Vocation: Looking Within and Without

My Values: Biblical Values that Guide My Ministry

Have you ever gone to work and not heard someone complain about their job? My parents weren’t able to help me financially get through college and so I had to work just as soon as I got out of high school. I learned a few things though that I would never know otherwise. I sat in countless break rooms and parking lots listening to what people said about their jobs. "I hate this," and "Let's just get through today," were the most frequent comments along with a painfully sarcastic, "Here goes another day in paradise." Time after time and day after day people saw their job as an unfortunate yet necessary part of living life.

Does it have to be this way? What if our job were not the thing we must do but the thing we want to do? What if our work was not the obstacle to living a fulfilled life but a means to its end? What if our vocation matched our calling? I think it can.

In my own life I have wrestled with what it means to live out my calling to teach God's Word and have struggled through plenty of prayers and questions about what my calling should be. I was hoping that God would give me a clear sign of what he would have me do. I started to think that that was an academic ministry where I would teach college students or seminarians about the Bible. I was beginning to become content with that and so I traveled to study for a semester in Oxford, arguably the most academic environment in the world.

A funny thing happened in Oxford though. In the very place where I was going to confirm my vocation in the academy, God broke my heart for the church. I saw a world which didn’t have enough men to fill ministry positions because it didn’t pay enough or simply because there weren’t enough believers. In a world that I thought was pretty well churched, God quickly let me know that there is a world that needs leaders and ministers of the gospel. With the training and gifting God had given me, I felt compelled to preach and to teach his church.

In many ways, as leaders go so does the church. As a leader you set the moral, theological, and relational precedent for your church. The church is encountering a great age where its people do not know the Scriptures. This means entire generations will be growing up without Scriptures to guide their life and transform them from the inside out. Will we starve without the bread of life?

Additionally, despite what we may feel in the west, the Church is growing. The gospel is taking root in places like China and Africa in greater numbers than ever before. These church's though are often left without godly leadership to direct and nurture them. They are like sheep and the wolves can often creep in without notice. Also, in places like England where the gospel is in decline, it is often like that because there are no dynamic leaders who care about revival and change.

This is why I am compelled to be a minister of the gospel in the local church. I see God calling me to teach and I see a world around me that desperately needs teachers and leaders. God never has wrote it on the wall for me or given me a prophetic sign and frankly I don't expect him too. He has opened my yes though to who I am and who the world needs me to be. Now what about you? Have you, like me, figured your life out and planned what you want to do? Take a look at yourself. Take a look at the world around you. Our vocation is the way we live our call and it may be as simple as looking at what is around you.

Tags: Vocation, job, passion, gospel, church, England, Oxford, Values, leadership