In May 2006, I applied to the Lilly Endowment for a National Clergy Renewal Program Grant. In September 2006, I was awarded the grant.
Here is how I summarized my sabbatical plan for the Lilly Endowment:
My heart sings most passionately when reading and writing, when learning and playing music, when fishing, when traveling, and when watching baseball. On my sabbatical, I will reacquaint my heart with familiar tunes and teach it new ones so that I may “sing to God a new song [and] play skillfully . . . .” (Psalm 33:3). Conceptually, I have been thinking about my sabbatical as a medley of tunes, some of which I know by heart and am able to improvise and some of which I will be learning for the first time. The old tunes will include readings in homiletics, worship, and theology and a writing workshop at Oxford University’s summer school for adults. The new tunes will include studying the highland bagpipe at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland and traveling throughout the British Isles with my family. The lyrics to the tunes will emerge as I explore on my sabbatical the question of how God might be expanding or redirecting my call to ministry as an associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church.
