Intentional Bi-Vocationality

So it has been a long time since I posted anything but my sermons (and I got really bad at that for a while). Since the last time I wrote like this my life has changed, but then again when doesn't it? Right now actually marks a time period of change in my life. In December we moved from Belmont, MA to Cambridge, MA, something like a 6 mile move, but a significant move for both us and our church. We live in a church owned parsonage, so the move marked a change in the particular parsonage the church owned, which was a monumental move on the part of our congregation here in Cambridge. Also this week is my youngest daughter's last week of pre-school, which will in turn mark the end us driving her to and from Belmont three days a week which has meant being in the car an hour and hanging out and working while sipping coffee as Starbucks during her 2 1/2 hours of school.

But more than all that, for a number of reasons this also marks a time in my life and the life of my church when we learning first hand what it means to be a bi-vocational leader. For the last three weeks I have begun a part time job at Pier 1 Imports.

At first I was not sure I liked the term of bi-vocational. I pondered what exactly the bi- was doing to the vocation. Did bi-vocational speak to the idea that my vocational was split in half, as in the word bifurcated? Did this new job mutilate, or tear my vocation into a smaller pieces? Was everything that I do and have worked for these past 10 years of ministry torn up like the little scraps of paper I find all over my daughter's room (tearing paper seems to be a relaxing pass time of hers)? Was it broken? Fragmented? Should I be mourning a loss?

Or did the bi, mean a multiplication of sorts, meaning two. Bi-weekly, means every two weeks. Was it an empowering word that infused my new job with meaning and purpose beyond simply selling people pretty things for their homes? Did the word bi-vocation speak to the fact that I am a minister where ever I am, whatever I am doing (no matter how inconvenient that might be)? Did it speak to a hidden spirituality that me being a minister infused into being a "Sales Associate?" Because I am a minister, a pastor, a shepherd of God's people, that means I am those things, even when I am talking to someone about the difference between the different styles of two teal vases and which one might be the right look for their home?

As I think about it I think it is a both/and situation. I am tearing my vocation in half, but once it is torn I now have two pieces. In my right hand I have my vocation which directly involves my congregation and the work I do for and on their behalf. But the part I have in my left hand, my Pier 1 work, although separate is still apart of my vocation, a part of God's call on my life to live and work in the service of God's people. The work I do at Pier 1 empowers and enables me to continue to minster here in Cambridge. In many ways it is also an extension of my ministry. There are now a certain number of people who are forced to be in proximity with a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a part of their job. When you think about it this is really pretty cool.

I get to live out in my own life what I call my people to do on a frequent basis, which is live Christ before our world. If we truly believe that Christ changes who we are, molds us into his image and transforms our lives. Then as we live we are ambassadors, living reflections, icons of Christ moving, breathing, speaking and living in this world. When people encounter us they encounter the Christ who lives in us, they encounter the God of the universe who is reaching out through us, to love them and let them know that they are loved beyond measure by the One who spoke them into existence and breathed life into them.

I get to practice what I preach in a real way. As a bi-vocational minister, I don't have to seek out interaction with people beyond my congregation. I don't have to go find people who may not know God and then figure out how to love them with the love of God, being in contact with people is a part of my job. Living the love of God is what I have to do in order to sell a lamp, a table or a candle. I get to be in constant contact with the very people God has called me to love. It is a privelege to interact with customers and co-workers, and it is a vocation.

Vocational living is not something to which I (and other ministers)am exclusively called, but intentional vocational living is something to which we all are called, that is if we call ourselves Christian. We are called to live lives that would exemplify Christ, no matter what we are doing. When we are sitting at the dinner table with our families, we are living the love of Christ. When we are driving down the road we are ambassadors. When we are riding on the T, when we are buying our groceries and when we are selling rugs to college students, or whatever we are doing right now, we are living the love of Christ, sharing the God of universe in word and in action in each an every encounter.

Doing just this is what makes our lives holy. When we live the love of God with every breath we breath, with every move we make, we infuse that activity with the holiness of God. When Christians are at work in the world, nothing is mundane, nothing is secular, whatever we encounter becomes God's. Everything we do becomes the actions of God. Everything we say becomes the words of God.

In a totally non-peeping-Tom kind of way the song that I was taught as a small child is true, "be careful little hands what you do. . . be careful little feet where you go . . . be careful little mouth what you say. . . for the Father up above is looking down with love . . ." The Father is not just looking down with love, but expressing love with those hands, those feet and that mouth. Christ is in us, living in us, moving through us, speaking in us, making our lives, all the things we do in the day, holy, so our movements, actions and words, need to be holy. We need to be intentional in our vocations (what ever they are), whether they are bi- or not, we are making this world Holy in our encounters, in our actions and with our words, so let our words, actions and encounters be Holy.