About Sabbath for Everyone

I'm Ryan Thorson—a pastor, teacher, husband, and dad who has spent a lot of my life learning how difficult it can be to stop.

My interest in Sabbath grew out of my own experience. During a sabbatical from pastoral ministry, I began noticing what happened when the normal demands of work were removed. Stopping exposed some things in me: how easily I measured a good day by what I accomplished, how uncomfortable I could be with my own limits, and how deeply productivity could become connected to my sense of worth.

But I also began discovering Sabbath as a gift.

That experience eventually became the focus of my doctoral research and the beginning of Sabbath for Everyone. I became increasingly convinced that Sabbath is more than a day off or a way to recover before returning to work. It is a spiritual practice that forms us over time—teaching us to stop, rest, delight, worship, and receive our lives as gifts from God.

I serve as Lead Pastor of Compassion Church in Corvallis, Oregon, and as Academic Dean of Pacific Evangelical School of Ministry. I earned a Doctor of Leadership from George Fox University, where my research focused on Sabbath as a formative spiritual practice.

Sabbath for Everyone brings that research together with years of pastoral ministry and my own imperfect attempts to practice Sabbath in the middle of ordinary life.