Calling

Dori Baker

Scholar-in-Residence

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April 11, 2007

VOCATION AND CULTURE

Recently, a friend shared this story with me. It is the Sunday morning before high school graduation. Eight robed seniors stand in front of the congregation. The pastor introduces the students, giving each one a moment to shine. Before one student, the pastor pauses to tell thecongregation that they should feel particularly proud of Mark as he will graduate fourth in his class."What are you going to do next?" the pastor asks. Mark answers that he's going to attend the nearby state university to major in physicaltherapy. "Physical therapy?" the pastor exclaims. "Why, you could be a doctor!"The pastor's comments made my friend cringe. "If every gifted student insisted on being a doctor, what a sorry lot of nurses, physicaltherapists and x-ray technicians we'd have!" she said. The pastor's comment - intended to compliment Mark on his academic achievement -nevertheless betrayed a deeply engrained assumption: seeking the highest status and the best paying jobs is the unquestioned goal of thewell-lived life.Young women and men in contemporary U.S. society tune in to many voices on their way to discerning who they want to be. Consumer culture - with its persuasive and pervasive influence in media and marketing - does a pretty good job of pitching a "curriculum" of vocation. This curriculum tells young people to aspire toward wealth, status and peak performance. It equates vocation with what we do for a living, not with all that we are - workers, yes, but also parents, friends, volunteers, soccer coaches and Sunday school teachers. It says that we will be graded finally on the narrow balance sheet of money earned and status achieved. Too often this curriculum of vocation holds us - even well-intentioned people like Mark's pastor - captive to the belief that material prosperity and genuine fulfillment go hand-in-hand.Is the church offering convincing alternatives to this curriculum of vocation? Perhaps we need to arouse alternative voices and envision waysof putting them into practice, lest we miss the opportunity to fulfill the promises we make in baptism, confirmation and the other sacredmoments in our common life of faith.For the past two years, my research partner and I have tuned our ears to the ground, listening for stories of fresh vocational journeys unfolding within faith communities. We wondered:

• Are there congregations where the gifts of particular young people are cherished and held by the community - fostered, nurtured andcalled forth by a circle of caring others?
• Do adult members of congregations find themselves walking alongside young people as theirvocational paths emerge - offering guidance from the vantage point of life's sometimes sobering experiences, or simply offering grace whensomeone's hopes fail to materialize?
• Is the church a place to which a young person might turn if she wishes to question the unwritten rules about success that seem encoded into American life?

Seeking answers to these questions, we found people like Holly. At 19, her small Presbyterian church funded her to go on a mission trip to animpoverished village in Mexico. Her compassion was awakened, especially as she witnessed the destructive effects of low environmental standards on the land and its people. The adults on the trip became a trusted circle of friends who helped inform Holly's emerging view of the world. "Now when I travel," she says, "I pay attention to agriculture with an eye toward how we can improve peoples' lives and care for the earth at he same time." Holly's church family was vital in awakening this call, which resulted in a change of majors from equestrian management to conservation biology.We found Lee, 33, a seminary graduate, who expresses a "call to fatherhood." He teaches part-time at a community college, but hisprimary responsibility is to be at home with his two pre-school sons, while his wife, a pediatrician, works. "My going to work full-time wouldnot improve our quality of life," Lee states. "It would only create in us the desire to buy more things. Choosing not to be fully employed bythe church enables me to be available and present in the lives of our children, while still emphasizing spiritual and professional growth."Lee volunteers regularly at his church, but his main connection is to a Sunday school class of other young adults who support one another inimbuing their parenting with spiritual practices.Lee and Holly are not representative of their generations, but neither are they alone. We found an amazing variety of young adults who areworking out their vocational journeys in creative ways - ways that achieve balance between striving and Sabbath, between earning a livingand making a life.Their stories inspire me to envision a different Sunday morning scenario for Mark and his classmates. The eight robed students, poised to mark a major life transition, are invited to stand before the congregation. The worship leader pauses before each young person, offering up a brief litany of thanksgiving for the gifts they bring. Then, congregation members add their individual comments. We hear: "I'm so glad for Mark's way with children." "I give thanks for Mark's smile." "I remember fondly the eulogy Mark gave at his grandfather's funeral." Finally, Mark is asked to name the next stage of his vocational journey, to which the congregation replies with a resounding "Amen!"This imagined ritual symbolizes the faith community's role as a circle of caring watchers - not anxiously tallying outward signs of success but persistently harboring hope for each young person's flourishing. Holly and Lee found themselves in local churches like this. Church was for them a safe and hospitable place to do the authentic work of careful, specific, vocational discernment. In this way, the church can immerse people of all ages in an alternative curriculum of vocation, offering viable options to a lock-step march toward unquestioned standards of success.Based on the life and teachings of Jesus who healed the lame, forgave sinners, fed the hungry, and subverted hierarchies of wealth and status,this curriculum of vocation understands the world as an immense ecology that desperately needs each person to answer her own call. In the company of others, we each find the niche where our talents and gifts can be uniquely offered toward the healing of a broken world.The Rev. Dr. Dori Baker is a United Methodist pastor, seminary professor, and author of "Doing Girlfriend Theology: God-Talk with Young Women." Stories in this article were drawn from research for "Lives to Offer: Accompanying Youth on the Quest for Vocation," co-authored by Dr. Baker and Joyce Ann Mercer. It will be published by Pilgrim Press in fall 2007.