It’s very gratifying for a writer to hear from a reader who “gets” what the writer was trying to say. So I would like to humbly commend to you Heather Judd’s review of Family Vocation, excerpted and linked after the jump.
Which reminds me that you have through Friday to sign up to win a free copy of that book from GoodReads. Just click on the widget after the jump. (more…)
I’ve been in Texas quite a bit this summer and was introduced to the HEB grocery stores. They aren’t just supermarkets; they are megamarkets–but they are also clean, spacious, well-laid out, and they carry everything you could possibly need.
Now I know where the stores got their name (pronounced “H,” “E,” “B”): They were started by a man named Howard E. Butt. His son, Howard E. Butt, Jr., who took over the company, just died at the age of 89.
He ran the company after his father died, but after awhile he turned the management over to other members of his family and used his wealth for Christian philanthropy, from supporting Billy Graham’s ministry to funding church camps. But his biggest cause was living out the Christian faith in the workplace.
For years, he did a 60-second spot on Christian radio entitled “The High Calling of Our Daily Work.”
The screenwriter for Clint Eastwood’s movie Sully, about the pilot who saved his passengers by landing in the Hudson River, is a devout Christian.
In talking about his faith and his movie, Todd Komarnicki discusses vocation, though he doesn’t use the term. But he gets the concept: God works through people. (more…)
Our efforts to turn Labor Day into a Christian feast commemorating the doctrine of Vocation may be catching on. I am reading and hearing more and more posts and sermons that are making the connection.
Moving from “labor” to “vocation” helps to explain the central question that always comes up about Labor Day. If “labor” is so great, why do we celebrate it by not working?
If you think in terms of vocation, you realize that how we make a living is only one facet of our God-given callings. In addition to the workplace, we also have vocations in the family, in the church, and in the society. Each of our many vocations has its own “labor.” And each has its own “neighbors” whom we are to love and serve.
So celebrating Vocation Day by spending time with our families and friends is perfectly appropriate. What we do in the workplace day after day is, in part, to provide for our families. They and our friends, as well as the general public, are our “neighbors.”
A few months ago, Covenant Seminary Professor Dan Doriani wrote a post at Gospel Coalition entitled The Power—and Danger—in Luther’s Concept of Work. It’s a good piece, and the author has a good understanding of the importance of Luther’s doctrine, including love and service to the neighbor.
But at the end, he moves to what he considers the “Danger” of Luther’s teaching. Briefly, he says that Luther’s understanding of God’s calling sanctifies the status quo. If you are in a lowly “dehumanizing” job, if you think of it as a calling from God, then you would never leave it.
It took Calvin, he says, to perfect Luther’s doctrine of vocation.
Read the entire post. I quote part of it after the jump. Then I try to answer the criticisms. (more…)
I have written three books on vocation. I just realized that this constitutes a trilogy. They aren’t The Lord of the Rings, but they are connected and build into a whole.
(1) God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life. This sets forth the doctrine of vocation.
(2) Family Vocation: Your Christian Callings in Marriage, Parenthood, and Childhood. Written with my daughter Mary Moerbe, this book explores in depth the various vocations within the family, showing too how the teachings about God’s presence in vocation and loving and serving the neighbor can help solve the problems in family life. It also delves into other aspects of vocation that I came to after writing God at Work, including cross-bearing, self-sacrifice, and self-denial in vocation.
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