essay review the most memorable place of vocation

Vocation and the Stewardship of Place

Calling in Context: Social Location and Vocational Formation

Your Calling Here and Now: Making Sense of Vocation

Common Callings and Ordinary Virtues: Christian Ethics for Everyday Life

Reappraisal of the operative vocational theologies that dominate popular Christian scholarship and teaching are actively under way. As with many sub-disciplines and fields of theology, vocational theologies are being vigorously re-examined with greater attentiveness to context and the underpinnings of their guiding theological assumptions. Vocational theologies, maybe more but certainly not less than other fields, reflect the dominant social location of their inquirers. To ponder calling and purpose is a luxury; it is a privilege a surprising few are afforded. At the very least, it requires time, energy, and access. It is no surprise that higher education represents the prototypical space for such inquiry. At universities and graduate schools, exercising the life of the mind is engendered and supported by robust communities of curious and critical peers and professors with ample access to learning resources. Moreover, the period of early adulthood, which traditionally comprises higher-education enrollment, has a vested interest in vocational inquiry. Robert Havighurst’s analysis of key developmental stages has long been influential for higher education curricular and co-curricular outcomes. Among the tasks in early adulthood, Havighurst indicates establishing identity, establishing a career, and increasing association with a group or community (e.g., a cause, organization, or even institution) as essential. 1 This stage of human development entails vocational discernment. Add to this any number of external pressures on the student or school which emphasize career placement, monetization of education, or evidence of societal impact, and it is clear why settings of higher education have been, and will likely remain, hubs for vocational theologies and its inquirers.

None of this is particularly problematic, and certainly the luxuries of time, energy, and access enabled by universities and graduate schools can be regarded as ideal. But the ideal never represents the whole and certainly not the majority. Beyond the classrooms and libraries, beyond the archetypal image of the student untethered by cultural, economic, or family constraints, beyond “the world is your oyster” (so deeply engrained in middle- and upper-class American individualism) is a world of the mundane and commonplace. A world of responsibility, demand, dependence, and compromise. A world far more complex than what the predominant concerns of self-actualization and meaning-making in vocational theologies can address.

Enter Maros, Smith, and Waters and each of their above texts. All three represent the widening examination of vocation emerging within the field, including identification and evaluation of the limitations of modern vocational theologies. Each has a penchant for attending to the particular —the way time, place, practice, and personhood are interwoven with Christian calling. similarly, each author seeks, in her or his own way, to demystify calling by freeing it from the encrustations of heroism, certainty, permanence, and importance that conceal its more fundamental (and far less daunting) purposes.

All three texts (Smith being the best-case exception) are written with the higher education context in mind and are best suited for persons with a developed theological vocabulary and general familiarity with vocational theologies. Waters’s Common Callings and Ordinary Virtues is arguably foremost a work in Christian ethics and only secondarily a work on vocation or calling, but the overlaps are both inevitable and intentionally illuminated by Waters throughout the text. Following the lead of all three authors reviewed in this essay, the terms vocation and calling will be used interchangeably, at least when referenced theologically. In considering the corresponding contributions of Maros, Smith, and Waters, the themes of stewardship and place expose a common thread and offer provocative insights against the backdrop of prevalent vocational emphases. Analysis of this common thread will follow a brief overview of each text.

Common Callings and Ordinary Virtues is an ode to the ordinary. The reader is quickly ushered into an intricate analysis of the formative power of the mundane and commonplace, which Waters argues has profound capacity to form virtue and direct the Christian moral life toward human flourishing. For many readers, like myself, who wonder why Christian theology gives scant attention to the fundamental practices and performances of human existence, this book is a refreshing addition. His goal is not to offer some “tightly reasoned theory or moral vision,” but to praise and elevate the mundane (xi). The unexceptional routines and patterns of daily life are where habits are developed “that in turn contribute to the formation of character by predisposing virtue rather than vice” (xi). Waters acknowledges that he aims to bring forth a subject “almost always ignored” (xiii). The culprits, or at least two prominent miscreants woven throughout the text, include a modern fixation on the extraordinary and “the fat relentless ego,” a phrase he borrows from Iris Murdoch (xii). His thesis proceeds through engagement with theological foundations before devoting twelve chapters (parts two and three, respectively) to everyday relationships and activities, from neighbors to leisure. The postscript on “The Good of Being Boring” is a highlight of the text and may even justify its occasional monotony (which Waters acknowledges in scholarly self-deprecation in the preface). Chapter two, “Calling and Vocation,” offers the most direct connection to the topic at hand. In this chapter, Waters illuminates the connection between vocation and the ordinary by first decoupling vocation from the modern social imagination that has a “proclivity to fixate on the self” (20). Through attentiveness and embrace of the common and basic—the context of calling and vocation—persons engage in the work of “unselfing” (xii). In other words, it is the mundane, the very stuff of life, that aids in correcting an undue fixation on the self. Secondly, Waters decouples vocation from the modern social imagination that generates “cultures that are infatuated with the extraordinary” (28). The need for every act to be “thrilling or rewarding” and for all time spent to be “productive or meaningful” is, Waters contends, “the very denial of calling and vocation, for it places oneself rather than the other in the center of attention” (28). Whether intended or not, Waters offers a challenge to popular vocational theologies: can they be constructed in a reverse logic? Rather than starting with the individual and their existential needs, which presumably translates to purpose and profession and trickles on down to basic relationships and daily activities, start with the ordinary and common. Start with those activities and communities that comprise the bulk of life. Attend to their formative power, discover purpose and meaning not in uniqueness outside the ordinary, but through participation with and the gifts that can be offered to that commonplace.

Readers looking to this work for a contribution to theology of vocation will not be disappointed, but nor will they be entirely satisfied. Offering a theology of vocation (in the standard sense) is simply not the primary purpose of the text, though it is a suitable companion to other more comprehensive works on vocation or calling. Of the twelve chapters devoted to everyday relationships and activities, it would be difficult to parse any out as inapplicable to a theology of vocation. Certainly, some chapters, like Waters’s chapter on work, are more likely to capture the attention of instructors or students exploring vocational theologies. As mentioned before, the book is foremost a contribution in Christian ethics, and it certainly fills a gap in that field, predisposed to doing either second order ethics and meta-ethics or first order ethics and applied ethics. Lost in that binary is the concreteness of place, relationships, time, and basic activities that shape and receive our habituated patterns of excellence. Waters steps into that vacuum with a robust examination of the power of the ordinary.

Your Calling Here and Now is Gordon Smith’s latest exposition on a subject to which he has devoted much of his academic writing. Like his preceding works on calling, this book benefits from Smith’s own vocational journey and experiences, including his current role as president of Ambrose University and seminary. Notable to this text is how the practical wisdom garnered through his work with various students, colleagues, institutions, and ecclesial bodies engenders a clear awareness of the dynamic and complex nature of vocation, especially when it confronts careers, relationships, and organizational commitments. True to the book’s title, Smith’s underlying argument is that “vocation is always particular: this person, at this time, and in this place” (1). The claim, engaged across all nine chapters, becomes increasingly hard to refute. While, at first, the statement reads as standard acknowledgement of the subjective nature of vocation, Smith seems disinterested in interpreting calling through the lens of self-fulfillment or self-actualization. Instead, the particularity of calling—this person, this time, this place—is about “doing what is needful” and stewarding one’s capacities, gifts, and relationships within a sphere of responsibility (5). Smith refers to this as “vocational integrity:” the “gracious acceptance of who we are,” the ability to “leverage what we bring to the table,” and “to [do] the work required in this time and place” (25). As such, particularity acknowledges that calling is dynamic, ever shifting alongside emerging circumstances. Some traditional notions of direct calling infer permanence and inalterability. Many clergy, in fact, construe (or at least reside under a construal of) calling in this way—fixed. Clearly Smith articulates a more fluid and flexible understanding of calling, though persons are never released from the commitments of work in community. In this regard, his thesis rests in an interesting tension. On the one hand, he frees calling from any undue captivity to duty, permanence, or static station. A clear audience of the book are persons in transition between careers, roles, organizations, etc. Smith even offers an array of theologically grounded and seasoned advice on discerning and navigating transitions in the middle chapters of the book. On another hand, Smith avoids pitfalls of hyper-subjectivism by balancing the mutability of calling with Christian responsibility. Chapters three, “The Stewardship of our Lives,” and seven, “Vocational Thinking Means Organizational Thinking,” are poignant examples. Smith might well argue that while vocation and calling are highly personal, they are never the possession of an individual. Our callings are not our own.

If there is any equilibrium or point of stability in the tension between subjectivity and responsibility, it can be found in Smith’s development of the term “congruence.” Recognizing both that “life is full of multiple callings” and that “vocation is negotiated through a mix of various obligations, responsibilities, and aspirations” (37), persons should aim for a “high level of congruence between [themselves] and the mission and values of the organization” (111). There is never complete congruence. Giftings, passions, ideals, and communities change, and as such, there can emerge incongruence between a person and an organization. Smith is delightfully forthright in his acknowledgement that shifts do occur where a happy union may once have existed between persons and their gifts and an organization’s mission and needs. Vocational discernment is paramount in such instances, and Smith’s text is an ally to persons immersed in vocational liminality. Many readers will find Smith’s development of congruence liberating. A person cannot remain in a liminal vocational space indefinitely. Congruence offers a lens for evaluating when to transition from an organization, and when and how to stay.

Susan Maros’s Calling in Context represents the most deliberate engagement of the three texts with the field of vocational theologies. The driving thesis of the text, namely, that social location and identities need to be recovered as an essential part of vocational discernment, positions the text to bridge two audiences: the teacher/scholar and the student/inquirer. Maros offers her own experiences as an educator as rationale for the book. In teaching and writing on vocation, especially in listening to diverse and non-U.S. student populations, Maros discovered how calling is uniquely tied to the perspective of a particular context. Moreover, most academic works on vocation presume a U.S.-American context. Invariably, Maros began to see how “the United States shapes our assumptions about calling and experiences with vocational formation” (7). For the teacher/scholar, then, this text offers a much-needed alternative to the dominant literature on vocation. Maros seeks to give due attention to context and is unabashed about allowing social location to carry authority in the vocational discernment process. The notion that any theology of vocation is universal, and that its biblical and theological perspectives apply to everyone, is precisely what Maros hopes to dispel.

Beyond providing needed critical evaluation and offering an alternative approach within the field of vocation, Maros’s text is largely intended to serve persons directly engaged in vocational formational processes. For the student/inquirer, Maros adopts a writing style and organization commensurate with the theoretical framework she articulates. Personal experience, not of simply one person, context, or circumstance, but of many, represents a principal feature of the book. Maros is intentional about letting stories speak, and the varied social locations of those stories are illuminated for the sake of the reader. In this regard, Maros’s text exhibits a unique capacity to connect to an array of students and inquiring persons who will likely discover overlaps and commonalities between their own vocational formation and the stories of persons highlighted in the text. Additionally, her pedagogical strengths are on full display within the book. With both comprehensiveness and lucidity, she engages challenging and sometimes divisive concepts. Gentle but instructive forays on identity formation, socioeconomic status and class, gender, sex, and power (to name a few) are knitted into the text and serve to both substantiate her thesis and provide a tangible starting point on such concepts for budding theologians.

Turning back now to tug at the common thread of stewardship and place in these three texts, I hope it is sufficiently evident how each emphasizes particularity and counters modern vocational proclivities like universal propositions, hyper-subjectivity, or extraordinariness. Their theses generally correlate with those emphases: Maros and the importance of social location for vocational formation; Smith and his claim that vocation is found at the intersection of a person, time, and place; Waters and the retrieval of the formative power of the ordinary. Proceeding with the caveat that one can only inadequately, at best, condense the authors’ respective emphases into some shared contribution, I will briefly acknowledge how their use of place and stewardship bear significance for contemporary vocational theologies.

To be placed is counterintuitive to any worldview that fetishizes a notion of freedom unburdened by environments, communities, and commitments. Theologically, of course, freedom is construed as freedom for , not freedom from . True freedom, much like personhood or even calling, is discovered in the context of community and place and the interdependence of rhythms, relationships, and responsibilities. Placelessness, if such a thing is even possible, is an illusion of the modern self and only imaginable if being (ontology) begins and ends with oneself. Community and place, then, become merely instrumental—aids, influences, encounters—and support one’s self-realization and self-determination but are never intrinsically and invariably connected to personhood. Ironically, freedom from only ensures a void in identity and purpose. It is no surprise that modern vocational theologies prioritized meaning-making. People desire meaningful lives and professions but were often paradoxically taught to ignore or overlook those places and communities to which they belonged. As Walter Brueggemann famously stated of modern placelessness:

That promise concerned human persons who could lead detached, unrooted lives of endless choice and no commitment. It was glamorized around the virtues of mobility and anonymity that seemed so full of promise for freedom and self-actualization. But it has failed . . . it is rootlessness and not meaninglessness that characterizes the current crisis. There are no meanings apart from roots. 2

Maros, Smith, and Waters recognize persons as placed and they challenge notions of calling that would deny place as a fundamental component of vocation. Waters engages place as a theological subject more directly than Smith or Maros, which is not a criticism but merely recognition of the varied purposes and audiences of the authors. For Waters, place is a requisite for human flourishing. Largely because humans are embodied creatures, but partly so that humans can “congregate to collectively undertake certain tasks and establish relationships over time” (176). Place enables those daily exchanges and interactions that shape virtue and instill identity. Smith and Maros share this assertion. For Smith, vocation is discovered alongside and never without time and place. It “is always a calling to and in this particular set of circumstances” (3). Maros recognizes that identity is incomplete without attentiveness to place. She engages the interdependence of identity, culture, and socio-historical context most explicitly in chapter four, “The Gift of Particularity.” Social location encompasses more than place, of course, but place remains an essential component. Naming and claiming social location includes coming to terms with triumphs, hardships, saints, and sinners that compose the places we belong. Even a former place, severed or sent from, retains its marks and influence on a person.

Eighteenth-century theologian and founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, once stated that “no character more exactly agrees with the present state of man [sic], than that of a steward.” 3 Central in Wesley’s practical theology was a conviction that nothing, whether money, material goods, or talents, are rightly our own. God is proprietor and we are called to be stewards. Wesley’s admonishments to the Methodists on the stewardship of money are widely known, mainly because of his own ascetic practices. But Wesley’s understanding of stewardship stretches well beyond money and material goods. Not even our lives are our own; all belongs to God. The Christian task, then, is to faithfully respond to God’s grace and employ one’s gifts and talents for God’s purposes. Wesley’s comments on vocation align with those of other Protestant forbears—Luther, Calvin, and Baxter, for example—who emphasize human work and calling as contributions to the common good. The neighbor, especially one in need, and the broader social order are the objects of human work and calling. These early Protestant vocational theologies can sound strange if not discomforting to our modern sentiments. Self-fulfillment or discovery of purpose are not part of their guiding theological questions. Submission, self-denial, and duty are more present in their frameworks, terms that appropriately spark suspicion today due to increased recognition of their potential abuses.

Stewardship, I hope, at least as employed by Maros, Waters, and Smith, offers a bridge to pre- or early-modern vocational theologies and can help recover overlooked but essential elements of calling. Stewardship invariably shifts calling and vocation from primarily an exercise in self-actualization to an opportunity for authentic participation in God’s commonwealth. It need not imply that vocation is somehow impersonal or non-subjective, but it does infer that the principal object of calling is not the self. Waters and Smith are explicit in their attempt to shift the primary lens of calling and vocation away from the self. Given his underlying concerns of the “late-modern technoculture” and his return to everyday virtue as a work in “unselfing,” Waters is notable in this regard (x). Though steward or stewardship is only mentioned four times by Maros, the relationship of social location and stewardship holds promise for contemporary vocational theologies. Put plainly, Maros’s text prompts the question: what does it mean to steward one’s social location? And how might that reflect God’s vocational purposes for persons and communities? Recognizing that persons are bearers of God’s creativity, beauty, and diversity, stewardship of social location requires attentiveness to particularity and place. Denial of social location, especially in the dynamic processes of theological discourse and vocational discovery, is a denial of God’s direct calling. I am employing “direct” intentionally here to differentiate, slightly, from its traditional use in vocational theologies. Social location is one of the highly subjective and deeply personal ways God marks, images, and directs persons. Might we consider that Ruth’s cultural-ethnic identity is little different than God’s call of Samuel? Are not both directly employed for God’s purposes? In this regard, maybe racial, ethnic, cultural, and class identity, like those communities and places to which we belong, are not instrumental add-ons but intrinsic and invariably connected to vocation. Vocational formation still requires “unselfing” and reordering of “the fat relentless ego” that would otherwise turn diverse, disparate, and disconnected social locations into a simulacrum of God’s commonwealth. Social location and individual identity are not ends in themselves. That would again turn self into the object of vocation. Instead, social location, including place with all its promises and perils, is ultimately a gift and talent to be employed for God’s purposes.

Cite this article

• Robert J. Havighurst, Developmental Tasks and Education (New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd., 1972).
• Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1977), 3–4. Emphasis in the original.
• John Wesley, “The Good Steward,” in John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology , eds. Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1991).

Joshua R. Sweeden

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Settling into the joy of vocation

My life must be lived as a response to something beyond myself and my material needs..

( Photo by ChiccoDodiFC / iStock / Getty)

Almost every morning I saw a nun. She was there to greet the children who attended the parochial school attached to our neighborhood Catholic church. I first noticed her because, unlike many contemporary women religious, she wore a habit. She always returned my friendly wave of greeting, and I enjoyed watching her usher the groups of tired, grumpy children in the door to the school. In and out of season, for years until I moved, I witnessed her faithfulness.

I have not always embraced the idea of a vocational calling. As a child of poverty, the last thing I wanted was to be called to a vocation that required sacrifice or serving others. I hoped and prayed that whatever God wanted me to do with my life, making a lot of money would be a part of it! I wanted the financial security in my adulthood that I never experienced in my childhood. I didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of so many of my elders, who spent their lives in service to others and who seemingly had nothing at the end to show for their faithfulness. When I found myself called to do work in the academy and the church, I lamented that God didn’t call me to something more lucrative.

I love this assurance from Paul: “There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:4–7). It is a precious thing to know that our individual vocational callings—even when we are working in isolation or we don’t think anyone is paying attention—can be used by God for the common good . 

Yolanda Pierce

Yolanda Pierce is dean and professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School and author of In My Grandmother's House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit.

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• Vocation in Historical-Theological Perspective

This in-depth article is a companion to the " Vocation Overview” article by the Theology of Work Project. In it, Theology of Work Project steering committee member Gordon Preece presents an historical-theological perspective on vocation at greater length than is possible in the TOW Project's main articles. This resource represents the views of the author, individually.

Introduction – Vocation in Contemporary Society

Vocation (or calling) language is still common in both religious and secular sources as this spectrum of examples shows:

• Baylor University advertises through the mouth of a new college student: “I got calls from UNC Emory and George Washington. But I found my call at Baylor.” This raises the question “What does God call us to and how?”
• In another ad MDiv student Michelle Sanchez says “I wanted to become a CEO, but then God called me to something greater….I sensed God was calling me to full-time ministry.” This raises the question “What is the value of ‘secular’ work and is paid church ministry greater or more sacred?”
• An article entitled “The Case for Kids” asks are women who have children merely “breeders”? Or is having children the call of all women able to do so? [1]
• The back-cover blurb of Max Lucado’s book He Chose the Nails [2] says “Max Lucado has a blessed calling: Denalyn calls him Honey. Jenna, Andrea, and Sara call him Dad. The members of the Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonia call him their preacher. And God calls him His.” This raises questions of our calling to spouse and family, God’s people in ministry, and God himself – all through the ways we are addressed, named or called by our most significant others.
• The caption in a recent ad for a mobile phone with vibrator read “I can feel when somebody is calling me. It’s not supernatural, it’s technological.” [3] How do we experience God’s call in a cacophonous, technological world of thousands of calls?

This collection of “calling” quotes raises the question where do our concepts of calling come from and what does Scripture say about calling? This paper will start with the apostle Paul (and his great interpreter Luther) who is central to the debate about calling and closest to our post-resurrection situation, move to the gospels, then examine broader biblical, especially Old Testament themes of creation and providence. We will then seek to synthesize and balance the scriptural material through connecting calling to the doctrine of the Trinity as a summary of the story of salvation or God’s work, as a model for human work. We will finally apply this scriptural and doctrinal material to the question of vocational guidance – does God call us to particular work and if so how?

Call in Paul and Luther

A helpful contemporary definition of calling is “ the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are…do …and have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service. ” [4] But what does calling or vocation ("to call” in Latin) mean in Scripture?

The general New Testament view stresses a Christians' common calling to conversion and corresponding Christ-like character or holiness (cf. Romans. 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 9, 1 Cor. 1:9, 26, 2 Cor. 3:18; Ephesians 4:1; 2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Peter 1:15-16, 2:9, 1 John 3:2-3). Our common use of the concept of calling to a particular social or work role dates back to the early 16 th century when Protestant Reformer Martin Luther interpreted "calling" this way in 1 Cor. 7:20, opening it up to all Christians in the light of his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. This replaced the millennium-long traditional Catholic sense that a calling only applied to the priesthood or monastery. The monastic tradition exalted the “perfect” contemplative, Mary-like life of poverty, chastity and obedience (to the church) over the “permitted’ active, [5] Martha-like life (Luke 10:38-42) of secular work, marriage and obedience to the State, thus making an eternal principle out of a particular incident. [6]

But many today say Luther’s view of an individual calling to a social or work role is due to his incorrectly translating the Greek term klesei in 1 Cor. 7:20 as “vocation” or “calling,” in the sense of occupation. This influenced the King James Version’s (KJV) literal English translation "Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called." Contrast the more liberal modern translation "Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called” (NRSV) or converted.

To decide between these two views Paul's condensed summary statement in 1 Cor. 7: 20 (cf. 1 Cor. 7: 17 and 7: 24 ) needs its context unpacked. The Greek (soul versus body) dualism of the Corinthians and their desire for upward social and spiritual mobility caused them to question Paul about marriage, seeking to change to an apparently more spiritual, heavenly, unmarried status (1 Cor. 7:1 , 25 cf. Matthew 19:12 and Luke 10: 38-41). In response, Paul states his general principle of staying in the same social status/class and roles as when they were converted. After all, Christ called or converted them there, making their social roles relative, not absolute. [7]

These "intertwined" senses of "calling" cause Paul to nearly jump, like Luther, to seeing "the setting in which one is called as 'calling' itself." But "at most 'calling' refers to the circumstances in which the calling took place." [8] The prepositions are key here. The difference is between calling in a situation when converted (Barrett and Volf) and calling to a situation (Luther). [9] Os Guinness captures the sense of our primary call: “First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not something (such as motherhood, politics or teaching) or somewhere (such as the inner-city or Mongolia).” [10]

Yet, while God's call to Christian conversion and conduct is not equated with these social spheres, it is closely related to them and sanctifies them in 1 Cor. 7:17ff. A secondary use of calling language for relational and work roles is still justified, as Fee notes:

Paul means that by calling a person within a given situation, that situation itself is taken up in the call and thus sanctified to him or her. Similarly, by saving a person in that setting, Christ thereby "assigned" it to him/her as his/her place of living out life in Christ .... Precisely because our lives are determined by God's call, not by our situation, we need to learn to continue there as those who are "before God" .... There let one serve the Lord, ... whether it be a mixed marriage, singleness, blue-or white-collar work, or socio-economic condition. [11]

Paul then illustrates his basic principle of “staying” put in one’s social situation and occupation through the ultimate unimportance of both circumcision ( vv. 18, 19 ) and slavery/occupation ( vv. 21-24 cf. Gal. 3:28) compared with salvation. Yet instead of the Corinthians’ view of our relational/occupational setting as mere stage scenery or scaffolding to be discarded as soon as possible, Paul sees it as potentially part of our primary calling to live out salvation but in our secondary social and work roles. Like sacraments, callings are an outward, visible sign of inward, spiritual transformation.

For Paul, our relational and occupational settings are not accidental but providential. Staying in the situation you were in when called or converted potentially converts even the most unpromising situation into a place of service to God. But this is not a rigid law. Paul sees occupational or role change as undesirable in some cases e.g. selling oneself into slavery or changing racial identity (uncircumcision); and unnecessary but possible or desirable in others, if e.g., a slave-master or non-Christian spouse allows one’s freedom ( v. 15, 21 ).

The Corinthians therefore need not abandon their social roles, nor must they stay in them. Paul's explanation in v. 29-31 stresses the tension of Christian freedom in marriage and work in a fallen world, between the now and the not yet dimension of our call to God’s Kingdom: “the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; … those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” We are called to stay in our worldly situations/roles or creation but our fundamental allegiance and concern is called away towards the new creation. [12]

In understandable reaction to a millennium of monastic denial of created roles like marriage and work in their super-spiritual enthusiasm for the away part of the tension, and from his own Medieval conservatism, Luther stresses the stay (or creational) side. In equally understandable reaction to the later “Protestant Distortion” [13] or Protestant Work Ethic’s idolatrous elevation and secularization of work into our primary calling, even a “work” earning salvation, contrary to Luther, [14] Volf stresses the away (or new creational) side. The Spirit of the new creation transforms our social and work situations to allow gifts to flourish. [15]

In sum, Paul challenges the Corinthians and us to maintain our availability to God’s kingdom or new creation but without abandoning the created roles it will preserve and perfect.While there is a tension between our roles in creation and in God's Kingdom (1 Cor 7:29-31), between being called to stay and being called away , the two are ultimately reconciled, for the Kingdom is "creation healed" (Hans Küng). [16]

Call in the Gospels

When we turn to the Gospels with this interpretive grid we see that contrary to the dominance of the monastic “Catholic Distortion” and a Protestant form of the same distortion in terms of so-called “full-time Christian ministry,” Jesus’ followers were not all called away from their occupations. Jesus' followers came from all walks of life and many stayed in them. The first group, the disciples, included middle class fishermen with their own boats and servants. Fishing was one of the biggest businesses in Galilee - fish being the basic source of protein. [17] Levi was a wealthy tax collector (Luke 5:29). To answer Jesus’ call and follow Jesus they left behind relative wealth and security (Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:14-20) as the rich young ruler failed to (Mt. 19:16-30).

The second group, the stay-at-home supporters, followed Jesus closely and continuously, although they did not travel with him. They supported him and his disciples from their relatively well off positions. [18] These include Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-34), Lazarus ( John 11 ) and his sisters Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), wealthy men like Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 24:50-51), and the wealthy women "who provided for them [Jesus and his disciples] out of their resources" (Luke 8:3). This group included followers of Jesus who stayed in their occupations.

A third group, the crowds, included a wide range of people, less intimately and regularly connected to Jesus. Many were called to stay in their situation and testify to their salvation like the Gadarene demoniac after his healing (Mk.5:18-20;cf. 8: 26; Matt. 8:13; 9:6). Tax collectors like Zacchaeus ( Luke 19 ) were called away from greed but not from their occupations. Compare Luke 3:10-14 on repentance on the job, not from the job, for the ethically challenged occupations of soldiers and tax collectors.

In sum, Jesus called his followers to lives of redemptive sacrifice and celebrative delight. Perhaps the outer ring of followers, including especially Zacchaeus, is the best 'type' for professional people ... These 'righteous rich' committed their possessions and their positions in the world to the work of redemption in the fullest sense ... A poverty of spirit animated their delight, and this proved itself in free and effective actions of good will toward the poor and the powerless. [19]

A Broader Biblical, Creational and Providential Basis of Vocation

Luther’s great rediscovery of “the priesthood of all believers” saw our primary calling to Christ consecrating our secondary but significant social roles to Christian service. However, Luther’s perhaps over-enthusiastic stress on calling to specific occupational roles, his static medieval stress on staying permanently within them, and later Protestant secularizing and individualizing of calling have led many to throw out the baby with the bathwater on the grounds that he misread 1 Cor 7 .

However, we, like Luther, can draw a biblical theology of work deductively from broad biblical themes. [20] For example, our first and foundational calling in Scripture is to image and reflect God’s royal reign through the creation mandate, to “have dominion...,be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:26-28 NRSV). As God’s people we are called to anticipate and reflect the Kingdom of God in our domestic partnership with each other as male and female and in caring, cooperative dominion over creation. This involves reproductive and productive work for both men and women in their distinctive ways.

We image God through our work because the biblical God is the first worker. God is the one who effortlessly says “Let it be.” Everything visible and invisible is “the work of his hands”. He is the master craftsperson - the potter (Isaiah 45:9, 64:8), the architect of the universe (Proverbs 8:22-31), the homemaker (Luke 15:8-10), the weaver who knits humans together in their mother’s womb (Psalms 139:13-16). [21]

Recently, some theologians, most notably Pope John Paul II, have depicted humans as “co-creators” with God. [22] This is true in the sense that our work (and rest) should be modelled on God’s creative work (and rest), "six days you shall labour and do all your work ... for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them . . ." (Exodus 20:9-11). However, our work is secondary and creaturely and does not complete God’s. The exclusive theological use of barah , to create, sets the original creative work of God apart from all possible human works.

Nonetheless, in Exodus 31:1-11 and 35:31-36:1 Bezalel and his fellow workers were filled with the Spirit in designing a sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant. Some reject any general doctrine of creativity from such a specific reference to a sacred activity. [23] Yet, in the light of the portrayal of the whole creation as God’s sanctuary in Genesis 1 and humans as God’s image set in the sanctuary as a sign and sacrament of God’s rule, creative activity is one way we externalise our identity and calling in God’s image. As J.R.R. Tolkien writes, we are “sub-creators.”

Although now long-estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned, And keeps the rags of lordship he once owned: Man, Sub-Creator …

Fantasy [or any creative work] remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker. [24]

The special and Spirit-filled callings of Bezalel and his colleagues and the Old Testament prophets ( Exodus 3 , Isaiah 6 , Jeremiah 1:1-15) are universalised as God’s Spirit is poured out “on all flesh … even on the male and female slaves” (Joel 2:28-29), the lowest of workers. In the New Testament we are all filled, gifted and called as part of God’s prophetic people, the new humanity in Christ (Acts 2:17-18, Ephesians 4:1-13).

The Old Testament’s high view of creation, humanity and our creative calling to dominion under God ( Psalm 8 ) prepares the way for a powerful sense of God’s providential presence in our work. Robert Banks sees Luther linking "human work with God's ongoing providential work" in Psalm 127 and 139 , Proverbs 3:5-6 and Matthew 6:25-34 and 10:29-31. He says of Luther's providential extension of church-based vocation terminology that:

He has widened the notion of calling beyond its reference to evangelistic and pastoral responsibilities to cover all work that provides a service to others. As long as the special importance of the former is recognised, and the responsibility of all Christians to be involved in them, [25] Luther's more highly developed understanding of vocation is quite valid. It simply brings Paul's teaching on work into contact with broader biblical themes and through these develops it in a more systematic and practical way. [26]

Philosopher Paul Helm agrees:

So a Christian has two callings. He is effectually called by grace, converted. In addition there is a call of a different kind, that which is provided by the network of circumstance, personal relations, past history, in which he is found when God's grace comes to him .... Here the biblical teaching about divine providence is presented in a particular and personal way. [27]

As Harry Blamires notes:

The Christian doctrine of vocation ... follows indisputably from two propositions. The first, that God is everywhere active in human affairs and his will operative at all times. The second, that he is a rational God, fully aware that the world needs farmers and miners as well as priests and nuns .... The doctrine of Providence stresses the ceaseless and ubiquitous intrusion of God into human affairs. The doctrine of Vocation defines a prime mode of that intrusion. [28]

Lee Hardy pictures Luther's perspective as " God's Providential Presence in the Work of our Hands ."

Through the order of stations [social roles] God sees that the daily needs of humanity are met. Through the human pursuit of vocations across the array of earthly stations the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the sick are healed, the ignorant are enlightened and the weak are protected. That is, by working we actually participate in God's ongoing providence for the human race. [29]

However, this had dangers through Luther’s historical and polemical over-identification of God’s providence with particular social structures and occupational roles. This sometimes led to a sense of vocational unchangeability and manipulative misuse of calling language to exploit those called by requiring long hours and paying low wages.

A Threefold, Trinitarian Calling

Luther’s great breakthrough in recognizing ordinary callings nonetheless over-emphasized God’s work as Creator and providential maintainer of creation and our work of staying in our created roles and occupations. He separated this from God’s work in Christ and the Spirit in his doctrine of God’s Two Kingdoms - the worldly kingdom of God the Creator and the heavenly kingdom of Christ and the Spirit. This split within God’s triune work opened up his doctrine of vocation to later secularization – separating our sense of calling to a job from our primary calling to Jesus. [30]

To gain a balanced and united understanding of our callings (including work) in the light of God’s work, we will draw on the Trinitarian summaries of God’s work in the great orthodox creeds (Apostles and Nicene Creeds). Because we all have partial perceptions of God’s work we need to be more thoroughly Trinitarian instead of often practicing a Unitarian (one person e.g. God as Creator) or Binitarian (two person e.g. Jesus and the Spirit) theology playing favourites with the Trinity. Individuals, institutions and marketplace ministries often grasp one or two aspects of the Trinity’s work that highlights their own work or calling. Some mainline liberal churches and groups focus more on work as just dominion over and care for creation (the Father), some Evangelicals focus on work as a means to evangelism (the Son), some Pentecostals focus on spiritual gifts, fruits and new creation (the Holy Spirit). A particular emphasis, gifting or calling is fine but it is divisive and competitive to claim ours is more essential, as if the whole body of Christ is only one organ (1 Corinthians 12:14-31).

Paul Stevens similarly pictures this as a three-tiered wedding cake of callings. I will adapt this in a more explicitly Trinitarian way. [31] The foundational bottom layer of the creation commission is to all humans (to communion, community building and co- or preferably sub-creativity—Genesis 1: 26-28, Psalm 8 ). The second tier is the Great Commission—to all Christians (to conversion, community and Christ-like character, witness and dominion through service (Matthew 28:18-20, Ephesians 4:1-13). The third and top layer is the Spirit’s personal or particular call to individuals to apply the relational commission or Great Commandment to work, family and political roles (1 Corinthians 7:17, 20, Ephesians 5: 21-6:9, Romans 13 ) using their unique gifts.

This Trinitarian view of our callings in the context of the three commissions corrects the Medieval Catholic hierarchical distortion of only some Christians i.e. monastics and priests, having a Christian and personal calling. A Protestant echo of this has clergy and missionaries on top as working for Christ as pastors and evangelists, [32] caring professions like social workers and doctors next as having a personal, spiritual calling working for others in personal relationships, while business people, skilled workers, scientists, IT technicians, artists etc. who develop creation or matter come last.

Each of these Trinitarian emphases has real strengths, but also weaknesses, when used exclusively. Their exclusive emphasis leaves us with an unbalanced, wobbly one or two-legged stool which cannot take the weight of our working lives and cause misunderstanding, disunity and competition in workplace ministry.

Firstly, mainline Christians with a creational/cultural commission emphasis rightly stress the biblical wisdom tradition that we are creatures first,then Christians, and stress our positive relationship to the world of nature and culture. They have made great contributions to science, culture and social justice. As just one example of many, Professor Graeme Clark, inventor of the bionic ear, consciously imitated God’s creative design of a shell he found on a beach to thread electrodes to stimulate hearing in the similarly spiral-shaped human ear. [33]

Many leave out the realm of our relationship with creation and the earth in blessing, dominion and stewardship (Genesis 1:26-28, 2 and Psalm 8 ). The creation commission is often the Great Omission compared with the Great Evangelistic Commission and the Great or Love Commandment. The sense of its foundational greatness, as wide as creation, has been lost. The loss of the creation commission has detrimental pastoral effects on Christians who are not primarily or directly people-workers or evangelistic workers. They often feel like third-class believers because they are not social workers or evangelists at work.

Yet an exclusive or over-emphasis on God as Father and Creator can become easily secularised and lose a sense of evangelistic urgency and Christ’s finality and uniqueness in a comfortable chaplaincy to secular, pluralistic societies and workplaces. This over-emphasis can also lack a sense of the Spirit’s intimate and intrusive involvement in our life and work in creation.

The modern secularised and individualised Protestant ethic distortion often depicts calling as just an individual career, forgetting the divine Caller and Gifter and other relational priorities. A thoroughly Trinitarian approach to calling does not anchor it to a static, deistic view of nature, but sees the Son and the Spirit thoroughly involved with the Father in calling us to humbly co-operate in the work of creation and re-creation.

Secondly, Evangelicals (like myself) are rightly Christ-centred and urgently evangelistic, majoring on the calling of the Great Commission. But they forget that Christ is also the creator as John 1 , Colossians 1:15-20 and the first chapter of almost every NT book shows. They stress the urgency of training more ‘‘fulltime Christian workers” for kingdom work and see ordinary or secular work as worthwhile only “to put food on the table and money in the plate” or people in the kingdom through evangelism. They fail to recognise that exercising responsible dominion through work is also kingdom work. Dominion or ruling is what kings do. Ruling creation is worthwhile in itself not merely as a means to evangelism. It is worship of the King of all creation (Romans 12: 1, 2).

Many still identify real Christians with clergy and missionaries called away from ordinary, creation work by Christ’s call to evangelistic or Kingdom work. I recently heard a well-known, gifted preacher in a prominent US church make a throw-away remark about the dirty, smelly fishing trade Jesus called his disciples from. The distaste smacked of a man of letters, a pastor (like myself) who works with words and people, not creation or things, completely overlooking the necessary, useful, and rewarding nature of the work itself.

An antidote to such an over-emphasis on Christ’s call to evangelise is the story that former Institute of Christian Studies lecturer Calvin Seerveld tells about his Dutch father and fishmonger. One day a woman asked for some fish. His father sprang into action and speedily and skilfully gutted and scaled it. The pleased customer said “I can see that you haven’t missed your calling.” [34]

Recently, I ate swordfish in a fine Gloucester (Massachusetts) restaurant while watching a fishing boat unloading its catch. I also saw a wonderful monument there to those thousands “that go down to the sea in ships” (Psalms 107:23) and who risked and lost their lives. I then read the book and saw the movie The Perfect Storm about many of them. I vowed never to take the fish I eat or the people who catch and prepare it for granted again. Theirs is a difficult, but still divine calling of exercising respectful dominion over the sea.

Because the three persons of the Trinity work co-operatively, not competitively, we need to re-link the creation and evangelistic commissions. The creation commission’s go forth and ‘fill the earth’ (Genesis 1:28 to Adam, cf. Genesis 9:7 to Noah, Genesis 12:1-3 to Abram) is behind the Great Commission’s ‘go’ into the world (Matthew 28:18-20 or ‘as you go’ about your daily work and life (Matthew 10:7).When Jesus says ‘all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’ he claims dominion over all creation as the true, ultimate human [35]

Thirdly, others from a more Pentecostal perspective correctly remind us of the importance of the Holy Spirit’s presence, calling, gifting, empowering and healing, anticipating the Kingdom’s coming. People are gifted by God’s Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-13; Romans 12:3-8) for specific tasks for others’ good (1 Corinthians 14:12). The Spirit also applies the relational commission of love for God and others to our particular relational roles and responsibilities. The Holy Spirit nurtures the fruit of Christlike character (Galatians 5:22-26) that is developed in our life and work callings.

The Holy Spirit’s calling of all God’s gifted people makes us all 24/7 servants or full-time ministers (1 Corinthians 12:5). Even Nero’s Roman state is called God’s “minister” or “servant” (Romans 13:4 before Nero lost his philosopher – adviser Seneca and his sanity). We are all kleros or "called" (from which “clergy” derives), and all are laos or "people" (from which "laity" or "God’s people" derives). [36] Given the Spirit’s pouring out upon all believers at Pentecost (Acts 2:4, 17-18), we need to rediscover our calling to the priesthood, prophethood and kingship of all believers, teaching/pastoring, prophetically challenging and wisely ruling/managing God’s people and creation respectively (Jeremiah 18:18). Bank manager Sandra Herron rediscovered this by ‘Reflecting Christ in the Banking Industry: The Manager as Prophet, Priest, and King.” [37] To affirm these gifts and callings of God’s people like Sandra we need to develop forms of recognition of lay vocation in society through regular lay or marketplace commissioning services. [38]

However, those who over-stress the Spirit’s work can forget that the Spirit is the Spirit of the Word/Christ and of the Creator. [39] Thus they rightly pray for spiritual healing in church, but not often for the work of doctors and nurses [40] or architects, builders and craftspersons (Exodus 35:2-3; 1 Chronicles 28:11-12) in the workplace who also have God’s creative gifts. But gifts of administration, craftsmanship, mercy, evangelism, political leadership and counsel etc overflow the church to bless the workplace. Miroslav Volf, who comes from a Pentecostal background, contrasts the traditional “additive” or top-up model of new supernatural and extraordinary spiritual gifts being added to our ordinary created talents with a more biblical “interaction” model that sees the integral relationship between created and re-created gifts, both coming from God’s creative and re-creative Spirit. [41]

A recent debate in LayNet magazine revealed the difficulty many preachers and people have in associating spiritual gifts and calling with created things or matter. A bishop wondered how a truck-driver could possibly have any sense of calling, not being a professional people-person like a doctor, nurse or social worker who is supposed to love others according to the Great Commandment. However, philosopher-priest-carpenter Armand Larive notes how the Hebrew word hokmah is used for wisdom and skill. Bezalel, “chosen [or called] by God and …filled with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts” (Exodus 35:30 cf. 35) and other craftsmen working on the tabernacle have it, “taking and respectfully using what the created order will allow. A goldsmith knows the malleability of his material, a farmer knows the seasons, a sailor [or fisherman] develops an eye for the seasons and stars. It would apply also to the way a truck driver can back a big rig into a narrow alley. Such a driver has hokmah. ” [42] This is an expression of the creation commission of having responsible dominion over the earth or material reality, but the Creator Spirit (Genesis 1:2, Psalm 104 ) gives the ability to do so.

While truck driving can no doubt have many monotonous elements, it also involves skill and responsibility for safety. Recently I was moving home and was shocked to find (a 10 or more ton) interstate semi-trailer arrive at my new apartment block which has a 3 ton limit on trucks entering. I warned the driver as I had when they were loading but he insisted on backing his skill. With many people watching and me pretending to have nothing to do with it, I watched as the truck got stuck half-way around a very tight bend. I had images of it being permanently stuck, blocking the apartment complex forever. Fortunately, while lacking wisdom for trying it at all, the truck-driver had the great skill to reverse the semi out, something I, who have trouble reversing a tiny trailer, could only marvel at. I thanked God in a silent prayer for this man’s dominion over machinery and matter. He had hokmah , at least over his truck. [43]

Such work exercising dominion over material creation can be not only a matter of skill but of loving care. As the Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig said:

I watched a man making a pavement in Melbourne in a busy city street: the concrete was poured and he had his little trowel and there was traffic roaring around, there were cranes and machines going, and this man was on his hands and knees lovingly making a beautiful little corner on the kerb. That’s a sort of love …. That man’s job is important and he’s a bit of a hero for doing it like that…. Love involves that as much as it involves what happens between people. It’s about one’s relationship between oneself and the world and its people and its creatures and its plants, its ideas. [44]

What Leunig calls heroic and important, Christians can see as God’s calling.

Vocational Guidance: Does God Guide People into their Work and if so How?

How does a biblical view of calling apply to an individual’s gifting from God? As we will see, this may or may not neatly fit a person’s paid work and primary use of time, particularly in developing economies. Is vocational choice just a middle-class luxury when most people are stuck with whatever job is available (if any)? Is there a single particular calling God has for us and is it for life? These are questions of vocational guidance for which we propose some basic principles based on our preceding understanding of calling.

1. We need to first focus on God’s cosmic purpose or calling to the Kingdom.

This operates on a far broader canvas than the debilitating deterministic and individualistic “dot” or “bullseye” approach of “what job is God’s will for me” or “what marriage partner is God’s choice for me?” as if there is only one job or one possible spouse. [46] This bigger biblical canvas for callings puts them in second place to our primary calling to follow Christ and “seek first his Kingdom and his justice.” Then our other basic needs will be met as well (Matthew 6:33). As Robert Banks notes “The criterion for choice and change of calling then becomes: Does it point in the direction of the Kingdom?” [46] Further, our calling to God’s Kingdom community, not pursuing an individualistic career, sets self-fulfilment in the threefold context of service to God, one another and creation. Self-fulfilment is not something to anxiously seek but more a pleasant by-product of this network of right relationships or shalom.

Callings or questions of God’s “will” for work, marriage etc are significant but not ultimately significant, in contrast to Christ’s work and God’s will for the world’s salvation (1 Timothy 2:4) and God’s ethical will. Within that will we have great freedom to prayerfully and wisely choose (if we have a choice) optimal opportunities for ministry, knowing that a mistake will not cancel our salvation. This way provides a balanced Christian response between the anxiety–inducing bullseye view inspired by heavenly voices or signs and a secularised rationalism that collapses calling into just a job or career that we rationally calculate. As Os Guinness noted earlier, more important than the “what” or “where” of guidance is the “who” of our guiding Shepherd Jesus (John 10:11-15) and who we become in Christ, not what we do.

2. “Freedom in limitation.”

In a time of such surfeit of ‘choice’ for western middle-classes and “the options generation” [47] we need a longitudinal, historical perspective on these choices in the light of the prominent lines of God’s providence in our lives and through salvation and church history. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth writes wisely of “freedom in limitation.” God calls us providentially to serve him through the liberating limitations of our place in history, stage of life, gifts and opportunities. “These are the creaturely carriers and media of the voice of God Himself.” [48] Despite the crippling consumerist illusion of infinite choice we are finite creatures, bound to time and place. Like Esther in exile under the Persians, protecting her people from genocide, God may have raised us up “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

3. A Hard Call .

What of those with little choice and a hard call? Can difficult, gruelling work, a human necessity, be a calling? Take for example Graeme Marriott’s story of his callings as a father of three children and foreman at CBM Waste Management.

We are a small … company. We were into recycling but it’s not that profitable. Our attention turns to waste disposal. My job is to run the place: I organise and do some paper work. We do garbage and recycling…. There’s three guys, and we start at 3 am…. I drive the compactor for half the run, and I run at the back of the truck for the other half. I’ve been doing this for six years. I process the recycling every day. … It’s heavy manual work. There is lifting, lots of noise especially when you’re processing. Running … steep streets is physically demanding particularly in the summer …. You’ve got to get going early, and that is disruptive to family life. You work all days, all weather, even public holidays. As an essential service you can’t have time off. I like the challenge of the physical aspect: how fast and efficient can we get?

But it’s pretty mindless – smashing bottles, running behind a truck…. People ask me about my work and some see me as a bum. In some way it is an end of the road job. But it is essential and people rely on you. If we went on strike, and waste started to build up, it would be a health risk. … Recycling is more important these days, and I’m respected a bit. My daughter’s school asked me to speak to the children about recycling. These recycling issues affect us all so my role is important. I know that even if it’s sometimes hard to say, God has called me to do my job. [49]

Graeme has a grueling job, but he makes the most of it, sharing the difficult aspects around, and he takes his responsibility seriously as something from the hand of God.

4. The Need is not Necessarily the Call .

Many years ago, as an adolescent, I visited my cousin the night she died in hospital from a brain tumour. She was delirious and I was overwhelmed with compassion at such desperate need and wanted to be a doctor. But I was not gifted at maths and science and eventually channelled my compassion towards pastoral ministry where I was more suited and less likely to kill somebody, unless they mistook the Dr in front of my name for a medical doctor.

There are many needs and our finitude means we can only be in one place at one time. So we need to pay primary attention to the needs of our “nearest” neighbours – not necessarily geographical – but those we have the gifts, resources and responsibility to meet. In this light Frederick Buechner writes: “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [50] God wants us each to be “a cheerful giver,” (2 Corinthians 9:7) aware that the gifts we can gladly give, are not our private possession, but God-given, to be passed on to others.

The language of adding depth to our relational roles is also used by John Schuster. [51]

Calls draw us into the depth level of whatever roles we may already have … [They] turn the insurance policy pedlars into advisors of needed financial security, grocery store employees into health and nutrition suppliers, doctors into healers, secretaries into stewards, businesspeople into entrepreneurs, bureaucrats into civil servants, writers into dreamweavers, parents into co-creators of life.

While this may sound a bit grandiose, Schuster’s point is that awareness of God’s activity in and through our ordinary roles deepens our opportunities for extraordinary love and service.

5. Community Discernment .

One of the major problems of the western approach to guidance is its individualism and unaccountability. We make up our own minds and say “Here I stand, I can do no other’ like Luther, but without his qualification that “my conscience is captive to the word of God.” Those of a more Spirit-oriented bent can hear the voices they want to hear. Luther said to those in his day “I don’t care if you swallow the Holy Spirit feathers and all” you must convince me by Scripture, tradition and sound reason. Each of these for Luther, through the rational interpretation of Scripture in the church present and past, is a communal process. The Spirit speaks but more often to us than just me . In Acts we hear of the Holy Spirit’s guidance when Paul and Barnabas were sent on mission by the church at Antioch (Acts 13:2-3) and when the Gentiles were accepted into the then largely Jewish church without onerous Jewish laws - “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ” (Acts 15:28). Such corporate discernment, wrestling with one another and in mutual accountability, is a good model for our vocational discernment, though there is obviously individual liberty and responsibility also.

Archbishop William Temple was right that to choose a career on selfish or individualistic grounds, without a true sense of calling, confirmed corporately, is “probably the greatest single sin any young person can commit, for it is the deliberate withdrawal from allegiance to God of the greatest part of time and strength.” [52] But the fault is as much, if not more, that of the Church which has left people to their own devices, without resources of corporate discernment and vocational guidance, unless they are considering ordained ministry.

6. Called to be More – and Less.

Gail Godwin’s novel Evensong has a character affirm the vocation of a female Episcopal priest by saying “something’s your vocation if it keeps making more of you.” It’s more than just a job but part of a “faithful, flourishing life.” While the language of passion is all-pervasive today, vocation includes, but is more than passion in the emotional sense. It is the commitment and disciplined practice of a focus for life rather than a nibbling approach to food or a channel-surfing approach to media. It is this that “ keeps making more of you.” In this way vocations or callings are connected to long-term, holistic covenants in relation to our role responsibilities - to our nearest neighbours - husbands and wives, parents and children, bosses and workers, rulers and citizens.

Gregory Jones balances Godwin: “Conversely, we ought to avoid those vocations that are likely to make “less” of us, especially if in them we are likely to be ‘shrivelled’ by one or another form of sin. We can be made ‘less’ by our own temptations, by a particular mismatch between what we are doing and the gifts we have been given by God, by contingent events that overwhelm the possibilities of continuing a specific vocation, or by the corrupting practices or institutions that currently shape our vocation.” Godwin’s phrase helps orient us toward vocations that encourage a flourishing of life.

But Godwin’s phrase ‘more of you’ can be co-opted by a seductive culture of self-fulfillment… It needs to be placed next to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s claim in The Cost of Discipleship that when Christ calls [someone] he bids him come and die.” [53]

All from Christianity Today, August 2006, pp. 73 (Baylor), 72 (CEO) and 26-31 (“Case for Kids”). Thanks to Scott Harrower for these illustrations in his unpublished Ridley College essay “Great Expectations: What does God expect from us?” 1.

Max Lucado, He Chose the Nails , (Nashville: Word, 2000).

Cited without source by Ian Barns, “Living Christianly in a World of Technology”, Part I, Zadok Papers S144, Autumn, 2006, 2

Os Guinness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998), 29.

Eusebius, The Proof of the Gospel , ed. and trans. W.J. Ferrar (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), bk. 1, chap. 8, 48-49. Eusebius was the first “Christian” emperor Constantine’s court historian in the early fourth century.

Os Guinness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998), 31-34.

Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians , New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT)(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 314. The broader context of 1 Corinthians shows socially and spiritually restless Corinthians desiring upward spiritual and social mobility. Paul earlier showed how their revolutionary calling or status "in Christ" crucified (1 Cor. 1:4-7, 27-30) or relativized all other calling - racial (7:24) and social status (7:26ff.). Cf. Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Carlisle/Grand Rapids: Paternoster/Eerdmans, 1994), 163f.

Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians , New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT),306f. Others take the next step "circumstances," = "setting" = "calling." D.J. Schuurman, Vocation: Discerning our Callings in Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), chap. 2 finds these verses clearly associate work and other ordinary roles as "callings."

Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 109f. citing C.K. Barrett, First Corinthians , Blacks New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 169f. Contrast Luther's confusing paraphrase of v. 24 and its change from "to which" to "in which." "Remain in that calling to which you were called, that is, where you received the Gospel; and remain as you were when called .... If you are called in slavery, then remain in the slavery in which you were called" ( Luther’s Works ed. J. Pelikan vol. 28 (Philadelphia/St. Louis: Concordia and Muhlenberg/Fortress, 1955-76), 45-7. Cf. NIV v. 17 which without using "calling" refers to "the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him" and on v. 24 to remaining "in the situation God called him to." My italics.

Os Guinness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998), 31.

Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians , New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT), 306f., 321f, cf. 314 and Guinness, The Call , 31. Fee does not necessarily see God calling people to become slaves for instance, but rather that once converted while in a certain social setting, even the worst like slavery, it becomes potentially a place of service and worship. However, if that potential is unable to be fulfilled and the opportunity of release from slavery becomes available, Paul encourages people to take it. See v.21 (NRSV margin and NIV). However, the NRSV translation of v. 21 seems to imply that Paul wants Christians to stay in their situation of slavery while inwardly free in Christ. Even if this is the best translation, this needs to be read in the light of Paul’s non-dualist principle that our inward mental and spiritual states are meant to be embodied externally in our social situations as far as possible (cf. Rom. 12:1,2).

Cf. Vincent L. Wimbush, Paul the Worldly Ascetic: Response to the World and self-Understanding according to 1 Corinthians 7 (Macon, GA: Mercer Uni. Press, 1987), 15ff., 21: "'Remain'" did not uphold the status quo. Instead it "relativize[d] the importance of all worldly conditions and relationships. Yet ..., even the 'remaining' is relativized": those given the chance, e.g., slaves, v. 21 "can change their social condition or status without having their status with God affected." "Remaining" counters the Corinthian catchcry of refraining - changing status or withdrawing from the world to a higher "pneumatic [spiritual] Christian existence." Paul's two digressions in v. 17-24 and 29-35 clarify his principle that worldly statuses are nothing before God. Therefore we are free to live in the world, but not of it, in "spiritual ... detachment or "'inner-worldly asceticism'"( Worldly , 70) "as if" according to v. 29-31. This is because the forms, structures, institutions and concerns of this world ( schema ) are not evil, but transient ( Worldly , 33f.).

Os Guinness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998), 39 ff.

Donald R. Heiges, The Christian’s Calling rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 47-49 demonstrates the theological and structural primacy Luther gives to our calling to respond in the inner man in the context of the church to the gospel of grace and the heavenly kingdom over our calling or vocation to respond in the outer man in the context of our neighbour to the law’s command to love and serve in the earthly kingdom. Heiges cites Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms respectively in The Book of Concord , trans. and ed. T.G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), 345 and 419. However, he notes that for polemical reasons against the Roman Catholic Church, Luther had to “emphasize (even over-emphasize) the earthly callings of every Christian.”

See Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit, ch. 4 and Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity , Otherness , and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 50-51. This also reflects the Old Testament’s emphasis on the Judean exiles settling down in Babylon, by living and working alongside the Babylonians while praying for and “seeking the welfare [“shalom”] of the city” (Jeremiah 29:4-7). It becomes a paradigm for New Testament Christians scattered or dispersed in the Gentile world. It is also an appropriate model today for God’s scattered people called to work in the world in “exile” in Babylon. Cf. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City .

Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (London: Collins, 1975),231.

A statement by biblical scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor on TV for which I have no exact source.

Martin Hengel, Poverty and Riches in the Early Church (London: SCM, 1963), 27.

John Schneider, Godly Materialism (Grand Rapid s: Eerdmans, 1994 ), 143-44 .

Cf. M. Volf, Work in the Spirit, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)78.

See Robert J. Banks, God the Worker (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross Books, 1992) for more.

John Paul II , Laborem Exercens[On Human Labor] (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1981), section 25 where the term is not used but the concept of “Work as a Sharing in the Activity of the Creator” is.

Alan Richardson, The Biblical Doctrine of Work (London: SCM, 1952), 17-18.

J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in Tree and Leaf (Houghton Muffin, 1965), 144-45 referring to our God-given ability to create ‘A Secondary World’ (132) of story, fantasy or culture, in the broadest sense, including work.

Banks’ reference to the “special importance” of “evangelistic and pastoral ministries can be read not in any hierarchical sense but rather as universally applicable dimensions of the Great Commission and Great Commandment respectively.

R. J. Banks, “The Vocation of the Public Servant,” in his ed., Private Values and Public Policy: The Ethics of Decision Making in Government Administration (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1983), 101. D. J. Schuurmann ( Vocation: Discerning our Callings in Life , [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 33, n. 21) helpfully compares the doctrine of vocation and the doctrine of the Trinity. Both are not explicit but rather implicit and important in Scripture.

Paul Helm, The Callings: The Gospel in the World (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 48:

Harry Blamires, The Will and the Way: A Study of Divine Providence and Vocation (London: SPCK, 1957), 67.

The Fabric of this World: Inquiries into Calling, Career Choice and the Design of Human Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 45, 47.

Miroslav Volf, ( Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work [New York: Oxford University Press, 1991], 105-9), Gordon R. Preece, ( The Viability of the Vocation Tradition (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1998] 61, 89-99) and Darrel Cosden ( The Heavenly Value of Earthly Work [Milton Keynes, UK/Peabody, MA: Paternoster/Hendrickson, 2006], 45-48) while affirming of Luther’s breakthrough to emphasise the universal call of all Christians to service in the world, all critique his dualistic and conservative Two Kingdoms framework.

The Other Six Days (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 73-74 borrowing Klaus Bockmuehl’s image.

Os Guinness, The Call, (Nashville: Word, 1998), 31-43.

Graeme M. Clarke, Sounds from Silence, (St. Leonard’s NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003).

Cited in R. Paul Stevens, Doing God’s Business (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 20-21.

H.W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (London: SCM Press, 1974), 164-65.

Clement’s First letter to the Corinthians (c. AD 96) has the first use of the clergy-laity distinction.

In Robert J. Banks ed. Faith Goes to Work, (Alban Institute: 1993, 80-92)

See William Diehl, “Bringing the Workplace into the Worship Place: Celebration and Education for Worldly Ministry”, in Banks, Faith Goes to Work , 148-59.

See Gen. 1:2, Ps. 104, Isa. 32, Ezek. 36-37, Rom. 8 and C.J.H. Wright, Knowing the Holy Spirit Through the Old Testament (Oxford: Monarch, 2006), esp. 13-39.

As Ecclesiasticus or Sirach 38:1-2 tells us: “Honour physicians for their services, for the Lord created them; for their gift of healing comes from the Most High” (see also down to 38:15). According to the Sixth of the 39 articles of the Church of England this apocryphal book is “read for example of life and instruction of manners,” not to “establish any doctrine.”

Volf, Work in the Spirit, 102-5, 111-22 esp. 112. For all the positive contributions he has made to workplace ministry, Os Hillman’s The 9to5 Window (Ventura CA: Regal, 2005). 8-12 still has an additive model of gifting stressing the supernatural gifts, which, of course, must not be neglected.

“Vocational Fulfillment,” LayNet (Winter 2005), 4-5 in response to Loren Mead, “Perceiving Vocation at the Margins,” LayNet (Fall 2005) who quoted the bishop.

See Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008) on skill-based occupations.

Caroline Jones, An Authentic Life (Sydney: ABC Books, 1998), 2-3.

See Garry Friesen, Decision Making and the Will of God (Portland OR: Multnomah, 1980), Part 2.

Faith Goes to Work, 167. Cf. Banks’ emphasis on calling to the Kingdom with Tom and Christine Sine, Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002).

Hugh Mackay. Generations: Baby Boomers, their Parents & their Children (Pan MacMillan Australia, 1997) referring to the then 15-30 year olds.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, ET 1961), 634-36.

“Head, Hands and Heart 1, ” Lookout http://www.achea.edu.au/~studfac

Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (Harper SanFrancisco: rev. ed., 1993) under “Calling.”

Answering Your Call : A Guide for Living Your Deepest Purpose (Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., San Francisco,2003), no p .

Cited unsourced in Os Guinness, The Call (Nashville: Word, 1998) 47.

L. Gregory Jones, Everyday Matters (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 42 citing Evensong (New York: Ballantine Books, 2000).

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7 Vocation and Story: Narrating Self and World

• Published: September 2015
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This chapter explores the role of narrative in the shaping of one’s vocation. Every calling stands within a story; its characters act alongside others, adopt goals that advance the plot, and remember their stories to make sense of their lives. The chapter surveys recent work on narrative in philosophy, theology, and ethics; following Sharon Daloz Parks, it also considers undergraduate education as an opportune time for discerning the narrative threads constitutive of one’s past and determinative of one’s future. Students often find themselves ensconced in larger “framing narratives” not of their own making; these often expand or restrict the scope of their own personal narratives. The chapter examines three examples of such metanarratives (tragic optimism, cynicism, and charity), then offers practical suggestions about how students might be helped to tell more coherent, truthful, and sensitive narratives of their own lives as a way of deepening their vocational discernment.

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vocation matters

Insights and Conversations from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE)

Vocation as stories we tell ourselves about ourselves

Metaphors for understanding narrative identity

This narrative understanding of identity has borrowed useful metaphors from the study of narrative in literature. We speak of scripts, plots, and roles, and the improvisation that draws on the “repertoire” one has seen, acquired, and rehearsed. These metaphors can help us understand how identity forms, how it adapts fluidly to changing context, and how it accommodates constraining structure while allowing for creative, free agency.

Most of our understanding of ourselves–our scripts, narratives, plots, roles, and other items in our repertoire–arises outside ourselves and is  acquired by observation, mimicry, and rehearsal. We learn our identity as others interact with us, as we are given scripts and assigned roles. We are socialized into particular roles by parents, peers, communities, and institutions. We internalize these scripts, narratives, plots, and roles by incorporating them into our self-narrative and behavioral and conceptual repertoire.

Here is the scroll of every man’s name….

Our repertoire of scripts and roles is large and can be creatively combined–mixed and matched–with improvisatorial daring and skill, creating in the process new scripts and new roles. How others react to such improvisation shapes whether the script or role goes into our permanent repertoire or is abandoned.

Empathy and imagination

Empathy and imagination are crucial to the formation of identity. We learn our scripts and roles by empathizing with mentors and role models—by imagining our way into how he or she thinks, understands, feels. Some we wish to emulate; others serve as negative examples.

Thanks to empathy and imagination, we are able, in the relative safety of our minds, to try out scripts, see ourselves in roles, and imagine the course of different plots. We can imagine different futures, short range and long. We can contemplate likely outcomes of this script or that role or the other plot given the particular context, the other actors present, our abilities and skills. We then attempt to enact our choice, improvising as we go. The hard edges of the world and its institutions may resist and turn our course. Other actors push back with their own scripts, roles, and impelling plots. We are shaped by the intersection of multiple narratives, public and private, social and institutional and personal. Our narrative identity arises out of this interaction.

Identity as a community creation

Identity and understanding are community creations. 2 Consider when we encounter an unexpected situation, we often start with confusion. What really happened? What does it mean? Can that possibly be what happened? To begin answering these and related questions, we converse with others, trying out explanations, receiving feedback, modifying our account, creating in the process of give-and-take an account that makes sense. In the process, we simplify and select, and we discard that which does not “fit” and stress that which does. We reduce the ambiguity of experience to the coherence of story, confusion to understanding. To continue the literary metaphor, we author a meaningful story. Or, more accurately, we and those with whom we converse on the issue co-author a meaningful story.

This co-creative process shapes our own sense of self, the stories we tell to make sense of our own lives. We tell our tale and our listeners help us shape and reshape the tale until it “fits” and makes sense to us and to them. Employing empathy and imagination themselves, they ask questions, proffer their own take on the events, draw parallels with similar events in their experience or the experience of others, debate the pros and cons of different interpretive strategies. Through conversation we come to understand collectively.

Importantly, the communities to which we belong or with which we interact facilitate this conversational process by offering “standard” plot outlines and overarching schemata for making sense of life. Our conversational interlocutors are commonly also our community members. As fellow bearers of community plots and schemata, they become the co-creators, the co-authors of the account that we craft to make sense of our lives.

Going forward

In future posts I intend to tease out some implications for a narrative understanding of vocation. What does it mean to “discern” ones vocation in narrative terms? What happens as one acquires a longer, and longer “backstory” as one moves through life? Are the tools that are useful for discerning the story we hope our life will take up to the task of discerning where we are in mid-life or entering into our “encore adulthood”? 3

I invite others to engage with these and related questions, either in the comments or with posts of their own.

1. See, for example, the essay by Doug Henry in the Scholarly Resources Project book, At This Time and In This Place . 2. See, for example, David Cunningham’s recent blog entry on vocation as “playing catch.” 3. See, for example, essays by Shirley Showalter and Catherine Fobes in the forthcoming Scholarly Resources Project book, Vocation across the Academy .

Joseph M. Gleeson and Paul Bransom, Paul, ilustrations from a collection of Kipling’s ”Just so stories” (c1912);  public domain.

CorkShakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2 Scene 1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P422Qhttww

Petrona Viera (1895-1960) , El cuentito (“The Story”); public domain.

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6 thoughts on “vocation as stories we tell ourselves about ourselves”.

Mark, thanks for this thoughtful post describing the nature of narrative and how welcoming community into the stories we tell about our lives helps us to shape and re-shape our vocations. We continue to follow similar paths. Glad to be on the journey with you.

Here’s another thought from William Stafford that relates to how we both need community and need a sense of self (thread) as we create our narratives:

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Thanks, Shirley!

The poem captures an important insight. The challenge, of course, is to discern the true thread, and to realize that threads may twist and can even break, only to be tied together with another loose end.

Thanks for the insightful post, Mark. I am really interested in this idea. The section on “Identity as a community creation” reminded me of a very powerful quote by Wendell Berry: “A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives.” (1). Looking forward to the next one!

1. Wendell Berry, “The Loss of the Future” in The Long-Legged House, pg. 71.

Thanks, Jeff, for the wonderful Wendell Berry quote.

A lovely piece! My favorite sentence: “Through conversation we come to understand collectively.” Here, Mark has quite elegantly described an essential remembering stone in our calling as communities. David

Thanks, David. This fits well, I think, with the argument that you are developing.

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How to Write an Essay on a Vocation

How to Write a Dissertation Summary

Writing an essay on a certain career or vocation is similar to writing essays on other subjects; the only difference is that the subject of this essay will be on a certain type of career or profession. Formulating a research question or thesis statement is an important part of writing an essay of any kind.

Thesis Statement

Before beginning to draft an essay of any kind, it is important to draft a thesis statement that will guide your paper. For example, if you were writing an essay on the benefits of being a doctor, your thesis could read "Medical doctors enjoy many professional perks, but by far the best things about being a doctor are the lives you save, the people you help and the lessons you learn." This thesis statement will help you to organize your thoughts and research the given vocation and its benefits.

Unless you are working in the field you are writing the essay about, you will have to conduct some research. There are several different sources that talk about various vocations so there is no lack of information. Pay particular attention to the validity of your sources. Try to use primary sources as much as possible, perhaps a current career professional or scholarly article about the vocation. Steering clear of less than stellar references, such as personal opinions in an online forum, will make your essay more credible.

Supporting Details

While your thesis statement is the skeleton that provides structure to your essay, the body paragraphs and supporting details are the flesh and sinew. Using the sources from your research, flesh out your paragraphs with relevant facts and evidence. For example, in the thesis example on doctors, the first body paragraph in your essay might be about the lives a doctor saves because this is the first detail mentioned in the thesis. Citing examples and statistics of how many lives an average doctor saves in the course of his career would be an effective supporting detail.

Conclusions

Just because you’ve clearly addressed each point of your thesis and crafted effective body paragraphs doesn’t mean you’re done. Many students skimp on conclusions and leave readers dissatisfied. Use your conclusion to wrap up any loose ends you created in your essay as well as mention any further issues raised as a result of your research.

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Stacy Alleyne is a certified English teacher with a BA in English and graduate work in English, education, journalism and law. She has written numerous articles and her own dining column for the "Gazette."

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17 questions about church vocations

VISION provides answers to your questions about priests, sisters, brothers, vows, sexuality, community life, and more.

How can I join a religious community? What vows do priests, brothers, and sisters make? Find answers here to these and many other questions you may have about religious life. (Photo: Christianchan)

THERE'S SO MUCH to learn about the rich experience of religious life. Get up to speed on the areas that most concern you as you consider your calling. You may find the answers eye-opening.

1. What do priests, sisters, and brothers do all day?

Just like most adults, we spend a portion of each day working. We call our work ministry because the model and motivation for what we do is Jesus, who asked that we follow his way of service. But we don’t just work. To live in a healthy, balanced way we try to keep a mix of prayer, ministry, and play in our lives so that we can be effective ministers and happy people.

In the area of work or ministry, many priests, brothers, and sisters have one main job, such as teaching, parish ministry, social work, or hospital work—all of which have somewhat regular hours and predictable demands. Our daily schedule can look different from the typical adult’s. Often we have evening meetings, and those of us who are priests or parish ministers usually work on Saturdays and Sundays and take some time off during the week.

The unpredictable demands also lend richness to our lives. These often center around meeting the needs of people, be they children in schools, families preparing to celebrate the sacraments, or the sick, elderly, angry, hurt, hungry, or imprisoned. We try to share our lives with others and reveal Christ in all we do.

Those of us who are members of contemplative communities (communities dedicated to prayer) also fill our days with a combination of work, prayer, and recreation. The difference is that we dedicate much of our time to prayer. Sometimes we will grow our own food and do income-producing work, like baking the hosts used for Mass, making cheese or candy, or designing fine arts and handicrafts. Our prayer usually consists of Mass, silent prayer (called contemplation), reading, and praying the psalm-based Liturgy of the Hours (an ancient practice of praying psalms together at regular hours throughout the day).

2. How important is prayer in your life?

Because we’ve chosen a way of life that says God is most important, prayer is central to our lives. Think of it as a deep level of communication with God, similar to the kind of communication that happens between any two people who love each other. Our relationship with God grows and deepens with prayer.

Since prayer is important, many priests, sisters, and brothers spend about two hours a day praying. Part of that time we pray with others at Mass. We also pray other formal prayers like the Liturgy of the Hours or the Rosary, or spend time with others less formally reading and reflecting on readings from the Bible. Part of the time we also pray alone, perhaps reading or just being quiet with God. One of the positive effects of prayer, whatever shape it takes, is to keep us aware of God’s activity in the people, events, and circumstances of daily life.

3. Is prayer always easy for you?

Not always! Even those of us in contemplative life—whose ministry is prayer—go through dry spells when our prayer time seems dull or uneventful. As we grow in our experience of prayer we learn how to adjust to these changes. We often depend on the support of our communities or the help of a spiritual director (who serves as a guide) to help us keep praying during difficult times. Those of us who are parish priests have our parish communities and our fellow priests to lead us toward prayer even when we’d rather not be bothered. We try to be faithful even when we don’t feel like it.

4. What’s the difference between a diocesan priest and a religious priest?

A diocesan priest ordinarily serves the church within a geographic area called a diocese. He usually serves the people as a parish priest, but he may also be involved in many other forms of ministry like teaching, hospital ministry, campus ministry, or prison ministry.

A religious priest is a member of a religious institute whose ministry goes beyond the geographic limits of any diocese. A religious priest seeks to live a life of poverty, celibacy, and obedience within a community of men. The community shares a common vision and spirituality and often emphasizes a particular type of ministry.

5. What’s the difference between a brother and a priest?

A brother commits himself to Christ by the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. He usually lives in a religious community and works in a ministry that suits his talents and gifts. A brother might be a teacher, electrician, cook, lawyer, technician, parish minister, or artist. He tries to live his faith by being a “brother” to others.

A priest is ordained for a distinctive role as a minister of the sacraments. He celebrates the Eucharist and witnesses marriages, baptizes babies and adults, and brings God’s healing presence to people through the sacraments of Penance and Anointing of the Sick. He is involved in a variety of other works as well—most often parish-related—but sacramental life is his special ministry.

6. What’s the difference between a sister and a nun?

Although people use these terms interchangeably, a sister is a woman who belongs to an apostolic, or active, religious institute that is dedicated to ministry, such as education, justice, healthcare, parish work, advocacy, or social service. By contrast, a nun is a sister who belongs to a contemplative monastery where most of her day is dedicated to prayer for the good of the world. Contemplative nuns are usually cloistered, that is, they rarely leave the monastery property.

7. How are religious communities different from one another?

Each religious institute has a charism—a gift given for the service of the church. Their charism may be to teach, pray, or heal, for example. It helps them accomplish the community’s mission and focus their ministries.

Many communities are like-minded or have similar ministries, but each is distinct in one respect or another. Sometimes it may just be a matter of geography. Many groups of religious men and women were founded for similar purposes and at the same time but in different places.

Religious communities formed to meet specific needs of the times, whether it be to serve the sick during the Plague, educate children in frontier territories, or pray for the conversion of hardened hearts. New communities continue to be formed today in response to God calling men and women to particular forms of spirituality, community, and mission.

8. How long does it take to become a priest?

Generally it takes four years of college, followed by five to six more years of seminary study. A seminary is a college or university run by a Catholic diocese or religious community for educating and preparing men to be diocesan or religious priests, respectively.

9. How can I join a religious community?

The process of joining a religious community actually takes some time and involves several stages. While these vary from community to community in name, length of time, and format, the basic stages include:

Contact: A person of high-school age or older who is interested in religious life but is still searching to answer the question “What does God want of me?” can join a program with a religious community. These programs are usually very flexible. The person may meet monthly with a priest, brother, or sister and share in experiences of prayer and community life. Others may take part in a Come and See program to visit a community and experience its way of life. [For a current listing of discernment opportunities, visit vocationnetwork.org/events.]

Candidate: This period enables the candidate (sometimes called a “postulant”) to observe and participate in religious life from the inside. He or she must indicate interest and have the community agree to accept him or her as a person in the process of joining. The candidate lives within the community while continuing his or her education or work experience. This period enables the candidate to observe and participate in religious life. It also allows the community to see whether the candidate shows promise in living the community’s life. A person may be a candidate for one or two years.

Novice: The novitiate is the next stage of formation. This is a special one- to two-year period that marks a more official entrance into a community. Novices spend time in study and prayer to learn more about themselves, the community, and their relationship with Jesus. At the end of the novitiate, novices prepare for temporary vows.

Vows: Promises of poverty, celibacy, and obedience may be taken for one, two, or three years, depending upon the decision of the individual. These promises are renewable for up to nine years. As soon as three years after making temporary vows, a person can make a promise to live the vows for life.

A man studying for religious priesthood must also undergo seminary training. During this time he studies theology, scripture, church teachings, and the skills he will need to be a priest.

10. What vows do priests, brothers, and sisters make?

Brothers, sisters, and priests in religious communities make three vows, and some congregations make other vows as well. The three most common vows are:

Poverty . We share our goods in common, live a simple life, and realize that we depend on God.

Celibacy . We choose to love and serve God and all God’s people, rather than to love one person exclusively in marriage. We offer our celibacy as a witness and testimony to God’s love.

Obedience . We live in community and try to listen and follow the will of God by taking part in community life, goals, hopes, and work.

Diocesan priests make promises of celibacy and obedience to their bishop. They do not make a vow of poverty, but they do try to live simply so they can be of service to God’s people.

11. Can priests, brothers, and sisters date?

No, they can’t because for Christians dating is connected to marriage, and as celibates we plan not to marry. However, we very much want and need friendships, and we have friends of both sexes.

12. Are you ever attracted to others in a romantic way?

Of course! We still experience normal human needs, feelings, and desires. As celibate people we choose to channel these feelings—our sexual energies—into other healthy directions. We work at remaining faithful to our vow of celibacy through prayer, closeness to Jesus, good friendships, and healthy physical exercise.

13. What if I fall in love?

It does happen. The basic responsibility in such a situation is to preserve the original, existing commitment we’ve made—which is to live as a sister, brother, or priest. We try to develop the relationship within the limits and responsibilities of our commitment to celibacy.

All Christians eventually face pain and difficulty in their lives. It isn’t always easy to be a faithful spouse, a faithful religious, or a single person of integrity. Dealing with such a challenge can make us stronger than ever in our vocation, whatever it might be.

14. Do I have to be a virgin to be a brother, sister, or priest?

Past sexual activity does not in itself prevent someone from becoming a brother, sister, or priest. A person’s past life is not the main concern. If it were, men and women who were once married could not become priests, brothers, or sisters (and they do). The question is whether a person is willing and able to now live and love as a celibate in the service of others. Some of the great saints—Saint Augustine and Saint Francis of Assisi for example—made other choices before turning to religious life.

15. Can I join a religious community if I identify as other than heterosexual?

Of primary concern is your ability to live a celibate life in a healthy, joyful, productive way. Religious communities want incoming members to be mature and what psychologists call “sexually integrated.” Most communities desire that their members accept and embrace their sexual identity and orientation as a foundation for living the vow of chastity.

16. Can I still be a priest, sister, or brother if I have personal debts?

Usually dioceses and religious communities require applicants to resolve any personal debts or liabilities before entering a formation program. Many, however, will make exceptions for student loans and will have specific policies regarding a plan for fair and just payment. If someone has a history of excessive spending and accumulated personal debts, especially credit card-related, the person is usually asked to consider seriously his or her ability to live a life of simplicity inherent to a religious vocation.

17. Why do some sisters, brothers, and priests wear religious clothes while others don’t?

Those of us who wear habits or clerical collars do so for various reasons. One is that religious dress is a sign that may be instantly recognized as a symbol of faith in God and commitment to Christianity. Another frequent rationale is that religious clothing is simple dress and therefore a way to live out the vow of poverty. A sister, brother, or priest who wears religious garb may own a few changes of clothing and be free of the expense of a more contemporary wardrobe.

Some of us wear street clothes and strive to make our lifestyle our main outward sign of faith. Some of us feel religious clothing creates a barrier between ourselves and others. Furthermore, those who have discontinued wearing habits often say the original reason for them was to wear the dress of the common people, and street clothes are now the common people’s dress. 

We welcome all of your questions as you continue your vocation journey. Just ask! 

Related article: VocationNetwork.org, “ 11 myths about religious life .”

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Memorable vocation - Review of Sterling Kodai Valley

• Asia    
• India    
• Tamil Nadu    
• Dindigul District    
• Kodaikanal    
• Kodaikanal Hotels    
• Sterling Kodai Valley

Kodai Resort

JC Residency

Villa Retreat

Hilltop Towers

Poppys Pleasant Stay Kodaikanal

Sterling Kodai Lake

Mango Hill Kodai

Green Pastures - Hill Country Collection

Country Club Valley Vista

Hotel Grand Palace

I’m staying in Kodai valley memorable staying very nice place very friendly staff in housekeeping room was amazing room view is very very nice staff is polite especially housekeeping staff miss Preethi very helpful food was good herbal garden is very spl thank u sterling

Dear Murugan, Namaste! We are delighted to know that you had a memorable vacation at Sterling Kodai Valley. At Sterling, we believe that our guests deserve only the best and Sterling Kodai Valley is no exception. We are glad that you loved our Herbal Garden. Thank you for commending Preethi. She is one of our finest resources. It was a pleasure to host you. Sincerely, The Sterling Holidays Team

Sterling kodai valley first visit in valley... our stayed at privilege room. Nice climate. Staffs are very friendly and polite. Worm welcome at the check in time.. In this covid time this place was very safty and they following very hygienic protocols. Rooms are sanitized. Staffs keran'benisan' Liyanci'ajay'Vijay'... etc.. thanks to all. This people make our stay like home

Dear Shifffaaa, Namaste, We are ecstatic to know that you loved your experience at Sterling Kodai Valley. Thank you so much form making the most out of our resort. We are glad that extensive preventive measures added much joy to your stay. Our staff members will be pleased knowing that they made you feel at home with their humble efforts. We await the chance to host you again in the near future. Sincerely, The Sterling Holidays Team

I visited sterling valley view with my family in September. It was pleasant staying there.we had a warm welcome in reception liancy,keran,preveen. Rooms were neat. Golu was very awesome and also want to mention some staffs who are all very cooperative House keeping also very nice in handling the guest, the people made me to feel better and nice experience.. Thanks to sterling

Dear Selvam, Namaste! It pleases us to know that you had a wonderful time at Sterling Kodai Valley. Sterling Kodai Valley seeks to be the ideal holidaying destinations for families to come together and enjoy themselves to the fullest. Additionally, we are pleased to know that Liancy, Keran, Perveen, and their team mates impressed you with their hospitality. It was a pleasure to host you and your family. Sincerely, The Sterling Holidays Team

Stay was excellent... good hospitality...Staff service was fantastic....Especially Mr.Praveen and Front Office team. Restaurant service and food taste was good....👌👌👌. Room was well maintained and Ambience was good... Room were well cleaned and sanitized.... its was very safe to stay there....They are following the Covid protocols.... Enjoyed the stay...Thank you for a wonderful and peaceful stay.....❤

Dear Dona, Namaste! Thank you for rating your vacation at Sterling Kodai Valley so highly. We are our staff members. Our well-trained staff members are the ambassadors of Sterling’s core beliefs – to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that our guests feel welcomed and are taken care of. We are also delighted to know that our safety measures ensured that you had a safe holiday with us! We hope you choose us as your holiday partner in the near future. Sincerely, The Sterling Holidays Team

The best part of the property is it’s contemporary architecture and interiors. It’s a 25 years old property with rich nature. Sterling group has always kept up to its image for its hospitality. Warm welcome from polite staff and following Covid safety measures . I stayed at this property with my wife and I was here for my honeymoon. All staff at hotel was great. Gave personal attention and surprised us during our stay. We enjoyed food and had a lovely candle light dinner.

Dear Guest, Namaste! Thank you for spending your honeymoon at Sterling Kodai Valley. We are grateful to you for your positive words. They will go a long way in motivating us even more! Our greatest source of inspiration has been valued guests such as you. We are also grateful to you for commending our staff members. They will be pleased knowing that you loved your candle-light dinner. Please visit our website to know more about our expansive range of resorts. Sincerely, The Sterling Holidays Team