World View and Vocation

Introduction

Everyone is called in life to do something, whether it is to serve God in the church, start a family, obtain a career in the world, or use whatever talents God has given one in some other way. Discerning ones vocation is an important part of growing up and assuming responsibility in ones life. Realizing a vocation, however, depends upon ones ability to obtain direction, guidance, support, and awareness. It involves prayer, study, and reflection. Once discerned, one then has to consider how one should approach ones vocation by incorporating Christian principles into ones guidance. This paper will discuss what I believe my personal vocation to be, what the Christian motives for my vocation are, what Christian guidance offers me, and what my final reflections on the matter are.

Personal Vocation

I believe my personal vocation to be in business marketing. My father is a Baptist preacher, and I have grown up surrounding by the Baptist faith. It has informed my life in so many ways, from giving me a foundation for how to view the world and myself to providing me with a support system for making important decisions in my life. When it came time for me to discern my vocation, I looked at what I believed myself to be good at, what I was drawn to doing, and what it appeared God wanted for me. But Thompson and Miller-Perrin remind us that God calls a person with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace (2 Tim 1:9).[footnoteRef:2] Thus, when I thought of my vocation, I wanted to make sure it would be a way for me to serve God. It is the vocation, after all, that brings divine meaning and purpose to the life of a Christian.[footnoteRef:3] I sensed that my calling was to enter into the business of marketing, and that through this vocation I could serve God and apply the talents He has given me in the way He wants them applied. [2: Don Thompson and Cindy Miller-Perrin, Understanding Vocation: Discerning and Responding to Gods Call. Leaven 11, no. 1 (2003), 11.] [3: Don Thompson and Cindy Miller-Perrin, Understanding Vocation: Discerning and Responding to Gods Call. Leaven 11, no. 1 (2003), 11.]

I arrived at this decision through prayer and reflection. In my early teens I started thinking about how I could serve God and what God wanted me to do with my life. I knew that God gives everyone a special talent that He wants them to use in life.[footnoteRef:4] So I reflected on what I was good at doing and what I enjoyed doing. I realized I liked marketing and was good at finding creative ways to sell an idea to people. I think this came in some way from my dad, who as a preacher is good at selling God to people. I learned the art of communication and...

After praying about it, I believed God wanted me to apply the art of persuasion to business so that I could bring God into the business world and promote Him in the world this way. [4: Dragan Bogunovic. Heavenly Wisdom: Talent, Imagination, Creativity and Wisdom (Author House, 2013), 2.]

Christian Motives for This Vocation

Business is not often a realm associated with Christianity and this is unfortunate. Business is really essential to life. Business allows us to own things, produce things, trade things, and live well. It really can be a creative expression that reflects the creative impulse...

…teams to a PGA players house and share the gospel and life issues with them. As an intern, I assist in the marketing, booking, lodging and management of the tournament for the Fellowship. It is a great opportunity for me to bring the Redemption into the field of marketing and I find it to be very fulfilling. Business and faith do not have to be separated because as this Fellowship shows one can bring two distinct thingssuch as golf and Fellowshiptogether under one roof and redirect the vocation of marketing to Christ. The principles of Christ that apply here are to love ones neighbor as one loves oneself and to love God, and we do both with this Fellowship.

Final Reflections

From this course Ive learned that it is important to apply a Christian framework to ones life and work and to think about how the principles God gave us at creation still apply. We are not meant to live on this Earth for eternity. We are meant to live with Him for eternity. And the way to get to Him is to become brothers in Christ so that we can be sons of God. In my vocation, I see honesty as the guiding principle to apply, and I want to be able to use marketing to promote God as I am doing with my internship currently. This course has confirmed for me that I can do this and succeed in my vocation without fear of fallingso long as I do not bury my talents but use them as God wants me to do. But there is also the important point of reflecting and praying and staying rooted in the divine love, so that I can avoid the traps of focusing solely on worldly success, since that is not why we are here.…