Recently, I was surprised when I visited one of my favorite websites dictionary.com. I had been doing some research for my current book project, “Kingdom Dreaming”. My search was to find a clear definition for the word vocation. Dictionary.com provided me with two definitions, one I expected and the other was totally unexpected. The definitions where 1. An occupation, business or profession (this is what I expected); 2. A divine call to God’s service or the Christian Life (totally unexpected)! Wow, was the first thought that hit me. The concept that came to my mind for the first time was maybe God intended for our jobs to be a major part of his calling for our lives.
I have to admit that like most Christians for quite some time I viewed my secular occupation as being competitive to God’s calling on my life. Even though I tried my best to role-model Christian behavior on my job and to my co-workers, I don’t know if I ever fully embraced it as the context for my personal ministry. I am further guilty of bringing this mindset into my role as a Pastor when I came on board full-time at my church. Far to often I have indirectly communicated to genuine people who wanted to sincerely serve the Lord that if they were really serious they need to be striving to become clergy at the church and getting more involved in things like teaching sunday school classes, serving in the christian education department, helping in youth ministry or maybe even considering living their vocation altogether and becoming a full-time missionary. Now, don’t get me wrong I am fully persuaded that for some this is exactly what God desires. But what if God never planned for most of us to hold a clergy title or work on staff for a church? What if God’s desire and plan is that we would see our jobs as our mission fields?
This is an awesome thought that I believe the church and many pastors need to embrace. It will require a change in our paradigm but I believe it will allow us to reach the world in a greater way than we could ever imagine. The truth is that there is an entire generation of people who are so skeptical about those in clergy positions that they would be far more likely to listen to the gospel if it is presented by a co-worker than a Pastor. A great example of this is found in Luke 5:27-29 when Jesus called Levi the tax-collector. The very first thing that Levi does after his conversion is to go and win other tax-collectors to Christ. He was an effective evangelist to tax-collectors because he was a tax-collector. Wow! What if this is what God has called us to do? What if God has placed you at your job to win your co-workers to him, by your lifestyle, love and public witness of the power of the Holy Spirit in your life? I think it is critical that we reconsider how we view our jobs. I want you to prayer about your attitude towards your work. No longer should we see or vocation as being in competition to our divine call, but rather as an intricate part of it. Here are two questions I would love for you to answer, “What can you do to be a better witness for Christ on your job?” and “What can you do to win your co-workers to Christ?”
