The document discusses the concept of Christian vocation in the 21st century, emphasizing that vocation encompasses loving God and neighbor, with a focus on personal calling beyond traditional ministry roles. It explores how the church can assist individuals in discovering and developing their gifts, and advocates for a communal experience of vocational discernment. Additionally, it poses reflective questions for individuals to evaluate their personal callings and engage actively in their communities.

1. REFORMED & REFORMING
Christian Vocation in the 21st Century

2. MY VOCATIONAL CRISIS…
➤ Aren’t you too old to want to
do that with your life?
➤ Defaulted to ministry,
assuming highest call for the
Christian was to become a
pastor
➤ Lacked an alternative arena to
discern my sense of giftedness
and possibilities to intersect
passions and interests with
gospel witness

3. WHAT’S YOUR CALL STORY?
A question not to be reserved for clergy alone…

4. DEFINING OF TERMS
➤ Vocation: To love God and love
neighbor as we follow Jesus in
this world in anticipation of
the new world yet to come.
➤ Calling: A community's or
individual disciple's unique
incarnation of their Christian
vocation within a given
context.
➤ Career: What we do to earn a
living so to afford a community
or individual disciple's ability
to live into their calling and
Christian vocation.

5. Vocation
Calling
Demonstrations of the
Kingdom of God

6. “
Like 'duty,' 'law,' and 'religion,' the word 'vocation' has a dull ring to it, but in
terms of what it means, it is really not dull at all. Vocare, 'to call,' of course,
and our vocation is our calling. It is the work that we are called to in this
world, the thing that we are summoned to spend our lives doing. We can
speak of ourselves as choosing our vocations, but perhaps it is at least as
accurate to speak of our vocations choosing us, of a call's being given and
lives our hearing it, or not hearing it...And in the end that is the vocation
of all of us, the calling to be Christs. To be Christs in whatever way we
are able to be. To be Christs with whatever gladness we have and in
whatever place, among whatever brother we are called to. That is the
vocation, the destiny to which we were all of us called even before the
foundations of the world.
Frederick Buechner, “The Calling of Voices," Secrets in the Dark, pp. 37, 40.

7. “…the kind of work God usually calls you to is
the kind of work (a) that you need most to do
and (b) that the world most needs to have
done…The place God calls you to is the place
where your deep gladness and the world's
deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, p. 118-119.

8. WHAT’S YOUR CALL STORY?
A question not to be reserved for clergy alone…

9. A primary purpose of the Church is
to help us discover and develop our
gifts and, in the face of our fears, to
hold us accountable for them so that
we can enter into the joy of creating.
The major obligation of the Church
to children is to enjoy them and to
listen to them so that each can grow
according to the design which is
written into the being of each and
emerges only under the care and
warmth of another.
Elizabeth O’Connor
Eighth Day of Creation

11. REFORMED &
REFORMING
a traditioning of
vocational discernment

13. “
Here, therefore, let us stand fast: our life shall best conform to God’s will and
the prescription of the law when it is in every respect most fruitful for our
bretheren. In the entire law we do not read one syllable that lays a rule upon as
regards those things which he may or may not do, for the advantage of his own
flesh. And obviously, since men were born in such a state that they are all too
much inclined to self-love- and, however much they deviate from truth, they still
keep self-love- there was no need of a law that would increase or rather enkindle
this already excessive love. Hence it is very clear that we keep the
commandments not by loving ourselves but by loving God and neighbor; that
he lives the best and holiest life who lives and strives for himself as little as
he can, and that no one lives in a worse or more evil manner than he who lives and
strives for himself alone, and thinks about and seeks only his own advantage.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion VIII. 54

14. “The community of Christ is a building open
on every side, for Christ died for all- even
for the folk outside. …That is Christ in us.
But is Christ in us? Is Christ even in present-
day society? We hesitate to answer and we
know why we hesitate. But whence for we
come by the right to say he is not? Christ
the Saviour is here, else the question would
not have been provoked- the question
which is the hidden meaning of all the
movements of our era and which brings us
together for these days as strangers and yet
as friends…But if Christ is in us, then
society, in spite of its being on the wrong
course, is not forsaken of God.”
Karl Barth
The Word of God & the Word of Man

15. “The historical situation is also part of
the vocation of man and cannot be a
matter of indifference for his divine
calling and his relation to it.”
Karl Barth
Church Dogmatics III.4, p. 618

16. "This is our hope and our need both as
Christians and as members of society.
But do not expect me to provide a
solution! None of us may boast a
solution. There is only one solution, and
that is in God himself. Our task is only
the candid, absolutely thorough, and-
I should like to venture the expression-
priestly agitation of this hope and this
need, by means of which the way to the
solution, which is in God, may be made
clearer to us.”
Karl Barth
The Word of God & the Word of
Man

18. “As the church ministers to people who are
discovering Christian vocation, so it offers
nurture to those who are living out Christian
vocation in public, active life [one’s call].
Book of Order: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part II,
p. 140

19. SACRED &
SENDING
WATERS & TABLE
the sacraments as symbols of
vocation

20. PERPETUA AND FELICITAS: WHERE ARE THE VASES?

21. WE ARE THE VASES
➤ 2 Corinthians 4:7, clay jars
➤ Ephesians 2:10, work of art
➤ Vocational discernment
cultivates creative and beautiful
expressions of the gospel;
➤ Vocational discernment
generates life-giving witnesses
to God’s dreams for the world;
➤ Vocational discernment moves
our vases (calling) from
adorning the sanctuary to being
scattered in our neighborhoods
and communities, near and far.

22. WHERE ARE THE VASES?

23. CALL AS SACRED & LOCAL CRAFT
➤ No two breweries/callings are
exactly the same
➤ Barrels/callings rotate and change;
reformed and reforming?
➤ Value the local flavor and hops
➤ Nurture rather than rush the process
➤ Be playful, risky, and zesty
➤ Listen to what people would
consider good (news) and create it
together
➤ Partner with and celebrate local
neighbors
➤ Restore what is perceived as dead

24. “If the church in our day has a few
prophetic voices to sound above the
noises of the street, perhaps join large
part it is because the pioneering spirit
has become foreign to it. It shows little
willingness to explore new ways.
Where it does it has often been called
an experiment, but whenever that
church is true to its mission it will
be experimenting, pioneering,
blazing new paths, seeking how to
speak the reconciling Word of God to
its own age. It cannot do this if it is
held captive by the structures of
another day or is slave to its own
structures.”
Elizabeth O’Connor
Call to Commitment

25. 10 QUESTIONS FOR BREWING YOUR VOCATIONAL CALL
➤ What place and/or people frequently rise to the surface of your prayers?
➤ What issues and/or causes are stirring within you and agitating your conscience?
➤ What gifts and talents do you possess to engage these issues and/or causes?
➤ What work do you find both life-giving and life-generating?
➤ How can the intersection of your passions and giftedness elevate the cause of those
on the margins and those whose stories are either unheard or untold?
➤ Is there something you can join in or are you being called to create something new?
➤ What relationships have you developed in church and local community to help
explore and live into your call?
➤ What does your faith community say about you and your discerned calling?
➤ What, if anything, are you willing to risk to live into your sense of call?
➤ How will you (financially) sustain your ability to live into your call?

26. "At this point in my life, and at this point in
our world's life, I am asking what is to be my
focus- to what am I to be giving my limited
time and energy? What is the new thing, the
genuine thing, that God wants me to be
learning, doing, being now?
For me the central question is what it means
to be the authentic church of Jesus Christ,
crucified and resurrected. What is its nature?
Its essence? And how can that essence be
structured and expressed so as to become a
healing agent in the world?”
N. Gordon Cosby
Becoming the Authentic Church

27. CALLED TO BE A
PRIESTLY AGITATOR