Isaac was a big man - muscles everywhere, a Maori; a husband; a father; a Christian. Isaac worked on railway maintenance. He said to me: ‘Martien you know that stuff you keep talking about, that ‘calling' stuff, does that work for me down there between the tracks?'

Preaching recently on the subject of ‘vocation' or ‘calling' I took a ‘straw poll' of the congregation. In response to the question: ‘If you know that you are in the place that God has called you to be raise your hand?' three of the 120 people present raised their hands - the Vicar, the full time youth leader, and the associate minister. In response to: ‘If you are hoping to discover what it is that God has called you to please raise your hand?' the rest of the congregation raised their hands. In different denominations and in different groups the response is consistent.

In the feedback forms attached to our Faith at Work courses the strongest expression of interest for further reflection is ‘calling,' followed at some distance by ‘ethics'.

People often use phrases like ‘I would like to know God's will for my life' that identify a hunger for more meaning and purpose in their lives. They know that they have been ‘saved' by Christ's work on the cross. They understand they are being saved and they are growing in their faith. They want to feel useful to God. So why then do so many reveal a ‘calling' gap?

Much of the responsibility lies with our call language. We very easily apply the language of calling to work inside the church and faith related organisations. We speak of calls to the ministry, some churches ‘call' their ministers. The language is not used to describe work outside of ‘spiritually focused' organisations. People do not talk of their calling to Telecom, or their calling to work as the local butcher. At a stretch we sometimes entertain a calling to one of the helping professions - medical, nursing, even teaching.

The absence of the use of ‘call language' to describe activity outside the Christian community compounds at least four problems.

The first is that we reinforce the dualism between spiritual and material. Spiritual ‘called' positions are in the church, church related activities and noble helping professions, Positions outside the church are deemed less spiritual or unattractive if not downright sinful. Deep suspicion quickly surfaces in the Christian community over jobs closely associated with money, creating wealth and business. Certain activities are still seen as tainted and suspect, certainly not worthy of the identity of ‘a calling.‘

The second problem is an implicit denial of mission. The workplace is and remains by far the largest area of contact between the Christian community and the non-Christian world.

While working in Australia as a marketer we used as an operating principle the formula that each individual has (on average) 30 regular relationship connections, most of them work related. Using this formula a simple calculation indicates that an active Christian working community in New Zealand of approximately 150,000 should connect with a possible 4.5 million others. More than enough to connect with every person in New Zealand, even allowing for our tendency to all be part of the same set of 30 people. We are called to take the good news of Jesus into the world. Work is our calling wherever we work.

The third problem is that the lack of call language to describe out of church activity reinforces the suspicion that work is of little relevance to the life of the church despite it absorbing more than 50% of our waking hours. In this post-modern church age relevance has become a very big issue. This suspicion  is systematically reinforced by the lack of reference to work either as a topic in preaching, or even as a sermon illustration or application.  It is reinforced when ‘full time ministry' is described as only occurring when you enter the employ of a Christian organisation and ‘service' is only recognised when provided through structures established by the church. The point is so clearly made in this quote from an acquaintance: "When I started to teach Sunday School for an hour per week they invited me up to the front (of the church) and laid hands on me and prayed for me. The fact that I teach school 35 hours each week in society has never been acknowledged".

The fourth problem we reinforce is that we deny scripture. Beginning in Genesis when God creates humankind his call is placed on us all, without exception and without preference. We are called to a relationship with himself and to each other, called to a relationship with his creation, called to work as stewards of that creation and as partners (junior) in the creation enterprise. We are called to be his regents, his ambassadors, his image bearers to the whole world. It is sin that creates barriers and seeks hierarchies of importance. It is Christ who redeems and restores, Christ who is emphatically declared once and for all as the only priest we need and who calls all believers to be priests, prophet and kings.

Here then lies the excitement and the fulfillment. God has indeed called me. He has called me to follow him. Where that leads me, and how that looks may change. Where I am now, is absolutely part of the picture of God's call on my life. The reformers Luther, Calvin and others made much of working out the calling of God in the station of life in which we find ourselves at conversion. Today in the West we have many more choices and freedoms to give expression to the ‘where' and ‘how' of God's call on our lives than do the poor and the more traditional generational cultures around the world. Indeed we have more choices than did those people Calvin had in mind. For most of us our education, our skills, our resources and our gifting do shape the spheres into which God would have us follow him. From us to whom much is given much is expected.

I worked for a while with a Christian aid agency Opportunity International, as a marketer and fundraiser. I was approached after a particularly passionate address on behalf of the poor by a person who said ‘You must have a real heart and love for the poor to speak with such conviction!'. I thought long about this remembering that when I was school teacher I had genuinely felt called to teenagers, and when I became a church home group leader I felt genuinely called pastorally to adults, and as an industrial chaplain to working people. Working in business I felt the same sense of calling to that business. I was compelled to reply ‘No, I don't think I do have a special love for the poor. What I do have is a calling to follow Jesus and love him, and from time to time he asks me to work in a different office. As I obey him he gives me the heart to go with it'

Os Guinness said: ‘Calling means that our lives are so lived as a summons of Christ that the expression of our personalities and the exercise of our spiritual gifts and natural talents are given direction and power precisely because they are not done for themselves, our families, our businesses or even humankind but for the Lord who will hold us accountable for them!' ¹

As churches we need to capture the vision. Let us now abolish all concepts of ‘laity'. All are equally called to follow Jesus. All are equally called to serve. We are all priests, all prophets, all kings. Let no one deny the body and elevate themselves relative to their brother and sister. We have before us in the workplace the greatest mission field of our generation, the greatest opportunity to reach this society and we are already in place. Let us affirm that calling. Let those employed by church organisations equip the saints for good work. (Ephesians 4:11-12)

Isaac, God has called you to those railway tracks. God has ordained you a steward of the mysteries, steward of his secret things (1 Cor 4:1-2). God has asked you to be salt to right there on the plate (the railway tracks), redeeming even the job itself. He has called you to be light, intentionally shining, so that all might see your good work(s) and praise your father in heaven. (Matt 5:13-18).

Os Guiness cited in The Complete Book of Contemporary Christianity by Banks and Stevens P97

Share this page.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Email this page to a friend.

Add Comment