What a rich blessing it was to help host the Fund for Theological Education’s Leaders in Ministry Conference at Boston University, June 16-20, 2010. Having been an FTE Undergraduate and Ministry Fellow in 2004-2006, it was great both to give something back to an organization that was at the heart of my own formation process in its very early stages and to see a new generation of leaders on the brink of starting such a process themselves. Since 1954 FTE has been providing young people the opportunity to explore the possibility of religious leadership as a locus of impact on individuals and society.
Given their track record, it is especially exciting to be connected to FTE as they are rolling out their new flagship initiative, VocationCARE. The VocationCARE program and process is meant to be a leaven in religious communities such that they become sources of renewal and loci of social change. Vocation, in the extremely broad way that FTE conceives it, is that place where the passion and vitality of an individual or a community meet with the needs of communities and the world (a la Frederick Buechner). But finding these places is not something that can just be taken for granted. Hence the CARE acronym: Create safe space, Ask self-awakening questions together, Reflect theologically on self and community, Explore/Engage/Enact ministry opportunities. These practices of VocationCARE hold much promise for the communities that take them up to become sources of renewal and change.
Indeed, I want to suggest that vocation is at the very heart of formation. If vocation really is where the heart’s deep passion meets the world’s great need, then vocation is also that which keeps ends and means in sync. The language and practice of vocation allows us to ask questions about where we are going and how we are getting there. Vocation keeps formation from becoming something passive that happens to us and ignites within it an active and critical edge. For us Christians, now in the period between All Saints and Advent, we regularly experience the admonishment of Christ to “Keep awake!” (Matthew 25: 13). The language and practice of vocation urge those of us in a state of formation to wake up to the processes and practices in which we are being formed. My own experience, both personally and in implementing FTE’s VocationCARE practices in my context of leadership, demonstrate that they are valuable tools for keeping vocation at the heart of formation.
As confident as I am in the Fund for Theological Education and the VocationCARE program, I would be remiss in maintaining that critical edge myself if I did not prod them back a bit. I cannot help but wonder what it is that makes my good friends at FTE think that these practices are only helpful or relevant to Christain communities? I deliberately omitted a word from the elaboration of the CARE acronym above. The “C” in FTE’s own parlance is supposed to read “Create space to explore Christian vocation together” (italics mine). Is it really appropriate in our own day and age of extraordinary religious pluralism and multiple religious belonging to attempt to limit the language and practice of vocation to Christian communities? Can we afford such parochialism? What makes us think that our friends and neighbors outside the church walls, be they of other faith traditions or secular, could not identify with, engage, and benefit from the language and practice of vocation?
These questions lead to a broader set of questions. Is it legitimate to speak of Christian leadership apart from religious leadership more broadly? When we speak of the renewal of the church, do we somehow think that our friends and neighbors in other types of community are not also desperate for renewal, and that our renewal is not deeply interconnected with and interdependent upon theirs? When we speak of changing the world, are we seeking to remake the world in our image, irrespective of the gifts and graces God has provided us in the face and encounter with those who are different from ourselves? These questions cut to the very heart of what FTE means when they state their mission to “call young leaders. renew the church. change the world.”
I for one am in a state of formation. That formation is framed and guided by the process of discerning vocation in prayer, in community, and in conversation. If I have learned anything in these years about formation and vocation at its heart, it is that the African proverb of ubuntu sums it up best: I am because we are. I cannot afford to shut myself off from the fullness of life in the world or I may miss the still small voice of the Spirit whispering that “all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” (Julian of Norwich).