\u201c \u2018The calling\u2019 is to serve God. One shouldn\u2019t mistake the idea of [the] calling to be that we receive some kind of mysterious message from God about what we\u2019re supposed to be doing. We are supposed to be serving God in whatever we\u2019re doing. So that the major point of view from this perspective is the idea of vocation. The calling is to serve God in what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we ask the question: Aren\u2019t we supposed to improve? Aren\u2019t we supposed to show progress in the Christian life? Aren\u2019t we supposed to grow, etc., etc.?\u00a0 All this language unloads itself on us, which we finally have to shrug off and say: Oh well, maybe I\u2019ll do that when I get time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole idea in the Lutheran perspective is that the Christian life is the one that unfolds precisely in one\u2019s vocation, and if you are supposed to show any improvement, it\u2019s precisely in being good at your job and taking care of the neighbor through a useful vocation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to do necessarily with all the churchly things we like to talk about. That\u2019s one of our tasks. But it is not [that] one [way] is supposedly the only way in which we serve God. In our vocations we serve a variety of areas, or as Luther calls them: \u201cSt\u00e4nde,\u201d that is, situations or tasks. We\u2019re called to serve God as citizens of the state, as members of the family, we\u2019re called to serve God in our job, and in the church. It\u2019s difficult sometimes to balance all of those but that\u2019s particular to the calling we all have.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the progress in the Christian life is progress in becoming as good at these things as you can so that all the talk about improvement, transformation, growth, and so on and so forth centers around the understanding to serve God in one\u2019s daily task.\u201d<\/p>\n
From an audio tape, mid 1990\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forde on Christian growth \u201c \u2018The calling\u2019 is to serve God. One shouldn\u2019t mistake the idea of [the] calling to be that we receive some kind of mysterious message from God about what we\u2019re supposed to be doing. We are supposed to be serving God in whatever we\u2019re doing. So that the major point of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1439,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}