I have had quite a few conversations involving mission and vocation, and while I started thinking they were basically the same thing, now I am not so sure. I am not an expert on mission or vocation (yet!), and I feel insecure talking about the things I don’t know in this area.
I was talking about this with Liane on Sunday, and she reminded me I don’t need to know everything. In fact, I can even list the questions I have and invite others to help me.
Men are bad at asking for directions, but in times like these, I hear it’s best to listen and say, ”Yes dear. I think so too.”
So here are some key questions to mission and vocation as they relate to this blog:
- Are mission and vocation the same?
- Is mission a smaller piece of a greater vocation?
- Is the approach taken to discover mission the same as finding vocation?
- Is a job like a mission, and a career like the greater vocation?
I’m leaning toward mission and vocation being different somehow, if you couldn’t tell, but I am curious to hear your thoughts, reader. So… think about it!
“Black beans, please. Chicken,” I say, ordering my quesadilla. Brett is behind me getting a quesarito, which is basically a quesadilla folded differently. “No guacamole. Yeah, cheese. Cilantro. Tomatoes. No, that’s all thanks.”It’s Monday night, and we are at Freebird’s in Isla Vista. It isn’t very crowded. Nothing like Saturdays at 3 am, when the line is going out the door. After all, where else are you going to get a burrito in between frat parties? Or at least that’s what I imagine people are thinking. We, however, are here for little bit different purpose.
“Have you thought any more about what we were talking about last week?” I ask Brett. “About doing ministry with college kids?”
A week ago, I was pissed. I was in my marketing class, an adult extension class I’m taking just fuming. It’s the kind of class that gives me all kinds of ideas about every facet of my life.
For example, the professor was lecturing on how to take the customer’s pulse and see whether they are please with the service being provided. This made me think of a friend who I am growing distant with. The lecture encouraged me to think about talking to him about what he perceived as being messed up in the relationship.
The same night, I was reminded of how I prayed and fasted to try to find what God wanted my career to be. If you’ve read the landing page, “Sunrise Light,” you know how that search went. Instead of a career, I got a Bible verse and the word “justice.” Frustrating.
In class, I was wondering if I had found any direction at all. “AM I DOING MY BEST TO WAKE UP?” I wrote in my notes, while the professor lectured in the background.
“I’m thinking about the World Race again,” I wrote next to it. I wanted so badly to find direction, my vocation in life right then and there. I wanted to remember this moment to give me motivation to keep wanting it and asking God to show me what it was.
After class I was pissed with God. I yelled (in my head, of course), “Why won’t you tell me my mission? I’ve asked. I’ve waited. I want to know, God. Why do you hide from me?”
I was still frustrated when I got into my car to drive home. However, in the midst of my anger, some interesting thoughts started flowing into my head.
What is mission? Is it similar to the way you go about writing a book?
1. To write a book, first, you have to find your audience. Who am I writing to?
2. Second, you identify your message. What do they need to know?
3. Finally, you have to figure out your format. How are you going to tell them what they need to know?
So mission would be:
1. Who am I called to?
2. What is my message to them?
3. How am I going to deliver that message to them?
A light went on.
To Be Continued.
Because all of you are smart, observant people, I’m sure you’ve noticed things have changed at joebunting.com. The most obvious thing is the name
After changing things up last week, I was talking with Liane in my living room and said, “You know, I’m a little insecure about changing the name of my blog. People have gotten used to it. I don’t want to pull the rug out from under them. I realized, though, and maybe it was the inner narcissist in me coming out because no one else has a blog named after themselves.”
Brett must have had the same thought months ago because he chuckled and smirked, even though he was on the other side of the room playing a board game.
Sunrise Light. If you’ve read the landing page you have some idea about what that means. If you haven’t read it, I hope you take some time to do so.
I want to be Sunrise Light. My single purpose right now is to find out if I really am. “The twenties are a time of experiment,” Seth Barnes told me once. I think he means the twenties are like an hour of shopping.
You try on a yellow t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a striped polo shirt, and you ask, “Does this fit? Is this outfit me?” You pick what fits and throw out what doesn’t. Isn’t it amazing how much you can learn about your body and personality by trying on pieces of fabric sewn together? At the end of the hour, while your outfit has changed many times, your body and personality remain the same.
Right now, I am trying on different jobs, different hobbies, even different world views, and through them, I am learning about the size and shape of who I am. My goal is to become an expert so I can share what I have learned with others. Like I said in the landing page, if you’re in a period of trying on clothes, send me an email. I would love to hear the story of a fellow experimenter.
The thing to remember, nothing stays the same (even your body), especially while you’re experimenting. Accept it. Embrace it.
The little green cruise control light is on and the mph needle points just a bit above 65. After reading a post about hurry by Seth, I decided it was time to relax my bad driving habits. Now, the red little needle rarely gets above the 70 mark, usually hovering between it and 64 or so.
I think the needle feels a little uncomfortable it that zone. It’s used to being up by the 75 or 85 mark, but I’m sure some of the other drivers on the road appreciate the change. They’re used to looking through their rearview mirror to see a little black Honda Civic about five feet from their bumper with me snarling at them to go faster. I call myself a road rager for a reason.
I use cruise control whenever I can to help me keep from speeding. I set it to 65, then don’t think about it again. The interesting thing is because of my set speed, I observe firsthand just how inconsistent humans are.
For example, there was a black pick-up behind me driving home the other night. I had the cruise control on and was in the fast lane passing a slow, beige sedan. The pick-up looked impatient, so as soon as I could, I got into the slow lane. Mr. Pick-up didn’t know what to do. It was as if he was surprised to all of a sudden have the road to himself. Instead of zooming by like I thought he would, he slowly inched up next to me.
For some reason, after that he slowed down, and eventually got behind me again. Next, with the fast lane wide open, he got closer and closer to my bumper, tailgating me. “I have cruise control on buddy,” I said. “I’m not gonna go faster.” I hate it when people tailgate me, so instead of speeding up, I pushed the cruise control stick down and slowed by a couple miles an hour.
Right before he was about to hit me (seriously, he was that close, and in the SLOW lane of all places), he got into the fast lane again. Then, he oscillated back and forth, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, and finally pulling back into the slow lane in front of me.
He slowed down again. “I’m not gonna slow down buddy,” I said. “I have cruise control on.” He kept getting closer. Finally, he was so close I had to get into the fast lane so I wouldn’t hit him with my automated consistency.
Then, he stepped on it. Seeing me in the fast lane, about to pass him, was too much for him I guess. He sped off 10 miles an hour faster than me.”That was weird,” I said.
This is a bad case, but in reality people oscillate in speed like this all the time. I would not have noticed it though, unless I started going the speed limit and using cruise control. Usually, when a car is in the right lane, trying to pass me, I speed up a little and get close to the guy in front of me.
It’s common in our postmodern culture to get rid of the standard. People say, “Well that might be okay for you. But for me…” I remember how Arch Bishop Rowen Williams suggested Muslim’s in England should have their own system of laws to accomodate Sharia. We go with the flow without knowing for sure whether things are right or wrong, without really caring. What is important for our postmodern society is whether it’s acceptable or not.
The question is, what happens when the incorrect thing becomes acceptable? For example, cohabitation, or living together, has become standard practice. People even have some good reasons to do it too, but statistics tell us that couples who live together suffer a much higher divorce rate.
From my vantage point, going 65 miles an hour with cruise control, everyone else seems wobbly. They speed up. They slow down. They get behind me. They pass me. They are inconsistent But I don’t notice when my goal is to go as fast as I can get away with because we’re all doing the same thing. It doesn’t look wobbly because we’re all wobbling.
The same is true for life. Perspective matters. Standards matter. The postmodern culture which denies this is doomed to be out of whack. The question then is, whose standard do you choose? But that’s the subject for a whole other post.
I’m burnt out. It’s been a crazy week. Work, violin class, long conversations about the future, moving, buying furniture, and going to Cursillo starting Thursday till Sunday. Not enough sleep either. Yowzers, I’m tired.
I have a lot to process, too. I got to spend several hours with one of my heroes, Seth Barnes, this week. Last week I emailed him, asking if he’d mind if I came out to Georgia to job shadow him. He replied, “How about I come out to Santa Barbara and we have a series of long conversations instead.”
What?!
He was coming into town for a family reunion only a week after I was thinking about making an effort to learn from him. Isn’t that just silly?
A lot of thoughts are floating through my head right now. Maybe I’ll let you in on some of them, but not right now. Have a good evening friends. Get some sleep for me.
Continued from Thursday, July 3’s post.
We were in the line to go back to the United States, and there was no way to get out of it.
I was devastated. The line takes about two hours. Two hours to drive 100 yards. And it was all my fault.
I kept muttering, “No way,” to myself. “No way. I can’t believe this.” I probably apologized 5 times. The first 20 minutes were pretty awkward.
And then the hilarity of the situation caught up with us.
“What do we say when they ask us how long we’ve been here?” Chris said. “Does waiting in the border line count? Because if it doesn’t, about 12 minutes!”
“What do we say to our group? Yeah guys, sorry about that. It’s just that we weren’t spiritually prepared yet to come into Mexico. We had to leave and go pray.”
“What if we just left and went back to Santa Barbara after we get through. It’s kind of a sign, isn’t it? A sign saying we weren’t supposed to be here. Alright guys, peace. Have fun in Mexico.”
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s almost like Mexico spit us out itself. It got one taste of us and threw us up. Plus, I’m sure Brett and everyone wouldn’t mind sleeping under the stars and not eating. We do have all their stuff in the trailer.”
We laughed really hard, until our stomach muscles hurt and we had to knead our sides to get the knots out.
Finally, after the first 20 minutes of uncomfortable replay and an hour and forty minutes of laughing, we made it across the border. We waited in a parking lot until Jeff pulled up next to us.
“What happened?!” he said. We looked at each other, telling the story, each trying hard not to laugh. Each failing.
Jeff led us back to the border and our trailer was checked for the third time that day. We followed Jeff, and remembered his warning, “This time, DON’T TURN at Aeropuerto!”
We drove past a yellow, concrete post. “No way! There’s the post that we knocked down. I told you you knocked it down.” I said to Chris. We past the place where we had made the wrong turn. “Chris! Whatever you do, DON’T TURN RIGHT!” We all felt like our ability to remain in Mexico was in question. Would it spit us out again?
It didn’t. Finally, after 12 hours of travel, after going into Mexico, leaving, and coming back again, we had made it to our campsite. It was dinner time and the rest of the group cheered when we pulled in.
That week the four of us got to tell our story at least 20 times to much laughter.
“I’m sure this happens all the time, right Jeff,” we said to him as he dropped us off.
He just drove off in silence.
“What happened?!” Jeff said. Jeff was the big, burly guy who was leading us from the Carl’s Junior in San Diego across the Mexican border to Rosarito where our campsite was. Because of us, he had failed. We got separated from the group,” Chris said. “The official that was waving you guys stopped with us and we didn’t see which direction you took.”
Our car was pretty fun on the way down. Chelsea and Taylor were in the backseat watching stupid movies like She’s the Man. Chris kept suggesting they pop in the DVD from his wedding. “I’ve never actually seen the whole thing, but you guys should watch it.” Chris was driving and I was his navigator in the front.
One of the highlights had been complaining about the woman who couldn’t stay in the caravan. Because of her we had to stop for Starbucks, and got stuck the middle of downtown Hollywood (with our 10 foot trailer) for 45 minutes. Lesson: never get off the freeway to find a coffee shop on Hollywood Boulevard while caravanning. Nice enough woman, but she was not a good person to drive with.
We got through the border fine, pulling into the secondary inspection behind the rest of our group. We only had to wait for about 2 minutes and then we were turning into Tijuana, Mexico. We were almost done with our 8 hour trek (it takes longer when you have bad drivers in your group).
I was telling them about the last time I drove through the border. We were waiting in the cars in secondary when it started to hail. People were having snowball fights in the parking lot. In TJ! It was wild.
Anyway, the official stopped traffic to let about four cars from our group go. He stopped at us and we waited for the coast to be clear. It had to be really clear because we were carrying a big load.
“There it is! There’s your gap!” I yelled. “Go Chris, GO!”
He went. CLUNK. We were clear. I looked in the side view mirror to see a concrete post lying on the group. We had knocked it down with our trailer.
“Whoops.”
“Alright navigator,” said Chris. “Which way. Right or left.” I looked down at the map lying in my lap. It said to go right at the sign “Aeropuerto Centro.”
“Aeropuerto,” I said. “There it is. Go right. Right.”
I looked back down at my map. Yeah, that’s right I thought. I looked up again to see if I could find our caravan.
“Oh Shit.” There they were, on the LEFT side. The turn off was Aeropuerto not Aeropuerto Centro, which was another three miles up the road.
“LEFT LEFT LEFT!!!” I yelled at Chris, but it was too late. He was already too far down the exit and with the huge trailer, couldn’t turn sharp enough to make it.
“OK,” I said, trying to take charge and get us back on track. “We need to turn around and get behind our group. Four lefts make a straight.”
We turned left, and then went left again. I was looking for the last U-turn we needed when disaster struck. We weren’t on a street where you could turn left.
We were in the line to go back to the United States, and there was no way to get out of it.
To be continued…
