Leading Faithfully in Your Vocational Calling
- Rev. Dr. Chris Holder
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Thanks in a large part to the effort of Jack Kalleberg, the ULC has been at the forefront of bringing attention to the important role of Executive Director in churches, along with faith-based non-profits, schools, and businesses. Concordia University, Texas, is developing an MBA designed for business-minded leaders with a calling or vocation to combine their faith and business knowledge to make a positive impact on the world.
What is my primary calling?
This, along with What is my purpose?, are questions that people have been asking for a long time. Yet, we live in a time when questions like this are becoming more difficult to answer. How does one discern their calling and live faithfully? Another word for calling is vocation, which is a word often used simply for one’s job or career. Vocation actually has a deeper and richer meaning that includes one’s giftedness, sense of purpose, and how all of this can be used in service to others. With that in mind, our vocation has multiple expressions, or in other words, we all have a variety of vocations that make up who we are.
Our relationships are part of our vocation, as is our profession, our hobbies, and most importantly our faith. As people of faith, our primary sense of vocation is our status as redeemed child of God. On Easter, we celebrate that He is risen, that Jesus conquered death for our sake. All our other expressions of vocation then flow from this reality.
How can I live out my vocation(s)?
From our calling and vocation as a redeemed child of God, we then can consider the other roles in which our vocation is expressed. Some examples of this can include a son or daughter, a father or mother, a sibling, a parent, a friend, and any other number of relationships. In each of these relationships, we seek to live out our vocation faithfully. A healthy sense of vocation in our personal relationships only strengthens our ability to live out our vocational calling in our jobs and careers. The beauty of the idea of vocation is that it integrates our faith in God and our relationships into our career and personal mission.
These realities do not exist in a vacuum or in silos from each other but are part of a beautiful tapestry that is being woven together. We have all worked a job—something we did to pay the bills or because we didn’t really know what else we wanted to do. While that does provide a living, it is rarely fulfilling. However, we also have the opportunity to discover and live out a vocation. The opportunity to fulfill the true calling God has put on our lives—not to just make a living—but to use our gifts, passions, and training to truly make a difference in the world.
How might a faith-based MBA help me do this?
Many with an aptitude for business, accounting, bookkeeping, sales, and corporate leadership may feel that your vocation or calling is not as significant as a counselor, missionary, pastor, or nurse. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Martin Luther once said:
There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estate, all are truly priests, bishops, and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do. …A cobbler, a smith, a peasant—each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops. Further, everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of his own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, just as all the members of the body serve one another (Martin Luther, To the Christian Nobility, LW 44:127-130).
Therefore, one vocation is not any more important or even more spiritual than another, because they are all gifted by the same God for the same purpose to support the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community. If your vocation includes being a faith-driven leader in a church, non-profit, or business context, Concordia University, Texas, can help you live out your calling and align your career, mission, and faith. An MBA in Faith & Social Impact Leadership might just be the training you need to take that next step.
For more information, contact Chris at chris.holder@concordia.edu, or visit: www.concordia.edu/academics/college-of-business-and-communication/masters-of-business-administration/faith-and-social-impact-leadership.html.