putting faith to work
Many of us will experience that back-to-school feeling this week, however old we are. Hazy, lazy summer days are fast receding into distant memory. The dew carpets our lawns when we wake up; the nights are drawing in.
Some of us will plunge eagerly into the routine and rigours of the ‘autumn term’ and working life; others will, no doubt, resent swapping their swimming trunks for a shirt and tie. The juxtaposition of holidays with family or friends and a return to an inbox bursting with stressful e-mails is enough to induce a sharp bout of melancholy in even the strongest heart.
Hopefully, however, the summer will have given us all – whether we’re paid for what we do day-to-day or not – a chance to reflect on who we are, why we’re here and where we’re going.
At the Greenbelt Arts Festival last weekend, Jim Wallis spoke eloquently, in response to a question, about where our ‘work’ can lead us on the path of life and faith. He issued a challenge for Christians to switch from focusing exclusively on ‘career ascent’ to finding a vocation instead.
We pursue our vocation, he explained, first by identifying our gifts – which are often those things we spend endless hours daydreaming about, talking about, obsessing over, perfecting…
Once we identify our gifts, he continued, we must find out how they can help to meet the ‘crushing needs of our changing world’. Where is the overlap? At which point can you enter the fray to make a distinct difference to the world around you, as only you can do?
He suggested that it’s up to us to help and encourage each other to discover our vocations – especially young people, who are making big decisions about the path ahead. Our faith communities should create the space in which we can help others truly to flourish: in which we can unleash talents and strengths in order to help the kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.
That’s not to say that those who have made it up the greasy pole are in the wrong place, or that those who are just setting out should seek jobs in the church instead of ‘the world’. Far from it.
But it is to ask, as we journey onwards, which god we really serve, and how we can best put our passion, our gifts and our faith to work.
Brian Draper
The above article is reproduced by kind permission of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. To receive their free bi-weekly emails, please email mail@licc.org.uk with the subject ‘Subscribe’.
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