Detangling vocation from occupation

Tim Otto’s video Thoughts on Christian Vocation calls into question the church’s understanding of vocation in the same way Gary Friesen’s Decision Making and the will of God did in the 1980s. I suspect Otto’s points, also preceded by Quentin Schultze’s Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing? will fall on deaf ears as the earlier attempts appear to have done. All these works require a paradigm shift.

Concern about vocation is evidence in that people desire to find meaning and significance in their labor. People are seeking their “calling”. Yet, in scripture we are “called” to follow Christ, to find our meaning and significance and hope primarily in Christ; not in our labor. Faithfully following Christ is every Christian’s vocation which is worked out through one’s occupation or in Schultze’s station in life.

This understanding of vocation opens up opportunities. Living our shared vocation together involves a shared commitment to foster faithful Christ following by the entire community. It is the community’s responsibility to assist a person in identifying and validating each person’s gifts. It provides a context for wrestling with questions about which occupations would allow one to faithfully utilize their gifts; to faithfully labor in light of who they are in Christ.

This approach anchors our understanding of vocation in the gospel; our calling is to faithful Christ following. Our shared vocation is then worked out in and through various occupations where one’s gifts and talents are seen as gifts to one’s employer.

Otto, Friesen and Schultze’s understanding of vocation lodge meaning, significance and purpose in the gospel rather than what we do. The paradigm shift proposed is both freeing and weighty; it places greater responsibility on the community of faith to live out a shared vocation and to assist each other in identifying appropriate occupation