Vocation in the Valley

Sometimes Vocation Kicks Your Butt

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I’ve been listening to some old Issues, Etc. episodes that happened to be focusing on vocation and they certainly helped me get through yesterday. While my wife was taking the girls to their swim lessons, no small feat, I went to Costco to do some shopping. Then after putting away the oversized package of cheese and diapers I cleaned the bathrooms, mopped the kitchen floor and cooked dinner. While cooking dinner I noticed a few dishes in the sink so I figured I should do them now rather than after dinner. In the middle of rinsing a dish the fatigue hit me and I just wanted to throw the dish across the room and sit down on the floor with a beer. I restrained myself and fought through the last few pots but I was done. Except I knew my wife had a meeting to go to and I had bath (can’t skip after swimming) and bedtime with the girls. At that point the only thing that held together my sanity and held back my sinful rage was the Doctrine of Vocation. Knowing that God had given me this time to help relieve some of the burden of the housework my wife does and given me my daughters to shepherd in body and spirit gave me the peace I needed to get through it.

Now I didn’t list all those things to toot my own horn. In fact, I needed to repent of those things which I should not have let pile up in the first place and of the frustration in trying to get a 3 year-old to take her bath and dry her hair. I say all this to remind myself of all that God has blessed me with and the simple and obvious ways He uses me to do His will.

Posted in Father, Husband, Vocation | No Comments »

Cwirla goes Worldwide

Monday, March 1st, 2010

What follows are the download statistics for the first full week that “Cwirla” was available. I have no idea what they mean. I’m just surprised that France and China were 2nd and 3rd in downloads.

Posted in Geek, Software Developer, Vocation | 2 Comments »

The Cwirla iPhone App

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I received approval last Friday evening for my first two iPhone Applications (they work on the iPod Touch and should work on the iPad when it is released). The inspiration for the Apps came from Pastor Todd Wilken when, after discussing the video I made “There’s a Pastor for That“, wished for a “Cwirla App” for his iPod Touch. Well, I couldn’t resist the inspiration and put together the Cwirla app which is available in two versions. The free version is a collection of wisdom from Pastor Cwirla excerpted from episodes of The God Whisperers. The $0.99 “blue” version includes the same excerpts, plus it includes the story about Pastor Cwirla’s confirmation class which includes some “home schooler alert” language. It also includes some risque quotes if you “shake” Pastor Cwirla. All proceeds will go to the God Whisperers coffers.

Posted in Software Developer, Vocation | 2 Comments »

LCMS Regional Gathering – Part 1

Monday, February 1st, 2010

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write a report on the LCMS Regional Gathering for the CNH, Northwest, PSW, and English districts because there have already been reports (here, here, here, and here) that did a good job of covering them in general. However, I think I have something to add to the conversation, and I also haven’t posted in a while.

The Great

I got to spend time getting to know the pastoral delegate from my circuit, Pastor John Bestul. My pastor said he was a very solid guy and I found him to be exactly that. I feel fortunate that my circuit has two such fine confessional Lutheran pastors. I really appreciated pastor Bestul’s thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and clarity. He helped me to focus not just on the stated goal of the proposals, but also the long term affects. Thanks for making the whole thing worthwhile Pastor Bestul.

The Notable

The 4 other delegates at my table were pastoral delegates. They were all very nice and were very interested in getting a layman’s perspective on the proposals. They were also very kind in thanking me for taking the time away from work and family. However, they weren’t exactly the most conservative pastors I’ve met and if I were a conspiracy theorist I might think I was purposely put at that table to mute my voice (I spoke my mind, but I wasn’t about to engage in arguments on 4 fronts). It was tough being at a table with 4 pastors who were behind pretty much all the proposals to one degree or another.

President Kieschnick was very presidential. The man is a very good politician. Friday was his birthday, his anniversary, and his wife’s step-father passed away on Friday. Obviously he did not orchestrate this, but this stuff didn’t hurt in softening the crowd which was already sympathetic. I pray that Matt Harrison will be the next SP, but I feel a lot less hopeful after the gathering. Dr. Kieschnick is just getting so much face time and he’s also able to deflect from the more controversial BRTFSSG proposals by pointing out that he has a response to the final report that is critical of it in some areas. So, if you don’t know the specifics of his response (I need to read it), it would be pretty easy to assume that he doesn’t agree with the parts you don’t agree with, especially if you are already leaning in his direction.

My question to the panel was the second one asked in the Q&A. I asked about the proposed change in wording from “Encourage congregations to strive for uniformity in church practice…” to “Encouraging a common understanding…” Dr. Sohns gave the response which was first to say that the current phrase is being used legalistically to enforce uniformity of practice and then by walking through the history of this article. Starting in 1847 with “uniformity of ceremonies” which he says meant only special ceremonies like baptism (this didn’t sound right and I would like to check on this with the Gottesdienst crowd), then changing in 1917 to “uniformity of practice and affairs” and then in 1927 to “uniformity of practice”. He says that “common understanding” would lead to common practice and that was the original intent of the article. I’m sure this was sufficient for most and I’m sure some felt like the liturgical crowd got its smack-down. But I’m not buying it. I remember from the district convention that we used “encourage” all the time in proposals and it never had a legalistic tone. This was just one example, I’ll give a couple others later, where the strawman that the liturgical crowd is trying to impose things was put forth.

I was hoping to put up one big post, but I’m still groggy from the event (another part of my report) so I’ll hopefully put up part 2 tomorrow.

Posted in BRTFSSG, LCMS, Vocation | 1 Comment »

Career and Vocation – Where It Starts

Monday, October 15th, 2007

As I mentioned in the previous post, Christian vocation is not just about a career, it’s about God’s will for our entire lives. When we are born, we are automatically put into a vocation. We are children of our parents, and if we have any brothers or sister we are siblings. What does it mean to have the vocation of child or sibling? The vocation of child is put forth by the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” The vocation of sibling has more in common with our other vocations and comes from Christ’s command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Our neighbor would be our siblings in this instance. As we grow older, we are naturally put into new vocations like student, friend, roommate, worker, citizen, spouse, parent, driver, etc. Pretty much anything we do is a vocation which falls under Christ’s command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay, we’ve established that we’re supposed to do everything in our lives with love for our neighbor (yes, even driving in traffic). The caveat is that we all know that we don’t come close to being loving in all aspects of our lives (just ask my wife about my driving). So we rely on the salvation that Christ bought for us on the cross and do our best to love our neighbor in gratitude for that salvation.

So that leaves us as both saints and sinners relying on Christ for our salvation. But that doesn’t tell us what job we should take or how to put food on the table. Since the Bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt be a fireman” we have freedom in what may become. Still sounds like a bit of a dodge? Without a clear word from God, anything I say is just my opinion, but here goes…

I think that how we show love to our neighbor can expose our interests and talents and lead us to specific job choices. For example, when I was in junior high and practicing my vocation as a student, we had a science fair. My teacher and I decided that based on my talents and interests I would write a simple video game and that was the humble beginnings of my career in software development.

Showing love for your neighbor may not always lead you where you want to go, but often leads you where God wants you to be. My college choice was a classic example of this. I got accepted to RPI under my second choice of majors and told my dad that I’d go there if they let me in under my first choice. I was all set to go to San Jose St. assuming that they wouldn’t bump me into my choice of majors. Needless to say, they did and I felt obligated to honor my father and do what I said I would. I really wanted to just stay near home and hang with people I knew. However, in the course of honoring my commitment to my dad, I had the best experience I could have had in college. I made lots of mistakes there and I learned a lot and I know it had a profound effect on who I am today.

Based on these examples, it might seem like I’m saying that following your vocation is the path to worldly success. That is not my point at all, I’m simply trying to point out how my career developed based on the vocation of student and child. In my next post, I’ll explore how following your vocation can negative worldly impact and how not following your vocation can have both positive and negative impacts.

Posted in Vocation | Comments Off

Career and Vocation

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Marc Andreessen is a very successful technologist and entrepreneur. He created the Mosaic web browser which became the foundation for Netscape Communications, the poster child for the dot-com boom (and bust). He recently wrote a series of columns about career planning that is targeted but not specific to high-tech. I would like to compare and contrast this “career guide” with how you might approach your career with an understanding of Christian vocation.

First, I want to set the context of the two approaches. Marc Andreessen readily admits that his guide is for people looking to make a significant impact on their fields and the world. His approach is not for those looking for work/life balance. Christian vocation says that God has placed us where we are so we can serve people out of love for Him. This approach doesn’t specifically try to balance work/life, but simply submits to God’s will.

Rule 1: Do not plan your career

The Andreessen approach is to not plan because you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Planning your career will only limit you because you don’t know what companies, industries, roles, etc. will be opened to you.

Christian vocation would say not to plan your career either. Trust in God, and serve peoples as they are presented to you. Look at Joseph, he didn’t have a career plan but ended up 2nd to Pharaoh by serving his neighbors.

Rule 2: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities

Instead of planning your career, the Andreessen approach says to look for, pursue, and create opportunities. Then take the opportunities and develop a portfolio of skills and roles. The opportunities presented may appear to be risky, but if they lead you to a more well developed set of skills it may be less risky when looking at the big picture.

Focus on serving people would be the equivalent from the perspective of Christian vocation. Opportunities to grow will present themselves as God continues to place people in your life who you can serve.

And on and on…

At this point, the analysis starts to become repetitive. Andreessen gives various tips and pointers for navigating college, your first job, where, to live, what industry to pick, etc. And Christian vocation responds with, “trust in God.” Our sinful nature doesn’t want to trust God and we believe we can do a better job of picking our career path.

So, how does one follow the concepts of Christian vocation in a real career? Well, I’ll walk through my career in the next couple of posts and see where I have and haven’t followed these principles and the outcomes in each case.

Posted in Vocation | 1 Comment »

Vocation (Calling) – What God Want Me To Do

Friday, February 16th, 2007

As my family and friends probably know, I’ve always been kind of a self-improvement junkie. Trying to be better at whatever I’m interested in. Most recently, my search for self-improvement lead me to ask, “What does God want me to do?” I had some stops and starts when I thought God was giving me “signs”, but I never felt like I was doing God’s will. This kind of thinking along with hearing a few times how the Bible is “God’s owner’s manual for us” clicked in me because somewhere inside I knew Christianity was more than this. Since then, I have fallen back to my Lutheran roots and come to recognize that Christianity is about my sin and Jesus’ saving work on the cross, NOT God’s right rules for living.

So, how has this helped me figure out what God wants me to do? The Lutheran doctrine of vocation is simply: God has put you where you are to live in faith toward Him and in love toward your neighbor. I found a very simple to read and practical article called “Locus and Focus: God’s Will for Your Daily Life.” Two sections that made me see more clearly:

Why do we agonize so much over God’s will? Isn’t it because we secretly think that it is up to us to please God with our own good works? But nothing could be further from the truth. It isn’t up to you to please God. This is what Grace is all about. God is already pleased with you because of Jesus’ good works, Jesus’ perfect obedience and Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus did all of this for you. In fact, God couldn’t be more pleased with you than He already is for Jesus’ sake.

But no, instead of seeing the will of God right there under my nose, in the needs of my wife, kids, family co-workers, I speculate about God’s will, I invent things to do that I think would please God. These self-invented works, no matter how much good they might do, are not good works at all. They haven’t come from faith in what Jesus has done for me to please God, but from a futile attempt to please God myself.

The above passages tell me there is nothing for me to do to please God because Jesus has already done so, but they still don’t tell me how I should act. Here’s the passage that does that:

When a Christian wants to know what God’s will is, he need look no further than to his station in life and his neighbor’s needs. This is enough to keep the Christian busy for the rest of his life. The Christian is free to turn his attention to his neighbor because the Christian no longer needs to worry about pleasing God.

We are saved because of Jesus not because of what we do, and in gratitude we help our neighbors. And where we see our neighbor in need, we see what God wants us to do.

Posted in Vocation | Comments Off