Coaching Testimony: The Gospel in our Past, Present, and Future

In 2018 my family was given a generous gift from our church family and leaders—a 3-month sabbatical. After serving in vocational ministry for 14 years, the last 5.5 planting a church, it was much appreciated and needed.

Our sabbatical was meant to be an intentional time of rest and refreshment, learning to be more than do. We knew we needed some help figuring that out and maximizing the time of soul refreshment. Because we were familiar with their heart for pastors and focus on the grace of the gospel, we reached out to Robert and Karen to ask if they would be willing to provide some Sabbatical coaching and care for us.

I had been a “professional” Christian for a long time, serving in the church, and I wanted to relearn what it meant to simply be a Christian. I longed to find rest in my identity as a beloved child of God. Walking through the Restore material helped me to do just that. 

Processing through our individual and collective stories and seeing how God’s story of grace interprets and reframes our story helped us to remember, rest in, and run to the grace of the gospel over and over again. We have been and are being made new in Christ. We had known this truth for a long time, but Restore helped us to come back to it and purposefully consider its implications for our lives—past, present, and future. 

Sabbatical coaching gave us a renewed sense of our primary calling—to know and be known by our Creator and Sustainer—which in turn gave us a renewed sense of our other callings as husband and wife, parents, and leaders in the church.

We are so very grateful for the time we spent with the Cheong’s and the wisdom, guidance, and teaching given to us through Restore. 

We would highly recommend Restore to any church or pastor who needs to relearn, revision, and recalibrate life around the most wonderful news in all of eternity—that God, through Christ, has shown us he is indeed unendingly merciful, unfathomably gracious, and lavishly loving toward his sons and daughters. He is making and will make all things new.

Justin Pearson, Lead Pastor

Sojourn Fairfax, Fairfax, VA