This year marked 26 years of ministry for me, including 12 at my current church. When I stepped into the lead pastor role three years ago, much of my focus was on simply learning to be present in a new way.

Our church had experienced a leadership crisis and the abrupt departure of a beloved pastor who had served the congregation for nearly four decades.

There was no opportunity for a proper farewell, leaving congregants struggling to process a painful and difficult transition. As I moved first into the interim role and eventually became lead pastor, I tried to be as present as possible. For that season, presence mattered more than ever.

More recently, I found myself needing to learn something entirely different: how to be absent. With the church stabilized following that intense transition, the time had come for a much-needed sabbatical.

Preparing to leave raised questions I hadn’t expected. The transition into leadership had not been easy. Not everyone had wanted me in that role, and part of my formation as a new lead pastor had been learning to remain faithfully present even when my presence wasn’t always welcomed.

Finally feeling settled in the role, I was choosing to leave for a season. I wondered what my absence would mean. Would people miss my presence? Would they discover I wasn’t needed? Would some prefer my absence?

I had spent three years learning to be present. Now I had to learn whether I could trust God enough to be absent.

Christ’s Example

As Jesus prepared His disciples for the Cross and His ascension to the Father, He spoke some shocking words in John 16:7: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away.”

The disciples were already grieving and confused at the thought of Jesus leaving. How could they interpret His going away as anything other than loss, abandonment, and crisis?

There are moments in life when truth and experience seem disconnected. This was one of them. For the disciples, the thought of Jesus’ absence felt like loss. But while the disciples fixated on Jesus leaving, He anticipated the Spirit’s coming.

These were different interpretations of the same event. The disciples understandably focused on what the Lord’s physical departure would take from them. Jesus emphasized what it would make possible for them. While His disciples could see only what they were losing, Jesus knew what they were gaining.

Loss naturally draws our attention toward what is ending. Yet the life of faith invites us to ask deeper questions, like, What is God doing? What new possibilities might exist beyond what we can presently see?

Jesus used an important word — “unless” — to broaden the thinking of His disciples. Jesus said, “Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

The Lord’s physical departure was not incidental to what would come next. It was necessary. For something new to begin, something else had to end.

Beginnings often require endings. Arrivals sometimes start with departures. And absence can create space for a different kind of presence.

This can be difficult to accept. Like the disciples, we want to preserve the reality already known.

The disciples naturally desired to keep Jesus physically with them. Yet Jesus had something more in store. They had known Jesus beside them. Through the Spirit, they would know God’s presence within them.

As Pentecostals, we should linger on this revelation. The Spirit is not a consolation prize for the loss of Jesus’ physical presence, but the promised gift of God’s presence within us. The Holy Spirit is Advocate, Helper, Comforter, Counselor, and Guide.

Jesus was not abandoning His disciples. He was inviting them into a deeper dependence upon the Spirit. They would have to learn to listen, discern, wait, and eventually lead without Jesus physically beside them, trusting that the Spirit He promised would dwell within them.

Of course, we are not Jesus, and our absence is certainly not analogous to His ascension. Yet the Lord’s example raises an important ministry question. If Jesus entrusted His followers to the Spirit, shouldn’t we create space for those we lead to depend on the Spirit?

Faithful presence sometimes requires intentional absence. The ministry of absence means intentionally creating space for others to experience, discern, and rely on the Spirit’s presence for themselves.

Absence is not just for the health of the leader. It is a practice of formation for the whole community.

Letting Go

Our culture has formed us to resist absence. Even when we are physically absent, we can remain digitally present through social media, email, texts, streaming, and notifications. We leave physically, but mentally remain.

Technology subtly tempts us to transcend our limits, staying always available, informed, connected, and responsive.

Omnipresence is an attribute of God, not a pastoral competency. We are embodied, finite creatures. Healthy leaders accept that there are conversations we won’t hear, decisions we won’t make, problems we won’t solve, and moments in which we won’t participate.

Personal limits aren’t obstacles to effective ministry, but opportunities for Spirit reliance. Yet the nature of ministry itself can reinforce our resistance to those limits. People call us during a crisis, consult us for guidance, and invite us into some of the most significant moments of their lives.

This is undoubtedly a sacred privilege of ministry. However, over time, being needed can become intertwined with our understanding of faithfulness. We begin interpreting dependence on us as evidence that we are leading well.

My sabbatical reminded me that my constant presence is not what sustains the church. The Spirit is the One who sustains.

The ministry of absence means intentionally creating space for others to experience, discern, and rely on the Spirit’s presence for themselves.

A pastor’s need to be indispensable is not always rooted in pride. Sometimes it grows from the vulnerable desire to know that our presence matters. It has complicated roots in identity, belonging, affirmation, fear, control, and yes, sometimes ego.

Stepping away can expose where we have located our identity. If I am no longer answering the question, solving the problem, preaching the sermon, or making the decision, who am I in this community? If someone else can do what I do, and perhaps even manage some tasks better, what does that say about my value?

Those questions feel uncomfortable, but they reveal how easily our calling can become entangled with our need for affirmation. The ministry of absence confronts us with the difference between being valuable and being necessary. Our value does not depend on our necessity.

This is a matter of spiritual formation. Relinquishment asks us to trust that God is at work in places we cannot see, through people we cannot control, in ways that do not require our involvement.

Letting go reminds us that the Spirit does not become less active when we leave the room. It reorients our identity, grounding it not in how necessary we are to the work of God, but in our belonging to God himself.

Being needed is not the problem. Leadership carries real responsibility, and our presence matters. But there is a difference between being needed and being indispensable.

As a pastor, I am needed. Yet I am not indispensable. Learning the difference frees me to remain fully present when my presence is required and faithfully absent when it is not.

Absence Isn’t Abandonment

Jesus didn’t just disappear one day. He prepared the disciples for His departure, telling them His leaving would ultimately be for their good.

Before the Ascension, Jesus also provided instructions about what to do afterward. In Acts 1:4, Jesus said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.”

The Lord’s departure was intentional, but so was His preparation of those He was leaving. The ministry of absence does not mean simply walking away. It involves preparing others for what comes next.

This includes delegating responsibilities, establishing boundaries and accountability, and giving people both the authority they need for leading and clarity about the limits of that authority.

Before my sabbatical, I planned how the church would function in my absence. Then I did the harder thing — trusting others to lead.

Relinquishment does carry risk. There is the risk that others will lead differently than we would. Learning to accept that is part of letting go.

There is also the possibility that those we entrust with responsibility will make mistakes, make decisions that require correction, or exceed established boundaries. I returned from sabbatical to some of those realities.

Not everything that happened in my absence was something I could affirm. Yet none of this convinced me that stepping away had been a mistake. It simply reminded me I can relinquish control without relinquishing responsibility.

My absence did not remove my responsibility as lead pastor. When I returned, there were things I needed to address.

Preparation, clear authority, boundaries, and accountability mitigate risk, but they cannot eliminate it. If we insist on a guaranteed outcome, we’ll never let go.

Sometimes one of the most formative things we can do as leaders is leave the room.

My absence highlighted vulnerabilities, but also capacity. Our congregation witnessed leadership strengths and gifts that might not have otherwise become visible. People stepped into spaces that allowed them and the congregation to discover their God-given gifts.

At the same time, my absence revealed limitations, unclear boundaries, and areas where leadership capacity was still developing. It highlighted where greater responsibility was in order and where people needed more formation.

Jesus provides the ultimate example of letting go. His disciples did not always understand or respond as He would have desired. Even at the Ascension, those closest to Jesus asked about restoring the kingdom to Israel. They were still trying to fit God’s work into their preferred expectations and timelines. Jesus left anyway.

The disciples still had things to learn, assumptions to surrender, and maturing to experience. Yet Jesus did not wait until their formation was complete. Jesus provided instructions, promised the Spirit, and entrusted His followers with the mission.

Growth involves risk. We entrust responsibility not because people are finished, but because it is formative. And formation requires revelation. We cannot form what we cannot see. Absence brings ministry into focus.

Leaving the Room

Some things can only be formed in us through staying. And some things can only be formed in others through our leaving.

This is about more than delegating. Delegation asks, “Who can perform this task while I’m gone?” Formation asks, “Who might someone become if I entrust them with this responsibility?”

There are dimensions of leadership people cannot learn through observation alone. These lessons require people to take up responsibility when the leader is no longer in the room.

During my sabbatical, team members preached and taught. Some worked through tense situations and gained a new understanding of the weight ministry entails. Others discovered capacities in themselves they didn’t know were there.

This formation extended beyond staff members. The congregation heard different voices preach, watched other people lead, and learned that the gifts God placed within our church were not concentrated in one person.

The ministry of absence can form a community by expanding its capacity to recognize and receive the gifts of the whole body. When one leader occupies less space, others become visible in ways they could not before. 

Jesus taught His disciples to depend upon the Spirit. This is what I want for my church and me. My absence formed congregants by requiring them to trust the Spirit without me. It formed me by requiring me to trust the Spirit with them.

Not every leader can take an extended sabbatical. The ministry of absence can take many forms. It might mean letting someone else preach, inviting another leader to oversee a meeting, allowing others to make decisions, unplugging during time off, or choosing not to attend an event so someone else can lead.

The ministry of absence is not about how long we’re gone. It’s a willingness to create space we could occupy, entrusting it to others and the Spirit.

We cannot measure healthy spiritual leadership only by what happens when we enter the room. Sometimes the best measure is what happens when we leave.

Jesus formed His disciples through His presence. He taught them, corrected them, walked with them, and loved them. But eventually, the Lord’s formation of them also included His physical absence.

Entrusting His disciples to the Spirit, Jesus gave them room to become the people He had spent years preparing them to be.

Sometimes one of the most formative things we can do as leaders is leave the room.

Matter of Trust

When I left for sabbatical, I carried more uncertainty about my absence than expected. After three years of learning how to remain faithfully present through a difficult transition, stepping away required a different kind of trust.

I had worked hard to settle into a role that had not always been easy to occupy. Now I had to release it for a season without knowing what my absence might reveal about the church, those I led, and me.

What I discovered was not that my presence didn’t matter, but that my presence did not have to be constant to matter.

Our church continued. Leaders cared for people, preached the Word, and stepped into responsibilities they had not carried before. Gifts became visible. Difficult decisions were made. And through it all, the Spirit was present.

Perhaps more than anyone else in the congregation, I needed to learn that lesson. I had spent years trusting the Spirit to work through my presence. Now I needed to learn to trust His work through my absence.

The ministry of absence does not diminish the importance of faithful presence. Jesus was profoundly present for His disciples. He walked with them, taught them, corrected them, listened to them, and loved them. But His love for them did not require Him to remain physically present. Eventually, He entrusted them to the Spirit, who empowered them for Kingdom work.

God calls those of us who lead to the same kind of trust. There will be seasons when faithfulness requires us to stay, show up, carry responsibility, and remain present even when it is difficult. There will also be moments when faithfulness requires us to loosen our grip, step aside, and trust that the Spirit is at work beyond the reach of our presence.

After three years of practicing the ministry of presence in a new way, I learned how to be absent. Both require trust. Both can be acts of love. And in the Spirit’s hands, both can become ministries of formation.