First person: Seeking to follow ‘sabbath’ pattern for year seven

Year seven — the sabbath year — has been on my mind recently because when the calendar turned to 2025, it also started the clock on my seventh year in the editor’s chair.

In thinking through what it might look like to follow the pattern outlined in Leviticus 25 of six years of growth followed by one year of rest, reflection and resetting, I realized we would need to be creative to pull it off.

How do we implement a year of “rest” while still working to fulfill our ministry assignment of informing, inspiring and connecting Baptists?

Continued effectiveness

The concepts noted by ministry strategist George Bullard in The Baptist Paper, sister publication of The Alabama Baptist, helped me find the answer.

Bullard said a ministry organization or church can go through two or three seven-year cycles of growth and sabbath before it reaches the pinnacle of its effectiveness.

To continue building on increased effectiveness, the ministry leaders need to think through their strategies and develop new tools to understand what is happening around them and what needs to be done in the future, he explained.

‘Movement of God’

“It’s about letting the movement of God pull them forward instead of pushing themselves forward,” Bullard said.

So, our team at TAB Media Group plans to use this year to continue the work that has been a vital part of Alabama Baptist life for 182 years but with a few slight variations.

Rather than spending enormous amounts of energy attempting to implement the latest trends of the industry, we will diligently focus on seeking where God is working and then shift our energy to join Him.

Instead of doing the same routines over and over each day, we will thoroughly review all the systems and platforms to determine what to keep, what to retire, what to keep but polish and what to add.

We have a lot of moving parts through the ministry of TAB Media Group, so it will definitely take the full year to assess each one carefully.

As we do this, we will need your help.

First, we need your prayers.

Pray for our team members to experience a time of calmness and peace in their personal lives, so we can have the full mental capacity to work through all the professional steps needed for the process ahead.

Also, pray for discernment as we do the evaluations and figure out next steps.

Second, we need your continued support.

Continue reading and engaging with us while also sharing our content with those who aren’t yet fully engaged with The Alabama Baptist in print and/or online.

Third, we need to hear from you.

Where would you like us to prioritize our time and resources going forward? Why are those areas most important to you?

You are a valued reader and supporter, and your opinion matters to us. Email us at news@thealabamabaptist.org.

We’ve worked hard to grow our media group to have a little bit of everything available, and we are excited to see what all the pieces look like a year from now after an intense time of praying, seeking, studying, evaluating and polishing.