Explore Calling: Resources

 Restless Hearts is a curriculum geared toward mature high school students, college students and young adults. It is designed for a multi-week, small group exploration of the concepts of call and vocation that are rooted in the cultivation of a vital relationship with Christ and an ongoing pursuit of the question “What am I going to do next?”

TwentySomeone guides young adults through their generational tasks of marriage, white-collar employment, affluence, and regular “quiet time” with Jesus. Its uncritical perspective on “normal” life and little regard for the experiences of those who do not fit into this narrow trajectory will leave many readers frustrated.

Located in a beautifully-written collection of pastoral sermons and addresses (A Ray of Darkness), Rowan Williams’ reflections on callings in “Vocation (1),” “Vocation (2),” and “My Neighbor’s Business” paint a picture of call that celebrates the diversity of individual gifts and identities. Williams’ theology locates the discernment and living out of one’s call squarely within communal life, suggesting that freedom in Christ represents freedom to live in cooperation with God, helping call forth the likeness of Christ in one another.

 Awakened to a Calling brings together a diverse group of some of the country’s most powerful and influential preachers for a series of sermons on call and vocation. Though geared towards those considering pastoral ministry, the engaging reflections provided in the book will prove fruitful for anyone contemplating God’s “calling” for their lives.

Geared towards youth beginning their vocational journey, Call Waiting draws from biblical examples and the stories of real young people to offer a helpful series of resources for discerning the life God is calling them to live. Authors Larry L. McSwain and Kay Wilson Shurden begin with the sense that the Christian life itself is a vocation, a way of life that enables people to “get to know God” by celebration, prayer, study, and action.

Author of Wild at Heart John Eldredge joins wife Stasi for Captivating, which suggests that all women have been designed by God for the vocation of bringing the world beauty, delight, nurture, and reassurance. The “secret to the feminine heart” lies in what the Eldredges assert is a woman’s divinely ordained deep need for assurance that she is lovable and desirable. This assurance must be found first in God and then in men, and particularly in fathers. Places where women have been failed in this regard must be healed so that women can continue to grow in their vocation as alluring beauties who inspire men to “come alive” for their own roles as warriors and adventurers.

Hineini in Our Lives combines accessible interpretations of fourteen Biblical call stories with the call narratives of eleven prominent Jewish rabbis, scholars, and leaders to offer an excellent resource for reflection and inspiration. The book makes use of the Jewish tradition of midrash, offering contemporary and diverse interpretations of the Biblical texts that can be quite meaningful for younger readers.

DeMoss and Gresh combat what they call a “generational crisis” perpetrated by the lies of Satan. Among Satan’s lies is the false belief that a woman’s primary God-given calling is to anything but a vocation to submissive wife and motherhood. DeMoss and Gresh attempt to make a case for this vocational paradigm through literalist scripture interpretation.

Gregory S. Clapper, professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Indianapolis, offers a perspective on vocation grounded in “a life of Christian faithfulness in all realms of existence.” Living Your Heart’s Desire explores vocation and work’s relationship to culture, the gospel, Christian tradition, personal habits, and call. The text, geared toward adult audiences, provides reflection questions for use alone or in a group.

 Restless Hearts is a curriculum geared toward mature high school students, college students and young adults. It is designed for a multi-week, small group exploration of the concepts of call and vocation that are rooted in the cultivation of a vital relationship with Christ and an ongoing pursuit of the question “What am I going to do next?”

Former songwriter, teacher, and school administrator Sylvia Rose makes a direct appeal to African American women in Rise Up, urging them to recognize their crucial call to vocations which revitalize and improve the lives of their communities.

John Eldredge’s follow-up to the wildly popular Wild at Heart details the “chief mission of a man’s life.” This “masculine journey” is a vocation of learning to utilize innate aggression and power to become an adventuring, fighting man with no trace of “emasculation” or tolerance for a “feminized” Christianity.

TwentySomeone guides young adults through their generational tasks of marriage, white-collar employment, affluence, and regular “quiet time” with Jesus. Its uncritical perspective on “normal” life and little regard for the experiences of those who do not fit into this narrow trajectory will leave many readers frustrated.

Donald Capps constructs his book Young Clergy around the biographies of five well-known clergymen who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. Capps pulls out specific incidents in the lives of these men to illustrate five different developmental models of professional formation, with particular attention as to how those models can be applied to clergy careers. His study focuses primarily on the early and middle adult years.

Though not explicitly written to be a book on “vocational discernment,” Michael’s Warren’s Youth and the Future of the Church presents an understanding of ministry with youth and young adults that is inherently mindful of how these individuals grow to understand their place in the world. Warren seeks to develop an approach to ministry that enables youth and young adults to give reflective, meaningful answers to the question: “In what direction should I as this human person tend?”