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Student ID: 92185

Dr. Chase

Senior Seminar

2 December 2020

Essay #1

Discussions surrounding the topic of vocation often center around a specific job or career,

such as “the vocation of being a teacher.” However, I have never considered my vocation to be

synonymous with my future career or occupation. My vocation is the way in which I am called to

live, the habits and practices I seek to cultivate. As a Christian, I have a general call to live a life

that is meaningful, purposeful, good, and right. This call, according to theologian William

Placher, is simply to live as Christians in the world. He says, “to live as a Christian pushes

upstream against the dominant values around us” (Placher 9). This call is not an appeal to

moderation or complacency, but an entreaty to live out the Christian faith boldly. The apostle

Paul says that we are to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to

maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (English Standard Version, Eph. 4.1-3). Paul

describes specific characterizations of a Christian life. As a Christian, I am called to live out my

convictions faithfully in the world.

Theologian N. T. Wright puts it another way. As Christians, our vocation is to live in

light of God’s coming kingdom. He says, “Christian living in the present consists of anticipating

this ultimate reality through the Spirit-led, habit-forming, truly human practice of faith, hope,

and love sustaining Christians in their calling to worship God and reflect His glory into the

world” (Wright 67). We must live with the future in view. The book of Revelation tells of this
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coming kingdom: the Lord “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no

more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have

passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’”

(Rev. 21.1, 4-5). God’s future kingdom is one of perfect justice and peace. We must behave

habitually in anticipation of the coming kingdom, a kingdom with no more chaos, confusion, or

pain.

More specifically, my personal vocational calling is to live hospitably and engage in the

community around me. This calling is something that all Christians are called to, but I feel a

particular burden for. Placher tells how we enter into freedom when we discern our personal

vocation. He says, “we find the match between our joy and the world’s needs, the place God

wants us to be, it does feel more like liberation than imprisonment” (Placher 10). Faithfully

living out your vocation is a life of freedom. For me, this looks like engaging in my community

hospitably. Priest and theologian Henri Nouwen claims that our Christian vocation is “to convert

the hostis [enemy] into hospes [host], the enemy into a guest and to create a free and fearless

space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced” (Nouwen 66).

The work of hospitality is to create spaces of freedom, where typical boundaries are eliminated.

It is a space of mutuality and growth. My vocation is to live in diverse spaces of hospitality,

where there is an interchange of guest and host, and each person has the freedom and space to

grow, learn, and develop.

I discerned this vocational calling most tangibly during my undergraduate years through

my experience as “Community Development Intern” with Outreach Community Ministries. I had

the opportunity to work at the Villagebrook Apartment complex in Carol Stream, where I was

able to do life with the residents of Villagebrook, largely composed of low-income, ethnically
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diverse families. Through this experience, I was taught that hospitality necessitates both giving

and receiving, and that this interchange creates a space where each person can learn and grow. I

learned that intentionally engaging in your community with proximity is important. Learning

how to engage in my diverse local community with hospitality led to an incredible sense of

freedom.

Vocation does not mean occupation. For me, vocational calling is the way in which I live

in light of my identity in Christ. This call means cultivating habits and practices that speak to the

hope and renewal of God’s coming kingdom. These habits and practices are often contrary to

modern societal values. More specifically, this call means a continuous posture of learning how

to engage in diverse communities with hospitality. Living out my vocation faithfully results in

freedom. This freedom is liberation from the burden to perform in a certain way or hold a certain

job. Vocation is the freedom to grow into the person that God is creating me to be.
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Works Cited

Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Crossway, 2001.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. Image Books,

1986.

Placher, William C. Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation. Grand

Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005. Print.

Wright, N. T. After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. 1st ed. New York:

HarperOne, 2010. Print.