The Value of Thinking and Living Vocationally
Conclusion
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
By Joseph E. Gorra
Perhaps as a result of reading A Reasonable Response you are compelled to ask, “How can I personally grow in learning to study the ‘big questions’ and be prepared to offer compelling answers?” In one sense, it’s easy to interpret a question like that as “what degree do I need?” And, maybe for some that is a question to be seriously considered.1 But the experience of completing a degree will come and go. At best, that may only be “preparation” for some vocation or some role. But what about after the degree; then what? Or, for the rest of us who want to grow but do not want or need to get a degree in order to be educated, how might we proceed? Well, I suppose another recommendation to be made would include reading some great books and obtaining some educational resources on a topic. The introductions at the beginning of the six parts are full of some worthwhile recommendations.
But even here, in-taking knowledge is not enough. To help toward an answer to the above lead question, I commend to you a framework for thinking about these matters, whether pursuing a degree or accomplishing some self-study. I recommend the following:
1. Read and study widely as a spiritual discipline, being ordered unto genuine and fruitful love for God and love for neighbor.
2. Converse routinely with different people as a means for exploring how God is at work through His Spirit in your conversations.
3. Learn deeply from the practice and “on the way.”
A Framework for Growth
For your own personal growth, may I suggest that you take the above three recommendations as consisting of its own unique “curriculum” where you can learn to prosper your understanding. Give it some structure and various means for engagement. We are learners first, then spokespersons. But too many of us just want to be spokespersons. Some are a little too PR-happy. Perhaps we crave people to listen to and follow us and so we become deaf to what we need to hear in order to learn. People who intend to serve long-term in the ministry of answering people’s questions must themselves cultivate skill, temperance, patience, and care for the practice of asking and answering questions. We must dedicate ourselves to being lifelong learners as leaders who seek to serve others.
Practically speaking, to practice (1) may look like learning to read well and understand how to engage authorities on a relevant topic, for example. It may also mean growing as a learner who seeks to be dependent on and expectant of the Spirit of God to work through your mind and heart in order to reveal wisdom and discernment as you read and converse with others. For more on this and so much more, I commend to you J. P. Moreland’s Love Your God with All Your Mind, revised and updated anniversary edition (NavPress, 2012), and James Sire’s Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (InterVarsity, 2000). Here’s the bottom line: study for the sake of being a valuable resource to those whom you serve.
To practice (2) may mean more than just simply being able to do tit-for-tat kinds of Q&A’s with a dialogue partner. It may mean learning to deeply listen to another, including for what is beyond or behind the inquiry itself; that which reveals the abundance of the heart. What do people reveal when they ask their deepest questions? What is their longing like? Learning to listen and discern for that is a great way to grow in this area. I might also add that engaging worldview-oriented fiction or movies, for example, can be helpful for cultivating the imagination, considering such questions like how would I engage a religious pluralist type of character in a story if I were his interlocutor? Here, I commend to you Craig Hazen’s apologetics novel, Five Sacred Crossings (Contend Publishing Group, 2012).2
I also think that we do well to consider taking a sacramental view of our conversations. For a framework on this, I have in mind the helpful work by Jerry Root and Stan Guthrie in their book The Sacrament of Evangelism, where they emphasize “a way of looking at life and the world that is open to God’s presence everywhere.”3 Thus, “to discover God’s work in the world is to engage in a sacramental activity.”4 In short, it is to discern and to acknowledge how the presence and power of the Spirit of Christ is at work in our midst.
The contexts for our conversations with others may vary with different people. For example, it may be in an online context like on some social media platform. Or, it may be in the context of family or with friends at a coffee shop (for some further tips in these areas, see the appendixes). The point being is that we want to consider how to think about conversations in these different contexts and the opportunities and challenges that they may afford.
To practice (3) may mean that we routinely take stock—study, really, in the spiritual discipline sense—of our endeavors in this area in order to learn how we need to continue to grow; where greater dependence on God is needed; how we need to deal with pride, or ignorance, or a critical spirit, etc. Working this out in the context of small, local Christian fellowship is important for our health and long-term growth.
The Value of Thinking and Living Vocationally
To do this ministry well and to endure in it for a very long time, we need to reckon with the scope of our vocations and be prepared to work within their range in light of what we care about. What does that mean? Well, for one thing, it means acknowledging that you are not Bill Craig, nor are you called to live his life. Bill is just fine living his own life. That’s what he is called to do, in the name of Jesus Christ. But now you have your life to live. Your life is not Bill’s life. The exact texture, intent, scope, and experience of Bill’s vocation is not yours. This does not mean that he is not an exemplar for us. But it does mean that you do not need to be pressured into thinking that you need to size up to Bill’s accomplishments and endeavors in order to be fruitful.
What are your vocations? Maybe it is being a parent or a student or a pastor? Maybe your vocations are worked out through your life as a professional? You are likely to swerve into some worthwhile feature of a vocation at work in your life by being in touch with answers to these sorts of questions:
What do I care about?
How do I approach intentionally living my life?
How does God accomplish His mission in His world through His people like me?
Through my network of friends and associations, how might God call me to care for them in this season of my life?
What do I have to offer to those whom I love?
I like to think of vocations as consisting of the scope of our callings in this life in view of the needs of our neighbors and our care for them. Ultimately, all followers of Jesus are called to be His witnesses in the world. That is what we might identify as our primary calling. So that with Paul, we declare that you are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Eph. 2:10). And, as Martin Luther has allegedly said, “God does not need your good works. But your neighbor does.”
Vocation addresses the meaning of our whole-life for the good of others. There is no sacred vs. secular false dichotomy here, where vocation just refers to supposedly sacred (religious or churchy) activities. Jesus did not call His disciples to dedicate their religious lives. He called them to consider the cost of their whole life. In that regard, blooming in our vocation as a disciple of Jesus is integral to fulfilling the purpose of our life. For vocation is attuned to this beautiful fact: How God is calling you to bless others with who you are and with the resources you have for other people’s edification. Theologian Steven Garber has it right when he observes:
The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and globally—all of this and more is seen as vocation, that to which I am called as a human being, living my life before the face of God. It is never the same word as occupation, just as calling is never the same word as career. Sometimes, by grace, the words and the realities they represent do overlap, even significantly; sometimes, in the incompleteness of life in a fallen world, there is not much overlap at all.5
I emphasize the value of vocation for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it is important to recognize that we are not called to be burdened by wearing other people’s callings even if (1) ours overlaps with theirs and (2) we deeply admire the callings of others and aspire to be like them. If anything, we ought to celebrate that we are on the “same team” and that God has called us each to be about our work in whatever capacity that may be. Fruitfulness is not defined by doing what has been fruitful for other people. Fruitfulness is defined by our faithful obedience to what God has called us to fulfill through our lives. That’s what good stewardship requires.
Why is any of this important to the ministry of answering people’s questions? It is important in order to recognize the unique, wonderful, and intelligently designed place and purpose of this ministry in your life. Take stock of your life.
• Who are you?
• What do you have to give away to others? (e.g., maybe smarts, skills, gifting, relational network, encouragement, hospitality, financial resources, seasoned experience, etc.)
• Consider how to bless those who are in relationship with you, whether they are family members, friends, or acquaintances. What do they need from you? Maybe it is only a listening ear, an attitude that is earnest for their good. Whatever it is, learn to give it away.
It is precisely this context—the occasion to bless others through our vocations—where we locate the ministry of answering people’s questions. Otherwise, we risk thinking and living as if this ministry is just some “add-on” to an already busy religious life. What does personal growth look like in this ministry? It involves earnestly integrating this ministry from within our everyday, actual lives. It most likely functions at least at the level of a habit. But even more, it is what ought to characterize the orientation of our way of life before God and others: open to the call of God and the sincere inquiries of our neighbor, earnestly loving and responsive to both.
Amen.
1. If you are interested in pursuing a degree in philosophy, Christian apologetics, or theology, you may wish to consider these mainstream evangelical institutions: Biola University (California), Calvin College and Seminary (Michigan), Denver Seminary (Colorado), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Massachusetts), Houston Baptist University (Texas), Moody Theological Seminary (Chicago and Michigan), Multnomah University and Seminary (Oregon), Talbot School of Theology (California), Trinity Evangelical Seminary (Illinois), Union University (Tennesee), and Wheaton College (Illinois).
2. To date, the serious role of the imagination in apologetics is an underdeveloped area. Thankfully, leaders like Holly Ordway at Houston Baptist University are attempting to forge some renewed direction in this area with her emphasis on “literary apologetics.” See her interview with Brian Auten (of Apologetics315.com), http://bit.ly/LiteraryApologetics. As conceived by Ordway, “literary apologetics” can be seen as an area of “cultural apologetics” where an important goal is to show via literature “the truth of the Christian faith.” This is not a new endeavor per se but an underdeveloped area of contemporary apologetics study and ministry (see also Andrew Davison, ed., Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy, and the Catholic Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012).
3. Jerry Root and Stan Guthrie, The Sacrament of Evangelism (Chicago: Moody, 2011), 15.
4. Ibid., 49.
5. Steven Garber, “Vocation Needs No Justification,” Insight Magazine, September 1, 2010 (http://bit.ly/Garber Vocation).