James Lee Sabbatical Reflections

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. - Joel 2:12-13. 

I have had a wonderful sabbatical this summer and so for those who are interested to hear what I got up to, I thought I’d share a few reflections.  Given it was my first one, I really didn’t know what to expect. With the time to stop and think, I’d heard anecdotally that it was normal to hit a bit of a slump, to experience some kind of “crisis of meaning”, and for the last few years to catch up with me.  

June certainly didn’t allow those kind of doors to be opened which I’m glad of. For the first fortnight I worked pretty much round the clock to finish my dissertation on Francis Schaeffer and received a good mark. I’m delighted to have finished my Masters which I started just before the pandemic. A week later I flew out to New York where I spent the next 10 days or so spending time with some of the team from Church of the City, and connecting with a few other leaders around the city.  Having taken two school trips to New York back when I was a teacher, it was refreshing not having to chase Tyler and Reece around Times Square this time and a treat to be able to wonder around at my own pace. 

I was staying on the Upper West Side in a guesthouse called Hephzibah House, a place for people in full-time ministry to stay - and what a gift it was. It was right next to Central Park, and walking distance to the church offices and their Sunday venues so it worked really well. Church of the City have two congregations (a morning and evening one) which meet in different locations.  On the first Sunday I went to the 10am service which meets in an enormous synagogue on the Upper West Side. It was a significant Sunday for them as they had just signed a 5 year lease on the building and the Rabbi was present for the service.  With Jon Tyson preaching from John 11, I still wonder what the Rabbi made of Jesus’ authority over life and death at the raising of Lazarus! 

Interestingly, Church of the City hire or lease all their buildings and have leant into the flexibility that it brings - they’re almost nomadic, with one or two fixed points (offices and prayer room), but have then used a number of venues for services and other events over the years.  Undoubtedly the ease of getting around the city helps with this but it’s encouraging to see that it is possible to have real impact in a city and not have a building to your name!

In the evening I visited Redeemer Downtown, formerly led by the late Tim Keller and now being led by Pete Nicholas. Pete had been in London where he had planted a church before moving out with his family to lead Redeemer.  We grabbed a drink together the following day and it was fascinating to hear his story and the story of the church since Keller had stepped down and then went to glory following his battle with cancer. In the years after Keller’s resignation, the church rapidly shrunk, and it’s only been in the last year that they are now starting to see some stability and growth again.  I’m certain Keller would have been greatly saddened by this and would not have wanted it to be the case, but the reality was that Redeemer became a mega-church with people travelling far and wide to hear him preach, and once that stopped, the congregation declined.  It certainly raised questions for me around how we plan for future generations to lead churches,  what successful leadership transitions look like, how we raise leaders, build strong teams, allow people to operate in their gifting and ensure the continued strength and growth of churches over the long term.  I’ve stayed in touch with Pete and continue to pray for him and the church. 

During the week I met with a number of other leaders. I met with Kiethan Schwahn who leads the Youth ministry at Church of the City as well as Youth Alpha USA. I met with Tim Brown who was their Executive Pastor, overseeing their teams, ministries and generally making everything work, and then Sam Gibson who leads Pray.NYC, the prayer room that Church of the City set up a few years back. 

Let’s talk about the Prayer Room. The prayer room is open Monday-Friday and each day they have 4x1 hour prayer meetings (6am, 7am, 12pm, 7pm).  It was the most impressive thing about the church, and shapes and defines everything that they do.  I saw 20s and 30s who had moved to New York to work in finance, engineering or the creative industry, the high flyers as it were, hungry for the Lord to come in power. I met CEOs of huge banks and tech firms alongside those that were homeless, on their knees at 6am each morning committing themselves to the work of the gospel in the city.  Parents bringing their children to taste the goodness of God in worship and teenagers crying out to God for salvation in their schools.  The numbers at each meeting never exceeded 50 people, but think about what that much prayer does to a church community and their sense of mission in the city.  The verses in Joel that I quoted at the top was one of the passages that we prayed through one morning and I’m still recovering from it! If you want to get a sense of what the church is about and their heart for prayer, I’d recommend listening to the Awaken Network Podcast

A few other highlights was meeting Patrick Boatright who leads Oaks Church in Brooklyn, and Rasool Berry who amongst various endeavors, produced a fascinating documentary called Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation of African-American slaves in 1865.  To hear more about it, I’d recommend this Podcast episode.  

It was a joy to have my good friend Fife Mustafa, who leads our 11-14s Youth Ministry, join me for the second half of the trip. We took in some of the sites together, ate food, walked a lot, went to a worship night on the Friday, went to church and squeezed in a free jazz concert! Overall, it was a fantastic trip and I’m excited to see how some of what we saw and learnt can be applied in Bristol. 

July and August went at a slower pace thankfully. We went on holiday to Devon for a couple of weeks, caught up with old friends and spent time with our family.  I read a couple of books on healthy teams and church leadership rather slowly, watched the Euros and the Olympics, and decorated the room that the new addition to our family will occupy at some point. It was then fabulous to catch up with people at Commission Festival over the Bank Holiday. 

As I return to church, my overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude and excitement. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to take this time out, to be re-energised and inspired. But I’m also grateful for the church that we are part of.  What God has built at City Church over 28 years is truly extraordinary - the lives that have been changed, the community that has been established and the vision of seeing the gospel at work in Bristol and beyond is something that Sarah and I are wholeheartedly committed to. We have really missed our church family and we can’t wait to be back. 

My prayer for us and for Bristol is found in Habakkuk 3:2: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”