Session 5. Called for Service and Work
Reading: Chapter Five in The Stories We Live
Resource: Calling Journal and Bible
Opening Prayer
You call us to service,
to be your eyes and ears, hands and voice in this your world. To open our eyes not only to the beauty and love which you create, but the injustice, hate and suffering that mankind generates. To open our ears not only to the chattering of this coming week, but the searching, fears and questioning of all whom we shall meet. To open our hands not only to those we choose our lives to share, but in welcome, love and fellowship to all who you draw near. To open our mouths not only to speak platitudes and simple words, But the truths you lay upon our hearts Your Word for this your world. You call us to service, to be your eyes and ears, hands and voice in this your world. Faith and Worship: http://www.faithandworship.com/prayers_Faith.htm#ixzz5QbR3NjEO Under Creative Commons License: Attribution |
Part 1. Introducing Called for Service and Work
Use visual images to name your experience of work as a calling. Use the attached PDF of visual images for this activity.
How do you see your work as a calling from God? Work can be difficult and a blessing. For some of us work expresses our calling; for others it is simply a way of sustenance—a way to provide food, shelter and well-being for ourselves and our families. Select an image that reflects how you see your work as a calling from God. Once you have selected your image, reflect on the following questions. Record your responses in the Calling Journal.
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Part 2. Reflect: God’s Callings at Work
View the following two video stories that present two stories of how people can experience God’s calling at work.
Sherice’s Story. Sherice doesn’t feel her work is her calling. But she still feels called by God in her workplace. Listen to her song of giving her life away. Ella’s Story. Ella Russell, the creator and owner of E-dub-a-licious Treats, sees each task of her work in the bakery as an opportunity to honor God. As God provides Ella with the resources and opportunities to do good work, Ella returns to God thanksgiving and praise and leads a community of people to delight in what God is doing in her life. Ella compels us to reflect on how our daily lives become an act of worship.
Reflect
After viewing the two vides, reflect on the two questions below. Record your responses in the Calling Journal.
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Part 3. Exploring Called for Service
Vocation is self-giving service for the sake of God’s world. Vocation is deeply personal because it is other-focused. God’s call is to you forlove of neighbor and service forothers. Jesus teaches, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39). The truth about who you are and what you are foris the service you are called to give for others, for God’s world. Jesus gave his life for you, and discipleship entails giving it back. Vocation, then is self-giving service in community for the sake of God’s world.
How do you know what your callings are for? In what ways are you called to serve? For whom is your service to be given? Can you employed work be a form of service? View one or more of the following videos to illustrate how work can be a form of service. Vocation as Service
Entrepreneur and boot-maker Joshua Bingaman encourages us to reflect on how Christian vocation goes beyond service to the self and connects to the deep needs of the community. Joshua’s story of healing and transformation in community is creatively retold through his work as a boot-maker. Joshua challenges us to humbly serve others in all that we do. Vocation as Obligation
Jillian “JJ” Simmons invites us to consider how Jesus’ love obligates us to live differently, reflecting Christ in the world. JJ’s faith in Jesus compels her to go about her work as a radio personality, nonprofit leader and mother with a drive to bring change in the world. Her grateful obligation inspires a renewed courage to follow the call God places in our lives. Vocation as Commission
Sculptor Anthony Suber challenges us to get to the work of telling the story of God’s love in tangible ways, fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission. When we answer God’s call and begin to see the imperfect parts of ourselves and others with new eyes—God’s eyes of love—we are able to tell a different story about those imperfections. With God’s eyes of love, we are commissioned to live differently. |
Part 4. Reflecting on the Call for Service and Work
In calling you for a life of service the common good, God can call you to work and in your work.
The work that you do is inherently good when it aligns with God’s purposes, when your work is a service given for the common good. You may experience a deep resonance between who you are and what you are able to do. You competence and excellence in your work is a sign of God’s work in you. Your gifts and abilities, then, call you to do certain work, but it is also what you do in and on the job that constitutes your vocation. Any kind of work can be a Christian vocation—there is no higher or better job than another—you are called to love God and serve your neighbor. Work has always been a means of sustenance, a way to provide good, shelter, and well-being for ourselves and our families, but work is not an end in itself. It is a means to a greater good, a good that is in service the larger community. (From: The Stories We Live: Finding God's calling All Around Us. Kathleen Cahalan. Eerdmans, 2017.) Spend a few minutes reflecting on you call for service and work using the three questions below. Record your responses in your Calling Journal. When discerning what you can give your life for consider the three questions:
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Closing Prayer
Gracious God,
Bless the work we do, the words we say, the love we share and the grace we show, on our daily walk through this beautiful and precious world. Faith and Worship: http://www.faithandworship.com/prayers_start_of_a_week.htm#ixzz5QbTJikn1 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution |