calling

Features

Let the children lead

A changed view of ministry

Nov 09, 2012 by Susan Steinberg

I once saw children's ministry as a steppingstone to something else. This attitude put me in league with the hindering kind of disciples.

Editor's Desk

Longing for certainty

Mar 30, 2012 by John M. Buchanan

Seekers often want Christianity to be a set of ideas one knows to be true, or at least to provide a feeling of certainty.

Editor's Desk

Answering yes

Feb 14, 2012 by John M. Buchanan

One of our tradition's best ideas is that God calls us to become all we were created to be. One of its worst is that only clergy are called.

Blogging Toward Sunday

Time is short

1 Corinthians 7:29–31

Jan 17, 2012 by Cynthia D. Weems

In a recent interview, Diane Keaton told the story of when she first decided to adopt a child. She was driving her father home from the hospital to die.

Tribal Church

Love made visible

Struggling with the question of vocation

Jan 15, 2012 by Carol Howard Merritt

Once you finally get a job, then you need to get a “real” job. Then you can expect to be laid off at least once in your life. Then you have to retool and enter the workforce again. Then even if you get your “dream” job, you might come to the realization that you’re destroying your family and your personal life, and the dream becomes a bit of a nightmare. Then you begin to realign all your goals. Then you begin to look toward retirement, and you begin to imagine what your vocation is going to be when you retire.

Faith Matters

Checkpoint

Sep 12, 2011 by M. Craig Barnes

Why, the customs officer wanted to know, was I traveling to Canada just to preach? It was a question to ponder.

Living by the Word

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Exodus 3:1–15

Aug 16, 2011 by Douglas D. Webster

The life of Moses is so large and significant that it's hard to imagine that we have anything in common with him—until he opens his mouth. As soon as he starts to talk he sounds just like us. When he starts offering excuses, he's not saying anything that we haven't used as reasons for not surrendering our lives to God.

Faith Matters

Clear call

Jan 17, 2011 by M. Craig Barnes

He finished seminary at the head of his class and could have gone on to earn a Ph.D. But he wanted to serve a local congregation--preferably a small one.

Features

Divine summons

Working in the horizon of God’s call

Nov 01, 2000 by Gilbert Meilaender

I have learned over the years that students, wearily carrying out a writing assignment, often have recourse to the dictionary. Assigned to write on a specific topic, they will begin with a dictionary definition. Let it never be said that I have learned nothing from reading their papers all these years.

Editor's Desk

Clear callings

Nov 01, 2000 by John M. Buchanan

The reflection on vocation in this issue by Gilbert Meilaender takes us from Vergil’s epic, the Aeneid, to the Reformation era to the 20th century, with many stops in between. He prodded me, as I’m sure he will others, to think more deeply about their own sense of vocation.