Pastors’ Sabbath Retreats / PSR ®™

Based upon her work with the Rev. David Huggett on the “Days of Waiting on God” retreats at Schloss Mittersill Study Centre, Judy Davids developed, recruited staff for, and led Pastors’ Sabbath Retreats in both the USA and Canada. These are 10 day retreats for “weary, worn and/or wounded” pastoral leaders and pastoral couples that use a multidisciplinary team to bring rest, healing, and new vision in a context of personal and emotional safety. The retreats are informed by insights from spiritual direction, clinical counseling, and recovery group disciplines. While she has primarily worked with the Vineyard Christian Fellowships, she is willing to provide the retreats to any group. For further information, contact her using the information on the contact page.

She also provides shorter seminars and retreats upon request and has done so in a number of denominational contexts and in multiple countries on several continents.

Pastoral Care for Pastoral Leaders

Pastoral leaders are often without pastoral care, not having a pastor in their own church. If they have a bishop or overseer that person is often too busy to spend significant time in pastoral care. As a result, 50% of M.Div. graduates do not last more than five years in ministry.

Part of this has to do with training, for spirituality and personal soul-care has often been left out of ministerial training programs. Part of this has to do with a lack of ongoing care. Part of this has to do with the personality of the pastoral leader. Whatever the cause, the result is a great waste of trained personnell.

Pastors' Sabbath Retreats can help restore a "burned out" pastoral leader to functioning, can heal a pastoral leader in the process of "burning out" before the process becomes a crisis, and can teach pastoral leaders appropriate self-care so that they avoid the "burnout" process altogether, resulting in pastoral leaders that serve long-term and finish well.