Business as a calling: Part 1 Are we asking the wrong question?

I recently had to write a paper on business as a calling. I was a little surprised at how passionately I felt about the subject seeing as it is 18 months since I left Procter & Gamble. The question that the paper posed was whether the business world is an appropriate environment for a Christian to be called into.

While reading for the essay I was struck by how many books there are on Christians and the workplace that focus on the question "What is my calling?". But is that the right question? I don't believe that it is, and actually it reveals a deep rooted misconception about the nature of calling. When we become a Christian we are called. At that precise moment our calling for our entire life is clarified, we are to be a follower of Christ, a disciple. By disciple I mean as defined in Matt 28, someone who lives in obedience to all that Christ has commanded. This is fully orbed discipleship that is not just focused on evangelism, but on living a life that is pleasing to God in every aspect, including how we work.

So being a suitably argumentative soul I redefined the question for the essay. The question is not what is my calling, but where is my calling to be exercised? In other words our calling is clear, it is the context that needs to be clarified. All this might sound like hairsplitting over semantics but it is much more significant than that. It may not be a conscious decision, but at some level asking the wrong question drives us to make a false distinction between our spiritual life and our work life. It makes it possible for our workplace to be a context where we do not feel "called" where in reality it is. Oddly enough that is the very thing that many of these books are trying to argue against.

Starting with the right question is important, but what about the answer? As I worked through the essay I came to the conclusion that the business world is an excellent context to pursue the call to discipleship in. I'll try and chop up my essay into some bite sized chunks over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully some of you will find it useful...

Back to school

Well it's 8am and Labor Day (which, ironically means that no-one is working!) anyhoo...Phil and I are back into the Fall semester as of Wednesday gone, Eve is now fully immersed in her new pre-school in the mornings, and Sam goes back to school on Thursday! Yes, for the more astute, you'll realize that this week will be a touch tricky, but have no fear...Sam will be taking Exegesis in the Epistles with Professor Clint Arnold to pass the time of day, nothing like a bit of Greek to prep you for 3rd grade :o)

I took our lovely 2 out for an orange juice yesterday and asked them what the best bit of the summer has been. We walked through all the visitors, family and friends, then all the day trips and holiday clubs, oddities and Olympics, but out of eleven weeks of school drought and summer fun we have a final winner...(drum roll please!) And the winner is, a tie between;

• Taking Aunty Heather and Uncle Adrian to Chuck-E-Cheese, and
  
• our road trip to Pismo Beach, all on our very own.

Even talking about those two events made them giggle insanely, it was so sweet. So, now that we have some closure on the happy memories (though they won't be forgotten soon), we're moving on again to investing ourselves in; our studies, wholehearted community at seminary, at church and within our college LIFEgroups. September looks busy, very busy, but also very exciting. It starts today with an open house for all Talbot students; grill on, drinks chilling, picnic blankets out on the lawn and a big old smiles on our faces...roll on Autumn.

Sam's school autobiography project :o)

Sam wrote the following summary of his life so far for his school project, which he presented to the class (along with everyone else) and got great feedback. Well done Sam!

All about ME! Hi my name is Sam Jensen. I am nearly 8 years old. I was born in Newcastle, England, on July 15th 2000 at 4.20pm. My favorite color is yellow, a very bright yellow. My favorite food is ham and pineapple pizza, it’s so tasty I can’t describe it. My favorite TV shows are Ben10 and SpongeBob. The very best holiday was when I went to France in a tent with some of my family and friends, with a swimming pool close to us. It rained on the tent at night and I really liked it because the sound made me drift off to sleep. I am scared of the dark but my red alien light makes me think about other things. What I really like about my family is that we have great times and we usually have fun together. My mum and dad are the best chefs in the world. We have a swing in our back yard and I like sitting on it, eating ice cream. My friends names are Drayke, Michael, Matthew, Madison, Carina, Jacob, James, Charlie and a whole other bunch here, and some others in England. I have a sister named Eve, she is a very playful child. We both like doing gymnastics, it is a lot of fun. My mum has a little garden in the back that we get food from. My favorite comic is the Beano, so I have a Beano room - I like it so much! My Beano arrives every 3 weeks on Thursdays. I am having a lot of fun here in America, I miss my friends too though, but the flight here was worth it. It is very different from England, but I really like it.
When I grow up… When I grow up I would like to be a swimming teacher or a karate teacher. I really like fighting (pretend) which is why I like karate. I like swimming because it is fun to do and after my lessons I get to jump of the board and splash around. When I grow up I would like to live in England because they have cool parks as well as great playgrounds. There are also things I would like to learn, like how to water-ski and how to ride a jet-ski. When I grow up I would like to be the kind of person that helps people, people in need.

A Freight train a car and some teeny tiny bits of metal!

OK, the freight train thing happened a couple of months back, but for those who didn't hear the story...this is it.

So we're coming home late from church up Valley View, there's a RR crossing parallel to Stage Road. Looks like some guy had taken the turn early and basically gone off the road and onto the rails. The car engine is smoking, and he's jumping up and down and throwing stones at it. I think it would be fair to say he is rather agitated that his car is stuck and immovable on the tracks. By the time we turn the car round to help out, someone else has stopped and is phoning 911. (I really thought the police would get there and move the thing before anything happened. I forgot how many trains there are!)

So 2 minutes later, 'ding ding ding ding', the lights turn red, the barriers are lowered and we know, a train is coming. So Phil is standing by the track waving his mobile phone like a mad thing. It's the only light source we have! The train is sounding its horn and I'm yelling 'get away from the track!', he runs the 10 metres to the car and this huge, monster of a double decker freight train, with probably over 80 flat-bed carts laden with shipping containers, comes charging through!

The light at the front of the train lights up the black car on the tracks, the horn is deafening, the brakes are screeching and there's nothing that can be done. This awful sense of inevitibility and unreality. Then there's this 'SmAcK', and sparks are flying, the train loses not even a teeny bit of momentum, but the car just gets crumpled like a bit of paper underneath the front engine, and dragged, spitting yellow sparks, out of sight. Slowly, slowly the freight that's passing slows down and finally stops dead.

Adrenaline is not in short supply! The car owner is so full of it, that the swearing won't suffice, and so he literally starts to run down the road yelling like a madman -like that will make it better. This is when the police turn up. First four cars, then two more, lights flashing, cops everywhere. The owner on the ground, spreadeagled, then cuffed - they're not taking any chances with a man that angry. And we sit in our car, hemmed in by police cars, flashing lights, broken glass and weeny bits of metal.

We are at pains to reassure the children that it was just a car that got squished and everyone is alright, and Sam says 'That was freaky!' and Eve says 'Well!...I am really disappointed!' I ask why and she says 'That angry man will need to get a new car.'

Anniversaries and After Dinner Speeches

Recently I (Cj) was asked to speak at the end of term Talbot dinner, it's been almost a year now since we first visited to figure out this whole
America thing...I thought that it might be fun to share it for those who didn't catch the live version! Enjoy :o)

The journey
Long before sunrise, 276 days ago, we bundled our sleepy children into a taxi, waved goodbye to our city, our families, our friends and everything we knew. We arrived at the British Airways desk and checked in 12 bags with our hopes, expectations and our future. Then sat down and waited for boarding. Like so many of you sitting here tonight, we were well past the point of no return. But we knew that God was good. We had no home to run back to, no job, our children had been taken out of their schools and clubs, our ministry responsibilities were being carried out by someone else. It was terrifying, exhilarating all at once. But we knew that God was good. What I expected was that after 14 hours of flying I would land safely in a different country and begin a new chapter of life that would be challenging but at some level quite familiar, after all, it was God that had clearly lead us here, I was with my family, and knew the language. But… during the flight, we somehow got diverted, everyone who has ever moved here will know this, because when we landed at what looked like LAX we discovered that we had ended up, not just on another continent, but on a completely different planet!

The reality
In the last two semesters my adjustment to living in Southern California has come in layers, at first my overarching priority was simply to bless the people of California by driving on the appropriate side of the road! Next came trying to understand the language, and working on being understood. There were words I had to substitute, sometimes entire phrases. Jelly was not jelly anymore, but jello, and jam was not jam, but jelly. I’ve learnt that when folks talked about the need for the baby to be pacified they did not mean that they were about to use a Tazer on it. That was really reassuring! The academic vocabulary was just as mind boggling, University was now school, Lecturer’s were Professors, Professors were Chairs, essays were papers, terms were semesters, marks were grades and so much more! WebReg with its funny little acronyms and numbers and all the unwritten rules - though now second nature - were a horrible nightmare for a non-American, non-Biolan, non-Talbot first-timer.

Oh, and then I got to class, my first class, my very first class, after never having taken theology, being out of education for 12 years and having 5 years at home squidging play dough and smearing paint, was Theo 3 with Dr Robert Saucy. Oh yes! Let me just say that, I thank the Lord for dictionary.com, because while everyone around me was grappling intelligently with the theological implications of the hypostatic union, I was online just trying to figure out how to spell it!

Community
I knew I’d miss stuff, like friends and family, but I had no idea I would miss things like a great British curry, or the simple need for touch or a hug. What was odd was the dislocation of identity, I was simply another face, no history, no connection in anyway to any other person. Those first few months were uncomfortable, I had to confront what I valued, was I actually able to bear real spiritual fruit without the trappings of ministry to shore up my worth? I also had to face the ugliness of my European prejudice against Americans. I like you all a whole lot better now! What made a difference? Three significant things; Prayer on the Patio, Talbot Wives, and those wonderfully friendly people who were willing to say hi and connect when they arrived for class. This large amorphous organization that is Talbot, became a handful of familiar faces, real relationships, people at prayer.

Blessing God
I understand that Orthodox Jews have a particular saying to bless God when entering or leaving a house of study, so when I walk through the door of Meyers … I can bless God for the real unadulterated joy of this gift of time to study him. I can bless him for the stripping down, restoration, intense challenges - and thanks lately to Hermeneutics – I can bless him for the discovery of the depth of my own ignorance. I can bless him for the growing friendships, authenticity, faith, the godly wisdom and evidential faith of the staff as they pour out their knowledge and experience. I can bless him even for the tears, the silence, unexpected deliverance and simply his grace in providing in every need for our little family, so that we can be where he wants us to be. And finally, like so many of you of you, I can bless him that this year he has walked us a few more steps to the next point of no return. And I know that he is good.