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...