This month’s podcast is a conversation I had with Noel Jesse Heikkinen, pastor of Riverview Church, a large multi-site church in the Lansing region. Noel and I happened to be on sabbatical during the same summer. When I had my first District Superintendent introductory meeting with the leadership of Sycamore Creek nine years ago, I negotiated that we’d plan for a sabbatical sometime near year seven. While my sabbatical had been planned from day one, Noel was told to go on sabbatical by his elder board just weeks before his sabbatical started.
Both of our sabbaticals afforded us what I like to call “balcony time.”