Vocational Formation: Unhelpful Beliefs about Vocation

By Chris Armstrong, reprinted from Humanism as a Way of Life.

See previous posts in this series starting here and continuing here.

So far we’ve looked at a few definitional aspects of what the Christian tradition has to tell us about vocation.

Now what about popular understandings of vocation that may or may not align with those Christian understandings?

We’re going to look at some “elements” of vocational thinking I’ve observed in students over the years. What you see on here are eight things students some of us may now believe about vocation, and in each case, a more healthy, Christian view.

First, many of us are used to thinking of vocation almost entirely in terms of secular narratives of career.

But vocation, as we’ve seen, is a Christian concept worked out within a theology of a loving God and an answering human love. At college, career preparation is of course very important, but it’s best done within a framework of vocation thinking.

Second, many of us have understood vocation language as mostly about making a single choice (usually of career, but sometimes also of marital partner or ministry emphasis), from a vast array of possibilities.

This can and often does cause tremendous pressure – in a moment in America when the rising generation is experiencing more and more stress and anxiety. 

But I want to say this to you directly:

You are not without guidance: God has called you and prepared you in many ways for both your current vocations, including your vocation as a student, and for your many future vocations—and God has provided many means of discernment.

However, third, it may be that some of you who already “get” this idea of vocation as a calling from God still feel you can’t choose and prepare for your future roles until you have heard your “one right, pre-determined vocation” straight from God.

You may be frozen by the thought of choosing wrong and missing God’s purpose for your life.

But this view is inconsistent with traditional Christian teachings on vocation. To the contrary, you have been given real freedom and agency in discerning God’s callings and choosing vocational directions in response.

Fourth, you may be swayed by romantic ideas of vocation as a Big Heroic Thing you will do that will change the world.

Or, in another version of this, you may assume that what God is looking for is the Big Sacrifice – like leaving everything behind and going to another continent to start a non-profit. In either case, vocation has become for you some extraordinary kind of action in the world.

Yet a Christian understanding of vocation clearly embraces mostly ordinary kinds of work, which are still highly valued by God. This is why Paul said to the Thessalonians, “Make it your ambition to live a quiet life and work with your hands.” Scripture prescribes the basic work of a good citizen and a good family member through ordinary work.

Fifth, you may be tempted to treat vocation as a singular term – that is, to assume that you will have only one, life-long vocation—or only one at a time.

Martin Luther addressed this with particular clarity: we are called to as many vocations as the relationships we find ourselves in! We are called many vocations not just serially, but also simultaneously. (We’ll return to this theme.)

Sixth, common American narratives about vocation (which we also find, unfortunately, in Christianized forms) focus on “following our passions” and finding fulfilment in the perfect vocation. In other words, vocation language is too often “all about me.”

Though we will certainly need self-awareness if we are to grow into healthy vocational lives, we must move beyond the romantic quest for the perfect vocation to an understanding that our vocations are really God’s assignments to us for the good of others.

Seventh, these same cultural narratives can also lead us to expect that once we have found the right vocational “fit,” every day will be another easy step on the joyous path of fulfilment and success.

We owe it to ourselves to be honest about the ways the Fall makes our vocational lives hard – though God will be with us in the midst of the hardness.

Eighth and finally, our culture may already have some of us thinking of our very identity and worth in narrow terms of vocation or (specifically) career.

We owe it to ourselves, even as we explore vocation, to recall our only true source of identity and worth – our loving creator and redeemer.