Transferable Skills

I have the privilege of working with students at a public college in the western US. In my role where I live-in with students much of my private life is viewed by students. I am a Christian, and while I am somewhat limited in how much of my private life I share (e.g. faith) with students, it still remains the lens with which I view the world and more importantly mankind.

In my previous position I was able to have complete freedom in the area of sharing my faith with students. In fact, it was considered the most important tool for building community, counseling hurting students, modeling leadership, and casting a vision and strategy for the team. Now that it isn't part of my repertoire (at least verbally) what am I to use?

I wonder if there are certain skills or qualities from my faith that would transfer to this role of living-in with students? If I am limited in the scope and direction I can convey my faith, what skills and qualities, unique to being a person of faith, might still be useful?

Maybe several of you work in public settings where your faith-view is considered intolerant or unpopular. What are the key skills and qualities that transcend environment? How can a Christian make a difference in a public work setting without being hostile to the non-believer, and without shortselling his faith?

Doing some updating to the blog, and major changes are coming in the future to the blog (stay tuned).

I may take a short break for a couple weeks while I move out of my house, check back later...

Jmak

The Passion, The Burden, The Calling

My wife and I were posed with this question recently in one of our marriage devotional books: "What is your passion, your burden, and your calling?" Think about your answers for a minute. The adjectives seemed to describe similar things from different angles, but as I began to think more deeply about them I realized the following answers emerged...

For me, my passion (or what excites me) is my graduate studies. My burden (or what troubles me) is the affects of legalism in a Christian's life. My calling (or who God is leading me too) was tougher to figure out for me, in between jobs I had always used my ministry position (job) to define this. Of course this topic is probably best said in a blog all its own, but calling is tough for me to discern right now specifically, but I believe it to generally be college age students.

I began to wonder how my life might look if the three aforementioned areas all had the same answer? For instance: What if my passion was sharing God's word in a winsome way, my burden was for those who normally reject the word of God because it is not relevant, and my calling was to a secular public college campus? These three seem to line up really nicely. Almost like a no brainer? What do you do if there seems to be no link between the three?

Maybe finding this link (or trying to create it) is a pipe dream? Maybe this is middle earth's way of trying to make sense (purpose) out of the randomness of the faith journey? Maybe we just need to do the best with what we have? Can you pray for a burden? Can you pray for all three of these to line-up? Are the really effective Christian's the one's who have these three aligned? What are the implications of having or not having congruence in the areas above?

Any thoughts? Share your three as well so I know where you are coming from...