Do you have a career or a calling?

Perhaps both?

Does it matter?… Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but if you do have a genuine sense of calling then you will know that it matters a lot.

What do we mean by each?

Career – is usually a word used to describe the long arc of your working life. It is also a source of employment that has clear opportunities for advancement and increased remuneration. More than likely it will be an area you enjoy, are skilled in and have trained or prepared for with education.

Calling – a deep sense of why you are on the earth and what you have been created for. Your calling transcends a career or a job and follows you wherever you go and whatever you do.

They are very different things – and yes – you can have both.

If you have followed this blog for a while then you will likely have heard me express my sense of vocation. It’s right there in the title of the blog – “backyard missionary” – that’s it. Super simple. Those words describe who I am and who I aspire to be. More specifically, I mean that God has called me / created me to be a person who communicates his love and the good news of the Christian story to the people I live amongst.

And ‘backyard’ is distinct from overseas, or cross cultural mission. I had originally thought my calling was to an overseas country, but as time has gone on I have realised my deep love for this country and these people – both the ones in my literal backyard / street and others around the country who I connect with.

As a contrast – but also equally a calling, Danelle has felt an enormous sense of calling in this life is to be a mum – and she ‘mum’s her way through all kinds of spaces very well.

So you may ask, why I am fitting diesel heaters and weighing caravans if my calling is to be a backyard missionary? Simple. I need to pay the bills, (‘If a person doesn’t work then neither should he eat – 2 Thess 3:10) I’m good at this stuff and it allows me to both serve in my work, while also having plenty of free time to be engaged in my local community. I could be a full time pastor- but then I’d be head down—bum up in church world for 95% of my days. 

If you are called to lead churches and pastor people then that’s the perfect place for you to be. But if your calling involves connecting with people who not part of our churches then it makes sense to have a job that allows that to happen as fully as possible. Running my own business means I have the autonomy and flexibility to take on work, or reject it as fits my calling. Right now I am working hard because this is ‘busy season’ for us—and in that my calling is expressed in the workplace by choosing to serve people in such a way that truly cares and looks after them.

Come summer I will be much freer to walk the dog for longer and chat with the other ‘dog-walkers’ I now know. I will have more time to hang at the beach with the boys and maybe join the e-foiling crew. I will also have more time just to stop and chat in general. And it’s in these spaces that my calling gets lived out.

I began life as a phys ed teacher and as a young ambitious man I guessed that was going to be my career and I was going to set the teaching world on fire, (for Jesus of course). Then came the sense of calling to mission and ministry – a distinct sense that God was putting his finger on me for a different purpose. I entered youth ministry with ‘career thinking’ and set my sights on becoming a top notch youth pastor – with the idea that eventually I would become a senior pastor and lead a large church. That is ‘career thinking’ and it doesn’t always mesh well with Christian mission and ministry – even though we sometimes talk about ‘career missionaries’ (people who have spent their lives in one project). 

I feel like I am still coming to grips with the nuances of my calling – even at 62 years old. I know it isn’t to move back into full time permanent church leadership – although I could do some of what those roles require. But it jars with the part of me that needs to live local, be present and connected. There are only so many hours in a day and I have discovered that I am far more alive when I get to spend a significant amount of time in ordinary life, rather than being busy with church life.

So I would think that I haven’t had a ‘career’ as such for many years now. I have hopped from business to business as new ideas have surfaced, but always with the view of the business serving the greater calling. I doubt I will ever pursue a career of any sort any more. Age aside, it just doesn’t inspire me the way it did in my youth.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing though. I would argue that we need people living and operating from their calling first. If the calling leads to a career then woohoo for you – that’s a win. But the calling may take you away from a ‘career driven’ type of life, to a less impressive version of yourself that would still be truly you – in fact maybe more truly you.

So if you’re 17 and just starting out you will be guided to think ‘career’. It’s inevitable. Vocational decisions made in teen years (ironically ‘vocation’ = ‘calling’) are always geared towards a career path. Your task is far more grand that advancing through the ranks of an organisation over a period of years and eventually becoming a CEO or manager. Your job is to discern who you are – who God has made you to be and what things he has called you to do.

So hear me well. A career isn’t bad. I’m not at all against professional development, but the first priority ought to be that of calling. There is no more important question to answer:

Who has God called me to be and what has he called me to do in this world?