This is the final post in a series of posts adapted from a white paper prepared for Wheaton College’s Theology of Vocation Project. For the rest of the posts, go here. For three reasons, rest consistent with the Sabbath commandment is integral, and not ancillary, to the discussion of vocation and calling. First, the Sabbath commandment can infuse our work and other…
By Pam Tinsley, reprinted from Living God’s Mission. “How do we teach love?” was the provocative question posed by 16-year old Maria Gonzalez as she addressed the House of Bishops during General Convention. Despite her soft-spoken voice and age, Maria’s wise words are powerful and reflect her passion as an advocate for others. Not only was Maria part of the…
By Joanna Meyer; reprinted from Denver Institute for Faith and Work. DIFW Editor’s note: Through this series of articles, we’ve explored the challenges men and women face as they labor together. In this installment, Joanna invites Christian men to consider the critical role they play in helping women thrive at work. Be sure to read part 1 and part 2 of the series. Men…
By Joanna Meyer. Read Part 1 here. “To be honest, I don’t know any women like me…” It’s a lament I hear often when I ask career-minded Christian women to introduce me to faithful women in their network. This feeling of isolation isn’t limited to professional women — ask any stay-at-home mom how lonely her days can be and you’ll…
By Paul Matsushima “She Is…Biblical Reflections on Vocation” is a workbook designed to help people engage questions of vocation through the stories of various biblical women. Each of these women – Lydia, Esther, the Proverbs 31 Woman, Mary, Abigail, and Ruth – demonstrates a faithfulness to God, as God calls them in particular and encouraging ways. This workbook contains a collection of…
By Joanna Meyer One of the highlights of Denver Institute’s event calendar is our annual business leaders’ event “Business for the Common Good.” This year’s gathering was no exception as entrepreneurs and executives from across the country joined us to consider how God could work through the gifts and influence of His people. Guests packed the Studio Loft at Ellie…
By Wayne Schwab In The Episcopal Church (TEC), we are moving into a heavy emphasis on evangelism. But what is evangelism? Is it calling people to join the church? Or is it calling people to join the mission?? The Episcopal Evangelism Toolkit seems to say evangelism means calling people to join the church. A one-liner on the opening page reads,…
This is an introduction to a new series from Made to Flourish about the importance of integrating faith and work conversations within our youth ministries and homes, including the how and why of talking to our kids about vocation and how it relates to our faith. We’ll be reprinting the next post shortly. For believers, whether 17 or 70 years…
In a diverse neighborhood in Pasadena, California, lattes are changing lives. Rev. Dan Davidson came to Pasadena as pastor of the First Free Methodist Church of Pasadena, CA, but when that church closed its doors, he stuck around. Commissioned and ordained to relaunch the church (now Rose City Church), Pastor Dan is committed to staying in their current neighborhood. .…
Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network
Each session at Karam Forum 2018 was hosted by a leader from our community who framed the session with a 7-8 minute mini-talk. Like our Economic Wisdom Project Talks, these mini-talks are packed with catalytic insight. Check them out below and mark your calendars for Karam Forum 2019, featuring Miroslav Volf, David Miller and Mark Greene!
Vincent Bacote: “Seminaries or Cemeteries? A Mission as Big as Life Itself”
Vincent Bacote told the audience that, being in Los Angeles, they were sitting not far from the most influential seminary in the world: Hollywood. The movies win hearts and minds by showing people an imaginary world on a screen for two hours. Theology may not have big special effects budgets, but it can do something even more impressive than the movies; it can show us the real world. Bacote argued that theological education needs to recover a sense of how big the mission of theology is – a mission as big as the whole world, as big as life itself. Only then will it reverse its reputation as a storehouse of lifeless abstractions and decaying formulas.
Greg Forster: “Discovering Oikonomia: A Christian Life of the Mind”
Introducing Charlie Self, the event’s closing speaker, Greg Forster described how his conversion to the faith as an adult forced him to reevaluate what it meant to live the life of a scholar and educator. In a universe where God cares about building bridges and feeding the hungry as much as he cares about knowledge and insight, how can we have a Christian life of the mind? Forster argued that reason must have a place in the oikonomia theou, God’s plan for all things, because we use reason to discover the oikonomia theou. Everyone in the kingdom of God, in all vocations, has valuable knowledge; nonetheless there is an indispensable role for those who live the life of the mind – as Self put it, raising up poets and prophets for God’s people and world.
P.J. Hill: “Theology and Economics: Getting Past Cognitive Dissonance”
P.J. Hill shared the story of his journey as an economist who slowly discovered that moral and even theological questions were not secondary to his discipline; they were right at the heart of it. From a starting point where he struggled to connect his faith to his economic studies, producing “cognitive dissonance,” Hill eventually concluded that economic understanding had to begin with questions of justice, rights and morally ordered desires. Hill also described some insights the economic discipline provides on market economies that can inform theological evaluation of their functioning, such as the role markets play in coordinating social activity among people who don’t know each other well.
Chris Armstrong: “Flourishing: More than Souls on Sticks”
Gremlins sabotaged the audio feed at Karam Forum 2018, but this memorable mini-talk will be re-recorded and released at a future date – stay tuned!
Chris Armstrong argued that a well-rounded Christian view of human flourishing is essential to the faith in the coming generation. Too often, the church has treated people as if they were “souls on sticks” – addressing their eternal fate, but not their whole lives. Many young people leave the church today not because they think Christianity is false but because they think Christianity is irrelevant to anything they care about; our problem is not so much “intellectual atheism” as “practical atheism.” Bringing in delightful wisdom from C.S. Lewis and pointing to its origin in the earlier ages of the faith that Lewis studied, Armstrong made a case for Lewis’ maxim that “because we love something else more than this world, we love even this world better than those who know no other.”
The Green Room 