that the intentional time together as a family would lead to deeper relationship.
All that said, I can feel myself already looking forward to getting back at it in the fall, which is a good sign. The last time I was on sabbatical rest it took a LONG time before I could even picture myself going back, a sign that maybe we waited too long and I was courting burnout. Thankful to the team that is suffering my absence and I look forward to returning the favor each summer going forward as other guys cycle out on sabbatical.
Family Highlights
The one thing we very much wanted to do this summer was take a break from Quebec and the political churn of COVID here, and nothing offered that quite like lawless Florida (which also offered the sunshine that is very much missing in Quebec winters):
Following some time in the warmth of the south, we crossed the country to Oregon. We didn't intend to return to Oregon again this summer but my sister decided to get married and so we came back. After being unable to travel so long during COVID, this additional visit with family wasn't unwelcome.
Now as some of you may know, I have a general policy of not performing weddings. I get asked sometimes, and I just refer to "the policy" and ask them if they need help with a spreadsheet or something else. Initially I even told my sister "no" when she asked (see: policy).
But she pulled the "sister card" and so eventually I agreed to do it:
*Let the record show that I still don't do weddings.*
Her new husband is a godly man and we like him a lot. God provided a rain-free event in that it only rained in the moments we were already indoors, which was a special answer to prayer. Overall it was a really wonderful time!
Speaking of marriage, Severine and I are just about a month away from celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary, which is kind of hard to believe. Thankful for all of our years together, taking none of them for granted.
Just before we left for Oregon, Ben turned sixteen and began aggressively pursuing his drivers licence here in Quebec. Unfortunately it is a laughably long and expensive process (clearly they don't want people driving) but he's plugging away through his many months of mandatory classes and the 450
page driver manual:
Emma has increased the frequency of her baking, creating piles of temptations...
You get the idea.
This is a bit out of order but a big project for Severine in this last school year was taking the lead on a drama class in their homeschooling group. You might remember that our kids participated in a musical production of The Sound of Music a few years ago. Well with COVID, that all kind of shut down, but not wanting there to be nothing for the students, Severine thought to do a simple drama class. COVID restrictions being what they were in Quebec, it wasn't likely that they'd actually perform for an audience. However regulations ended up easing up enough in the Spring that it was possible and suddenly it got very real and very busy! In the end, it all came together really well. It was a murder-mystery set on a train type play:
As you probably know, our Kate has her music alter-ego "Alora Farenweh", and about a year and a half ago she release her first song called "Riding a Tiger". Since then she has been developing an imaginary world she calls "The Hollow" and building new songs, games, and products around this world. You can learn more about her world-building by following her Instagram.
Now, after a great deal of hard work (and support from many of you...thank you!), Kate has released her second
song, Acid Atlantis:
We're all very proud of her. You can listen to the new song on any major platform, and she has multiple music video versions you can watch, all available at AloraFarenweh.com
Personally, in addition to reading, time with the LORD, family time, and tackling a pile of neglected home projects, I've been utilizing my summer to finish off a number of writing projects, including my (very) belated book on our somewhat unusual parenting methodology, which I've titled Skipping Adolescence.
So for all of those who have been hassling me about this for the last four years, the wait is almost over. I anticipate a September release. Here is the first look at the cover (you guys are so VIP):
Support Raising Highlights
2022 Funding Update:
As always, thank you for your faithful support of our ministry in Quebec!
We are mid-way through the calendar year and we appear to be on-track to be fully funded for the remainder of 2022, praise God.
We did have a few supporters unable to continue in this year and / or having to make an adjustment down in their giving, but then also several of you made a choice to increase the amount you were supporting our ministry, which softened the overall impact.
In terms of being bi-vocational, our family business still supports a small portion of our income, however it has again halved since our update last fall, which provides some of its own challenges. We are prayerfully wrestling with its place in our lives, but for now are thankful that it provides our three young adults with part-time work.
Prayer Request #3: That the LORD would cause our business to stabilize at just the right level.
As the business is now taking very little of my time, and the church / associated ministries are ever-increasing in their complexity and demands, it's likely I will very soon be moving up in my hours at the church (currently I work four days a week). The organization is growing in its capacity to support itself but our fundraising allows for this growth to happen smoothly and not cause an undue burden.
Your Support = Less barriers to kingdom growth in greater Montreal!
Thank you again, and for your prayers as we seek to serve Jesus here in Montreal.
Blessings,
Brian, Severine, Kate, Ben, & Emma :)
