Just as we embrace the slowness that winter brings each year, there are times in our lives where the right answer is found in rest.
Hank Voss, assistant professor of Christian ministries, is celebrating eight years at Taylor University by taking a sabbatical.
This summer, Voss spent time preparing for the sabbatical, to which he makes the comparison of preparing for the Sabbath day each week. Voss believes it is intention and preparation that brings fruit when it comes to engaging with rest in this way.
At the beginning of his sabbatical, he spent 40 days being extra attentive to the Lord’s promptings and presence. At the same time, his church was engaging in 40 days of disciplined prayer.
“That was a great way to start, kind of just having spiritual refreshment,” Voss said. “I think it’s really good just to take time to examine our own hearts and see what the Lord’s been teaching us.”
This sense of refreshment has propelled Voss toward his goals for the second half of his sabbatical. He is currently organizing various works to be published with Sacred Roots, a ministry that he directs.
Voss had a vision for the Sacred Roots project in 2005 when he and his wife, Johanna, were on staff with a missions organization and working with pastors in Los Angeles, California.
It was then that the story behind Christian author and pastor A.W. Tozer gripped Voss.
Tozer, Voss said, was a beloved mentor and teacher, yet he didn’t go to Christian college or seminary. Rather, he attributes his theological knowledge to the spiritual classics he was reading.
“I thought, ‘Wow, it would be really great if we could kind of put together a little library of spiritual classics that the students in our seminary could read and kind of grow to be the kind of deep and wide Christian that A.W. Tozer was,’” Voss said.
Voss’ excitement about the idea was dampened when he faced trouble acquiring the funding that the project necessitated.
Years later, however, God picked up Voss’ dream by bringing him back to his alma mater, Taylor, and in 2018, he received funding for Sacred Roots through a million-dollar Lilly grant. Today, Voss said, the project has reached over 1,000 congregational leaders and received more than 5,000 digital downloads in over 100 countries.
Voss’ hope for Sacred Roots is that it would especially bless ministry leaders in under-resourced communities like those he served in California.
The project has Taylor’s fingerprints all over it.
Recently, the group’s first volume was translated into Spanish, an initiative that Josh Wood, visiting instructor of Spanish, helped edit. Other Taylor professors and alumni are involved with editing and illustrating other classics, too.
Ultimately, Voss’ ministry experience has greatly impacted his perspective as a professor.
“A concern I have for us at Taylor is that we talk about a ‘world in need’ without actually really loving and knowing and serving the world in need,” he said.
Voss’ heart for mentoring the next generation of world-changers is rooted in a challenge given to him in 2004. The challenge is based on Matthew 9:38, where Jesus commands his followers to raise up workers for the harvest field.
For the past 20 years, that’s what Voss has been doing.
“I feel like that’s what I really get excited about being at Taylor and a big part of why I wanted to come to Taylor, was because I could work in equipping students to think through, ‘What does it look like to be faithful and fruitful in my vocation where God’s called me to be?’” Voss said.
For Voss, ministry is rooted in community. His sabbatical has been a blessing that’s enabled him to devote new energy to his ministerial pursuits, yet he looks forward to returning to Taylor in the spring, where ministry and community combine to bear much fruit.
