My Trek to Spiritual Sustainability

After 19 years of service in our church, my wife and I were given a sabbatical, and we invested the time in a 300-mile, 40-day trek through the Alps, staying in the many huts that are strategically scattered among the peaks. The intent of the journey was to learn about “walking with God.” After all, what better way to learn than by walking many hours every day for 40 days? The trip was all that we hoped for and more.

One of the unforeseen gifts was the way our trek taught us about sustainability in marriage, ministry, and faith. We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary during our trek, and I’m now in my 20th year as senior pastor of a church that had 350 attendees when I began and has, after a rough start, grown steadily to about 3,500. My faith path, just like our trek, has had some steep sections, storms, fog, and rocks. But always, stunning beauty prevailed, making the journey worthwhile.

Here are some of the key principles, solidified on our trek, for sustaining ministry, marriage, and faith.

Find shelter

It’s raining, windy, and 35 degrees as we ascend to Lamsenjoch Hut in the Austrian Alps. Having committed myself to lightweight travel, I am seriously underdressed for this hike. The bone-chilling cold permeates every part of my body. I’m shivering. My speech is slurred. I need shelter.

Up over a pass and around a bend in the trail I spot the flags of the hut through the fog, flapping in the stiff wind. I nearly double my pace, desperate for the life-giving warmth of the shelter. Entering the door, I smell hot pasta, bacon, onions. I feel the heat of the fire as I strip my soaking outer clothes and pull dry garments from my pack. I’m sitting by the stove with my wife, drinking hot cocoa, my soul at rest knowing all will be well.

Vocational ministry demands that we be “on” much of the time. Whether for Sunday services or between them, for meetings with elders, for staff meetings and the occasional but significant “meeting after the meeting,” and for virtually every moment with parishioners who need us to be the presence of hope, meaning, and truth, no matter how we feel. We’re always “on.”

On my hardest days, when criticism is flying, or after preaching a fourth sermon and then hearing the story of someone’s desperate situation, I begin to feel the need for shelter, for a space away from the storms of being “on,” knowing this will be a context for rest, warmth, recovery.

I have several shelters I seek. I regularly enjoy the shelter of what I call coffee with God, each morning, as a means of receiving refreshment from Christ. He shows up too in creation, and a good Sabbath of skiing, climbing, or hiking, is a shelter. I’m also blessed by the shelter of a few neighbors who aren’t part of the church. We take morning walks, ski a bit, and share meals together regularly, as real world friends. I cherish these relationships for their distinction from great friendships within the church. Without such shelters, the storms will eventually sap our strength, causing us to miss out on the grand adventure God has for us.

Embrace suffering

Our first day of hiking was hot, humid, and steep. At first we were blind to all this. We were excited, cherishing the glory and beauty of the Alps and grateful for this new experience. It’s much the same as the start of marriage, or your new position in the church. The realities are there, just like heat and altitude, but we don’t see them. We’re hired! We’re loved! We’re needed! Let the adventure begin!

That first day, we needed to ascend 3,000 feet, and by the time we’d gained 1,000, we were hurting. Sweat was drenching our backs, which were aching with the weight of our packs. Our legs were burning. Our feet were tortured. The romance was gone. We wanted to quit.

The same pattern of “excitement turns to disillusionment” has happened over and over again in marriage, ministry, and faith.

The first year at the church in Seattle, we had “grown” from 300 to 200 as I’d made decisions that disappointed people. The same period was tough on our marriage as we’d moved from a tiny town in the mountains to the big city, from doing ministry together to having separate jobs and roles. When I came home from a day of hearing how I’d disappointed people, I didn’t want to rehash it with my wife, so she felt shut out. It was trouble on every front, and more than once I wondered if quitting wouldn’t be the best thing. But I didn’t.

This is because 30 years ago, in my first ministry job, I wanted to quit shortly after a conflict arose as a result of a decision I’d made as a youth pastor. I’d written a letter of resignation and given it to the senior pastor who laughed, tore it up, and said, “You’re not quitting.”

Then he added, “You’ll never see fruit unless you press through the hard times. And you’ll always have them.” It was some of the best advice I’ve ever received. I stayed then, stayed again in Seattle during a tough first year, stayed in my marriage, stayed on the Alpine trail, and I can tell you that every step beyond the desire to quit has changed me for the better and allowed me the privilege of seeing God’s long-term transforming work in my own life and the lives of others.

Learn adaptation

The trail to Lizumerhutte stretches across a rocky ridge above timberline, leading us to seven summits along the way, each dotted with crosses. To continue will require adaptation. Our idyllic view of this trek envisioned wide trails along grassy knolls, or comfy strolls through thick mossy forests. Though we had such days, this was not one of them. Cables were lashed to the rock, lest trekkers tumble to their death with a single misstep. At one point there was a ladder we needed to down climb. Failure meant death. Instead of our idyllic stroll, we needed to become rock climbers. We had to adapt.

As marriages and churches change with age and growth, the failure to adapt is often at the core of breakdowns. As a church grows, it requires new systems to accommodate the change in culture and staff size. Our assumptions had to change. In our case, we built a new building, added multiple services, began a shuttle service to mitigate parking challenges in our urban setting, and added six campuses.

Marriages also need to adapt—to children, aging, money matters, and moves. Faith must also adapt, facing honest questions and challenges along the way.

Adaptation is rooted in the ability to see what’s coming, just around the corner, and to adjust in order to continue on the journey. Too many of us hang on to this present moment, seeking to memorialize it, when Jesus himself taught us we’ll need new wineskins in order to preserve the wine of Christ’s vibrant life. This makes parking challenges, space problems, staff culture, date nights, and sabbath rest all vital things that must flex so we can adapt to the present and the future.

Practice gratitude

One night, before a particularly difficult hike, we sat at supper with a delightful German named Klaus. He was 65 and traveling in the opposite direction of ours, so he knew the route we’d be taking the next day. I lost count of how often he’d describe some feature of our upcoming hike in a excited but broken English and then, when words escaped, offered his summary: “Fantastic!” The rocks, water, views down into the valley, the intermittent rains—all of it was “Fantastic!” As supper ended and we were sitting with our coffees, someone came in from outside and said, “Don’t miss the sunset” to which Klaus cried, “Fantastic!” and was quickly out the door with his camera. On his thirtieth day on the trail, at 65 years old, he was still wide-eyed with wonder!

The next day was all he’d said and more, but the “more” included things like pain and fear because the exposure to heights was a life-and-death matter. There was also thirst because at certain elevations we were without water sources. There was heat in mid-day and cold by late evening when we arrived at the next hut. I realized, all day long, that Klaus also experienced these negatives, but his profound gratitude for the gifts of the day superseded the downside. The result was joy instead of whining. His gratitude was contagious.

Every faith, marriage, and ministry journey has its share of hard times. There are stinging criticisms, setbacks, hard truth-telling sessions, either giving or receiving, interruptions, and pain. We have to take on roles that are less life-giving than other roles. But all of it is ministry, and we need to walk the whole path if we’re to reach the destination.

Klaus’s “fantastic” perspective on his long journey reminds me of Paul’s admonition to give thanks in everything, and his own example in his letter the Philippians. Has he been arrested, shipped off to Rome, confined until his trial, which he knows might result in his execution? Yes. But it’s also true that he’s now given the chance to proclaim Christ in Rome, that others are gaining courage because of his story, that he’s confident Christ’s truth will continue to spread, liberating people into lives of service, joy, peace, generosity. My paraphrase of Paul’s perspective: “Fantastic.”

I’m learning to grow in gratitude. From the macro of sunrises, thunderstorms, elk herds, shooting stars, to the micro of paying attention to a fresh blossom or the taste of my morning coffee, God is constantly lavishing gifts on us, but we’re rarely paying attention. I try to fill my journal with a daily offering of gratitude to God for one of these gifts.

I’m grateful, too, when I see someone using their unique gifts to bless and serve our broken world. Whether it’s my wife’s unique gifts of service and hospitality, or a congregant’s compassion, or leadership ability, or musical talent, seeing people living their calling brings me great joy. Telling them that I’m grateful for them brings both of us joy.

Developing this bent towards gratitude doesn’t make every problem magically disappear. We’ll still carry a heavy load, and find ourselves weary, frustrated, tired, even afraid at times. But gratitude becomes a means of making the journey not only worthwhile but enjoyable. As someone said, “Being happy doesn’t make us grateful. Being grateful makes us happy.”

Maintain your ecosystem

The Alps are a massive ecosystem where every bit of life functions interdependently with the whole. Trees, rivers, snowpack, flora, fauna—all need the others as a precondition for life. Each of us finds ourself in an ecosystem of body, soul, and spirit. Neglect the body like a gnostic, and your spirit will suffer as you lack the vitality to serve well. We’re in family ecosystems as well, playing critical roles as both givers and receivers. Our willingness to make time for both giving and receiving with spouse, parent, children, are critical conditions for wholeness.

The church, as a body, is also an ecosystem. Senior pastors like me are prone to a false sense of indispensability, but this messiah complex is always destructive. It’s critical to see everyone as having a vital role to play, as Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 12, and the less visible roles are, like the bacteria in the forest, even more vital than the biggest tree. This perspective guards against the ugly duo of pride (“I’m the one holding everything together”) and shame (“everyone’s better than me”), filling us instead with a sense of profound gratitude that by grace, we belong to something bigger than our private pursuits.

The gift of this sabbatical trek keeps on giving because these themes are still with me daily. Though there are plenty of difficult days, almost every day provides a moment where I smile, give thanks to God, and say, “Fantastic!”

Richard Dahlstrom is pastor of Bethany Community Church in Washington State, and writes at stepbystepjourney.com