Vocation and Calling

Review: Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World

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Cover image of Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World" by Albert M. Erisman and Randy Pope

Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World, Albert M. Erisman and Randy Pope. Hendrickson Publishers (ISBN: 9781496487155) 2024.

Summary: How twelve people in the Bible seek the world’s good and cooperate with God’s redemptive purposes.

Despite great freedoms to worship and to practice one’s faith in the United States, many Christians adopt a defensive posture as embattled. They join the larger, contentious public discourse, framed in terms of “us versus them.” In Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World, a retired Boeing executive from the Seattle area and a city attorney from southern Mississippi join together to propose a better way. They note five ways many Christians have responded: resignation and assimilation, withdrawal and retrenchment, fear, seeking power, and anger. However, the believe God’s people through history have practiced another and better way through seeking the world’s good and cooperate with God’s redemptive purposes. To underscore this thesis, they consider twelve “case studies” of people in the Bible who do this.

We meet Abraham, who offers his nephew Lot a choice of land, choosing relational peace over self-interest. Later, he acts with financial integrity in the purchase of a burial ground for Sarah. Throughout it all, Abraham trusts God, “for a purpose: to be blessed and to bless”. Or consider Joseph, sold into Egyptian slavery and then wrongly accused and imprisoned. He recognizes the hand of God in his life and how God meant this for the good of Egypt, the nations, and his own family. Then there is the story of Ruth, a foreigner who availed herself through hard work of the economic provision of gleaning that God provided for those on the margins. Boaz, the landowner, complements her efforts by affording her protection and provision beyond the law’s requirements. Consequently, the faithfulness of both provides for the widow Naomi and results in kingly line extending from David to Jesus.

In addition to these, the authors profile nine others: Moses, Joshua, David, Esther, Job, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and Jesus. For example, they observe the courage and respect in which Esther approaches the king, respecting the king’s authority and initiative. They note the qualities of Paul as a bridgebuilder between Jews and Gentiles. Finally, their study of Jesus contrasts his life with the five ways Christians have negatively responded to the culture.

Throughout, Erisman and Pope weave in stories from their own professional lives and of others in the workplace. These illustrate the qualities of the Biblical figures they profile. Illustrating the integrity of Job, they tell the story of Steve Bell, CEO of Bellmont Cabinets. When starting out, he secured a $100,000 contract to build cabinetry for a dentist opening a string of clinics. Subsequently, the dentist was arrested for drug smuggling and money laundering. Bell was advised to file for bankruptcy to protect his assets. Instead, he went to each of his creditors and worked out a plan to repay them with interest what he owed. It took him seven years to pay them all off but today he employs over 300 and works with many of the vendors he formerly owed money.

The authors conclude the book describing how they handled disagreements that arose in the writing of the book. They write of strong disagreements on content at several points and the importance of the trust relationship between them. Thus, they determined not to allow disagreements to derail them from the purpose of the book nor the trust they’d built. And they found their disagreements sharpened their argument and refined the material in the book. An unusual confession from co-authors but illustrative of the thesis of the book.

The book begins with a marvelous Malcolm Guite poem, “A Tale of Two Gardens,” tracing the redemptive arc of God from Eden to the empty tomb. The twelve profiles lend themselves well to an Adult Education program over a quarter. In addition, the workplace illustrations make this ideal for use in a workplace luncheon group. Helpfully and hopefully, Erisman and Pope move the conversation from embattlement to constructive engagement. If you are tired of being trapped in polarized conversations, this book offers another way.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Spiritual Art of Business

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The Spiritual Art of Business, Barry L. Rowan. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023.

Summary: An exploration of how God can work both in us and in our world through our work.

There is a popular perception that business is a soulless or soul-sucking enterprise. We hear of high-pressure business leaders demanding workers live at their place of work. We read stories of driven leaders who promise advancement in exchange for utter devotion, using people up and tossing them aside, without regard to the personal consequences. Must business be this way?

Barry L. Rowan has spent a life in business. He’s both succeeded and failing in turnaround efforts with companies, often within the C-suite, working in the communications and technology industry. His journey of connecting his daily work with the divine began with a personal turnaround story. At the age of 29 on a Colorado mountain, he faced a crisis of meaning. Why was he working so hard? His questioning led him from seeking meaning in his work to larger questions of his purpose in life, the existence of God, and if this was so, was he willing to utterly surrender his life to God? After six months of searching, of evaluating evidence he says, “I chose to believe that God exists, as the lawyers would say, on the preponderance of the evidence and would give up everything I have to follow Jesus” (p.2).

This book is a story not only of how Christ transformed his life but transformed his view of work. Instead of seeking meaning in work, he understood his calling as bringing meaning to work. He goes on to describe a four part cycle to what he calls “the spiritual art of business” and this book of 40 short chapters is organized around those four parts:

  1. Surrender. We begin by surrendering our all to Jesus.
  2. Transformation. Our lives are transformed as we go from living for ourselves to living according to God’s dynamic design.
  3. New Creation. We are realigned with God’s purposes and we then live, work, and relate differently as new creations.
  4. Into the World. God then sends us into the world and transforms the world through us.

The forty chapters that follow in these four part are short, pithy reflections beginning with a scripture text, a key idea, and a couple pages of elaboration with some explanation laced with examples and personal stories, concluded with a few reflection questions. I can see these chapters being read and pondered over morning coffee before heading out the door to work.

There is a lot more to this than an inspiring thought. Rowan makes us think, perhaps going through a process similar to his. One early chapter for example is titled “Our Essence Is Our Emptiness.” For scripture, he quotes Philippians 2:5-7 on how Christ made himself nothing as a servant and Galatians 2:20: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” His key idea is “God empties us of ourselves and fills us with himself.” He explores the idea that only when we are emptied of the idea of filling our lives that we can experience union with God and find our fullness in God. He then describes a sustainable energy business that failed when oil prices tanked and described himself as D-E-A-D to Dreams, Expectations, Ambitions, and Desires. It brought him to a realization that even very good things could not fill him. Gritty stuff. The loss of money to investors and lost jobs Not “trust God and he will make all your dreams come true.”

Rowan’s book was released this fall. Not around Lent. But I think this would make a great set of readings for the forty days of Lent. Rowan re-traces our path to the cross as we surrender all, the transformation of resurrection, the new creations we are becoming as we are aligned with Jesus, and our sending into the world as God uses our work to change both us and the world. I could see this being used by workplace groups, perhaps over a brownbag lunch. The short readings lend themselves to being read onsite with a few questions, material that could be covered in 30-45 minutes.

Toward the end of the book, Rowan writes about the why of business, speaking of value creation, that business is the one place in society that creates economic value that others distribute; that businesses can create environments where employees grow into full expressions of themselves, in the place where the most of their waking hours are invested; that businesses serve customers, contributing to their flourishing; and being valued corporate citizens, enriching their communities. It strikes me that all of this is a manifestation of the goodness and providence of God in the world. Rowan shows the way we become God’s instruments for the good work he would do in the world.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Your Calling Here and Now

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Your Calling Here and Now, Gordon T. Smith. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: Looks at calling in our present moment and place, and how we live into our calling in all the turnings and changes of life.

Often the idea of calling or vocation seems to be presented in a grand scheme, lifelong way. And we often struggle to connect that to our present moment. Gordon T. Smith addresses this dilemma with a thought-provoking question:

“We ask, at this time and at this place, who and what are we called to be and do?”

None of us can map out our whole lives. But what is required of us in this day, both in terms of what qualities of character and what actions in our given situation may be clearer, and to live faithfully in light of this takes us into the bigger picture of God’s intentions. Smith proposes that to answer this question daily requires of us focus amid distraction, courage to act, connection with others who discern with us, and patience amid hurry to allow clarity to unfold. Furthermore, we become free to be and to act as we know ourselves to be the beloved of God and calling as the stewardship of the life lovingly given us.

Smith then helps us think about calling in three concentric circles of callings within our calling. The inner circle consists of the “must do’s,” in a sense, what we must do this day to “pay the rent.” The second circle constitutes the things that must happen now or they won’t happen–we only get to spend time with our thirteen year old son or daughter now. If we don’t, we won’t. The third circle, then is made up of those good things we want to pursue as there is time. Smith then discusses how we live in the tension of these callings and six questions to ask ourselves. Sometimes the tensions in our callings lead us into transitions. Sometimes these are transitions of saying yes to a calling we only grasped in an inchoate way earlier in life, or perhaps did not have the courage and support to pursue. Smith describes the challenge in these situations of shifting from the expert to the beginner, becoming a learner all over again.

The next two chapters focus on tending to the life of the mind and the work of our hands. Smith argues for the importance of both. He warns of the danger of an unprincipled pragmatism and sentimentalism and upholds a vision of critical, confident, creative and compassionate thought. He offers advice on our reading, commending reading old as well as new, reading diversely, reading the material of thought leaders in our field, and reading poetry! He remarks that “effective pastors need to be judged in part by the quality of their libraries.” Yet there is no divide of head and hands for Smith. He thinks in some form, we should all learn to work with our hands, at very least in the maintenance of our homes. He notes that the wise woman of Proverbs 31 is adept with her hands. This leads us to recognize the nobility of all work and manual work often is an opportunity for prayer.

In some way or another, all of us will relate to institutions, to organizations as we pursue our callings. This chapter distills some of the best ideas from an earlier work of Smith’s, Institutional Intelligence. We will never be nearly as effective in our callings if we don’t learn how to work wisely and well within organizations. We also need to understand practices of engagement as well as contemplation. Prayer and work are essential to each other. Smith considers four practices of engagement: hospitality, acts of mercy, financial giving, and intercessory prayer. These are practices by which we know the grace of God in the world and align ourselves with the purposes of God in the world.

The work concludes with a look at resilient hope. A called life is one of resilient hope. It exists against a “backdrop of realism” but refuses “to accept this reality as the status quo.” The hopeful live meekly, refusing to carry resentments. Hope doesn’t give way to cynicism when discouraged but finds in the company of others genuine encouragement. Hope values art and creativity, discovering beauty and transformation in brokenness. And finally, Smith comes back to patience that allows us to be present to God and others in the moment. The final note Smith sounds in the book is a call to both personal responsibilities for our lives and accountability to others. We ask here and now about what we are to be and do. And we recognize that we are inextricably connected with others who discern with us and sustain our hope.

What is distinctive about this work is not merely how we might discern vocation, but how we live in our calling over the course of a lifetime. This book begins where most end and is filled with wisdom for the journey. Smith surprises us throughout, never over-spiritualizing but insisting that calling includes paying the rent, values the work of human hands, and knows how to work in organizations. I can’t think of another book that does this. We often want a roadmap for our lives, our route marked out with a highlighter. Smith gives us something far different, a guide for living wisely and well in the present, discerning what we ought be and do to steward the gifts that the God who loves us has bestowed.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

You Lost Me, The Conversation: Reconnections

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It has been a great learning experience for me to engage in this dialogue with my son about David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me–both online and offline. This will likely be our last set of posts on the book, but who knows, we may find something else like this in the future! I will also be posting a review of the whole book in the next few days which will include links to all our posts.

You Lost Me

In the third part of Kinnaman’s book dealing with “Reconnections” Kinnaman summarizes his recommendations to the church in these words:

     Now that we have met the nomads, prodigals, and exiles and explored their perceptions of the church and Christianity, allow me to share three things I have learned from studying the next generation: (1) the church needs to reconsider how we make disciples; (2) we need to rediscover Christian calling and vocation; and (3) we need to reprioritize wisdom over information as we seek to know God.

Reading this again, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Ben and I were talking last night and I shared that I hoped Kinnaman wasn’t just going to give us six easy counters to the disconnects he observed. I said my own sense was that the church needs to go back to our gospel, back to our roots, rather than a new set of slick techniques. That would only confirm this generation in its opinion of the church as inauthentic.

I’m especially encouraged that the kinds of relationships Kinnaman envisions are intergenerational relationships. For too long, the church has age segregated itself (as well as in other ways). In my own life I experienced the power of this in a relationship with a disc jockey who served as a leader in our local Jesus Movement in the early 70s. Much of this took place in the front seat of his VW Beetle on the way to rallies. The combination of wisdom and affirmation was critical.  Equally I find myself enriched as I work with younger colleagues and graduate students whose doubts, questions and insights challenge me to dig deeper. I constantly learn from my son, who questions my frameworks and teaches me everything from computers, blogging and contemporary sci-fi to remembering how much “in process” I was in my twenties–and still am.

What so engaged me as a young Christian was a faith that spoke to life Monday through Saturday. So I resonate with the focus on vocation and calling. I honestly wonder why many of us then settled for a privatized faith lived only in our personal devotional lives and church gatherings but not out in the world. Perhaps it was because we focused on big scale evangelistic endeavors and political crusades and church growth schemes, but failed to talk in pulpits and small groups, and informal relationships about living out our call in the circumstances each of us lived in every day, with the people we met each day and the real needs both in our own communities and in communities we had connections with in other parts of the world. Whatever it is, I hope this generation can do better at living out called lives in the places we live and work.

Kinnaman talks about prioritizing wisdom over information. We definitely are information rich! As I write this blog, the WordPress site suggests all sorts of content (including some of my own blogs!) that connect to what I’m writing.  I’d like to think my son and others could look to my generation for wisdom and yet our track record suggests otherwise. We created so much of the information technology being used today but did it make us wiser? I think of the kind of information the “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street had in 2008 and yet it failed to protect them from hubris and the imprudent and arrogant decisions that brought us into what many are calling the Great Recession.

As I think of wisdom I think of the foundational statement in Proverbs that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” When I was younger, I was put off by that phrase “fear of the Lord”. As I’ve gotten a bit older, I’ve begun to think that some fears are healthy and to realize that all of my life is lived coram deo–that is, before God. That makes you think twice about certain actions! The flip side of that realization is that a life well-lived is one that seeks the pleasure of God, that values this above all else. There is also a wonderful freedom when we so believe and live that we know we have nothing to fear of God, and because of this need not fear anything or anyone else.

Kinnaman is right. Terrabytes of information can never give us that kind of life. Information cannot answer the question of how to live well. There just might yet be a place for the church, not in losing people, but in helping them find their way to that kind of life. What do you think, Ben?