Vocation

[Brenton Smith]

Hi,

I am new to the forum and was just thinking/struggling with the meaning of vocation? I wanted to hear everyone elses thoughts on the question...Can a person's vocation be investment banking or some other career of this nature?

Just a little background...this is not my major or career. I've just been wondering if a person can be doing God's work while working to make money for hierarchical companys?

[Christie Anderson]

You know in the past I've had a difficult time seeing investment banking as a vocation. But I think I've come around.

First let's start off with what vocation means. Its about calling. And I don't think it always has to do with work. We have callings with our friends and our families, within our civic community, and within our faith community as well as in our careers. Luther called these the different stations that we hold in life. They are all important, but we tend to just think about that career piece. I think sometimes that happens because the United States is a career focused culture, where what you do to make a living is who you are. But we are so much more than that and we have to recognize that all areas of our lives are important.

I work in the Center for Vocational Reflection at Augustana College, Rock Island, and we've found it helpful to look at vocation in terms of three different areas: your skills, gifts and talents, your passions and values, and the needs of the community. Vocation is recognized when your skills, gifts, talents, passions and values meet the needs of the community. Frederick Beuchner says its where our great joy meets the world's deep needs (one of my favorite quotes of all time!).

So with that being said, could investment banking be someone's vocation? I think so. Some people are really gifted with money and numbers. They understand and comprehend the investment and business world. And they love it. I've talked with students here at Augustana who just have a passion for these things. Which I'm so very thankful for, because I don't have gifts in that area, or passion for it. I need people like them to help me to invest for my future. And that is where I think we get to the community need part. People need help to invest so that one day they can retire and still live and meet their basic needs for food and shelter. People need to invest so they can send their kids to college. Community organizations need to invest so they can run their services. Colleges are able to give our more scholarships, have great programs, and the like because they have investment bankers working with them to invest the donations they recieve from community members, who are probably able to give donations because they have an investment banker that helped them to wisely use and grow the gifts God them. Granted, there are ways to be an investment banker that wouldn't fulfill this community needs piece. But there are probably ways to do just about everything that would be detrimental to the community, not meet its needs, and thus not fulfill a calling.

So to sum up (since I've probably gone on for way too long), I think investment banking can and is in fact some peoples vocation. Thanks be to God.

[Christopher]

Perhaps you would want to get into the book study under the faith and spirituality section. Please Join. Looking for people to jump in.

Personally, I am not that knowledgable in investment banking, but I think that working in any possition can be considered a calling and agree with the post above. One of my good friends is a pastors son in Texas and he has begun working in finance and investments. He has told me that I need a theology of money as I am not a rich man. I also have heard of many pastors coming out of seminary and not knowing the slightest about how to run a church budget.

I can't help but think of issues such as banking and finance in our current moment in time. I always recall within vocation as I know it the need to recognize fallen societal structures and capitalism definately has its pitfalls. The west to me can at times seem difficult to reconcile with Jesus. I also recall Martin Luther speaking of how we are to neither be concerned fi we have much or little or cling to money. But certainly economics is an important field to look into and people do need to know how to invest wisely.

While not a Christian, I know that a man named Mohammad Yunas won the 2007 Nobel peace prize for a form of micro-banking (I think it was micro-banking) in which he looked to give loans to people whom otherwise might not get them. While smart investing is good for all people, I tend to think of things like micro-banking amidst so much poverty and violence in society.


Just an idea.

[Nate Porter]

The discussion so far is right on: investment banking or (almost) anything else can be a valid vocation (Luther himself lists a few things that aren't, but they're mostly illegal). It happens in a number of ways:
1) Using the gifts God has given you to the best extent possible, thus honoring God and his good gifts
2) Choosing to act ethically and pay attention to how your actions and those of your business affect people and all of creation, both when it's easy and harder. This one can take some smarts about the best way to go about it without either getting fired or just being annoying though.
I job shadowed the director of a call center as part of a ministry in daily life class, and you better believe that was her vocation. Not only did she help ensure that the people being called were treated with respect, she took real interest in the lives of all of the people working under her, which ranged from 50 to 300 depending on the project. And working in a call center (which I've done) is not particularly humanizing by its nature.
3) Remebering that your "job" is just one of your vocations or callings in life. My step-father is an aerospace machinist. He does well at his job and takes pride in that, but he doesn't feel particularly like God had a special plan to put him there. But when he comes home, because his job doesn't require all of his energy, he's able to make amazing music as a drummer and singer in a number of bands, Christian and Secular. That's more his calling than his job.

The most fun and frustrating part about God's calling in our lives is trying to figure it out. And often, it changes right about when you think you've got it pegged, particularly since our roles naturally change as we mature and grow older. There are some great books out there on these questions too. You might be interested in Gordon Smith's "Courage and Calling" which does a great job of talking about both vocations (i.e. the various roles God calls us to in life) and vocation (i.e. the singular unique purpose God has for us). Luther writes on vocation quite a bit too.

These are vitally important questions to the future of the church. Keep asking them and don't quit. You'll make Luther proud.