Not long ago, when I was being awakened to my calling as a Pastor, I was so excited by this awakening that I sometimes mistakenly saw the same thing in others. Because of this, when I would see similar qualities in a friend or co-worker, I would often interpret it as a sign that they too had been called to pastoral ministry.
I no longer believe that every one of them is so called (although I do still believe that some of them are). My friend Kevin Abell was instrumental in this realization. In his journey of discovery, as far as he can tell, he is called to live as Christ and to write about him while being the best auto mechanic in town. That more people are called to the same than are called to pastoral ministry is likely closer to the truth.
Today I came across this quote (via JT) that expresses the same:
From Dorothy Sayers’s essay, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949):
The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.
. . . Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside of it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meant they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.
The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery or sewage-farming.
We are not all called to work in a vocational capacity within the church, be we are all called to work as the church. We are all called to minister.
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“The Only Christian Work is Good Work Well Done”
Not long ago, when I was being awakened to my calling as a Pastor, I was so excited by this awakening that I sometimes mistakenly saw the same thing in others. Because of this, when I would see similar qualities in a friend or co-worker, I would often interpret it as a sign that they too had been called to pastoral ministry.
I no longer believe that every one of them is so called (although I do still believe that some of them are). My friend Kevin Abell was instrumental in this realization. In his journey of discovery, as far as he can tell, he is called to live as Christ and to write about him while being the best auto mechanic in town. That more people are called to the same than are called to pastoral ministry is likely closer to the truth.
Today I came across this quote (via JT) that expresses the same:
From Dorothy Sayers’s essay, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949):
We are not all called to work in a vocational capacity within the church, be we are all called to work as the church. We are all called to minister.
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