The Table Briefing: Faith, Work, Giftedness, And Your Calling

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement assistant.]

Do you think of yourself as a gifted person? While it might be common to use the word “gifted” to refer to people with remarkable talents or skills in sports, acting, or music, the truth is that God has gifted every individual and calls all people to work, using their giftedness to bless the world. But how does a person do this on a daily basis?

On a special series of The Table Podcast titled, “Giftedness, Faith, and Work,” Darrell Bock, Bill Hendricks, and George Hillman discuss the idea of using giftedness in a variety of contexts. Hendricks also joins Bock for a cultural engagement chapel on this topic, engaging seminary students in a conversation about calling and vocational work.

This Table Briefing highlights three key ideas from these conversations: The relationship of giftedness and vocational calling, how the church can better communicate the value of human giftedness, and how to use one’s giftedness in a variety of vocational settings. But what is human giftedness? How is this distinct from one’s calling?

Giftedness And Calling

In The Person Called You, Hendricks writes, “God has given power to humans. I call that power your giftedness.”[1] He defines the concept like this: “Giftedness is the unique way in which you function.

It’s a set of inborn core strengths and natural motivation you instinctively and consistently use to do things that you find satisfying and productive. Giftedness is not just what you can do but what you are born to do, enjoy doing, and do well.”[2]

Discovering this not only helps people understand themselves better, but also it reveals each one’s indebtedness to the Creator. Indeed, giftedness does not merely apply to a limited number of exceptional individuals. God has graciously given all people their giftedness and called them to do good works that bless their neighbors and make the world a better place.

This may mean that a person is gifted one way, but called by God to use their gifting in a variety of different settings throughout life. Because of this, the idea of calling applies not only to professional church workers, but to people in occupations outside professional Christian ministry as well. At a cultural engagement chapel, Bock and Hendricks noted that limiting the idea of calling merely to paid ministry positions in churches and parachurch organizations contributes to the sacred/secular divide that discourages Christians from viewing all of life—including their work—as part of their discipleship to Jesus. Consider the implications of this narrow view of calling in the life of a believer:

Hendricks: [If] we end up in this bifurcated world where people get called to ministry but then people aren’t called into sales or called into medicine, it creates huge problems for people in the church because they think, “There must be something wrong with me. God’s got some special thing for this ordained person, but not me.” . . .

The New Testament is very clear that Christ is Lord of all. And the word “all” is all-inclusive. So that means work as well as every other category of life. He’s either Lord of all, as they say, or he’s not Lord at all. And so we can’t just make him Lord of church things. We have to make him Lord of everything, which includes day-to-day work.

Bock: And this calling starts off in Genesis 1 and 2 with the call to really manage the creation.

Hendricks: Absolutely. The very first words that God speaks to human beings after he creates them has to do with their work, which I always find both fascinating and instructive. It tells you something about the importance of work in day-to-day life—that we’re here to do work. He says, “Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth; rule it.” The word “be fruitful’ is very important.

The world, on its own, is not fruitful. I don’t know the last time you looked at a mountain of ore and saw a Mercedes Benz come hopping out of that mountain. I mean, it just doesn’t happen that way. The world, on its own, simply provides raw resources. Only human beings can add value to turn those resources into something useful. And to that end, God has called, in a sense, each one of us to a particular thing that he wants us to do, by which we add value to the world and make it fruitful and thereby carry out that [creation] mandate.

In order to obey this command to make the world a fruitful place, we need to utilize the giftedness God has built into each one of us in a variety of vocational settings—doing the daily work to which God has called us for a season of life. Hillman joined Bock and Hendricks in a Table Podcast for a conversation on giftedness, noting that all kinds of giftings and callings are valuable and make positive contributions to the kingdom of God:

Hillman: It’s not a values thing. It’s not this hierarchy of, “Well, here’s the missionaries and here’s the senior pastors. And oh, a sports lawyer, well, that’s lower on the totem pole.” It’s not that at all. They all have value in the kingdom.

Still, many believers are unaware that their giftedness is of high value in the sight of God, that he gave them their gifting to use not only in a church setting, but also during the work week. How can churches better encourage believers to view their giftedness as a means for ministry, blessing their neighbors outside the church building?

How Churches Can Value Giftedness

Hendricks, Bock, and Hillman mention three ways churches can communicate the value of all kinds of gifting and encourage their members to use these gifts to bless the community. For example, this message may be incorporated into the main worship service during sermons, special times of congregational prayer, and public testimonies.

Hendricks: Clayton Bell, who was the pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian Church for years, preached a sermon once on this very issue. . . . At the time we had 5,000 people in the church. He said, “If we count up all the (volunteer) jobs we have here, whether it’s ushers or singing in the choir or Sunday school teachers or assistants to the Sunday school teachers, or the juice carriers for the assistants to the Sunday school teachers, and if we add up all those jobs, there’s only at most a few hundred of those jobs; which means for the vast majority of you there’s not anything to do here within the four walls of the church.” His point was We need to deploy you out in the community to do meaningful work out there based on your gifts. And I think . . . the church’s great opportunity is to unleash the gifts of the people of God for the benefit of the community.

Bock: I couldn’t agree more, and the churches that do this and that lift it up are really, really interesting. I hear all the time, Tim Keller’s church at Redeemer is well-known for, at the beginning of the school year, praying for the teachers. And at a different time, praying for the bankers, praying for the lawyers, praying for the doctors, affirming what a person is doing most of their time.

The way I like to state it is: God has us in our jobs five days a week, eight hours a day, you know, on average. That’s far longer . . . than most people are ever going to be in church. So what is it God has them doing most of the time and who are they rubbing shoulders with? . . . That’s part of the mission and the commission of the church. So how do we as church leaders on the one hand, and how do we as people who are exhorting people who aren’t in full-time Christian work, help them face what God has them doing most of their lives?

Hillman: Well, I would even say one of the things is “Who’s on stage? What are the stories that are being portrayed on stage on a Sunday?” I hear the missionaries, I hear these things. I want to hear the story of . . . a banker and here’s how his Christian worldview is affecting ethical decisions that he’s making. I think we need to have more of those stories, more of those role models.

Bock: That’s a great observation.

Hillman: I think it’s in what we preach. I think it’s in what we teach. I think it’s in what we model with ministry. . . . We get people so busy inside the four walls of the church that they don’t have time to go and do these other things. And so to be able to free up maybe that church schedule a little bit [and] say, “I want you involved in the local community to do those things.”

Beyond this, pastors can communicate tremendous value on a personal level by shifting their ministries so that the congregation is being trained in the Scriptures and equipped with a theology that manifests itself in the vocational work to which the Lord has called them at their current stage in life. For example, beyond talking about God’s perspective on work in the pulpit, Christ Community Pastor Tom Nelson in Kansas City began visiting his members at their places of employment.

Bock: This shift revolutionized how [Nelson] does ministry. When he realized that his goal in ministering to people wasn’t to turn them into Bible students, if I can say it that way—to have them have wonderful Bible knowledge that operates within the church and so they’re interacting and able to survive well in Bible studies. . . . His goal is to equip people for life and give them a theology that shows itself in life.

Theology is designed to help us live life effectively, to have us live life the way we’re designed to live it in whatever station or port that God puts us in. And so when we teach and preach with that in mind, that means that the illustrations aren’t just about what happens in church or not just what happens in the mission field, it’s what happens at the bank, it’s what happens at school, it’s what happens at home. It’s what happens when there’s conflict in the workplace, all those kinds of things.

What happens when you face a difficult ethical choice that your work is putting upon you? The judgments that you make; how you have that conversation with that colleague who may or may not be a believer who’s come to you for help; all kinds of things.

And Tom said it’s just changed the way he did his ministry . . . He started to visit people in their workplaces to see what their life was like on a day-to-day basis; to get to know what it is that they’re facing; to have this person who’s sitting in the pew walk him through his plant and say, “This is what I’m dealing with.”

Hillman: It just communicates so much value to that person.

Bock: Exactly right, and so you look at that and you go, “Man, that’s faith and work working together.”

Believers need more guidance from the church in understanding their giftedness and God’s perspective on using it in their vocational work. How can Christians be more intentional about using their giftedness in the work God has called them to do for this season of life?

Using Giftedness At Work

While there is no perfect position that fits a person’s gifting in every aspect of the job, God has gifted us for many aspects of our vocations—from the projects that energize us to the essential but mundane tasks that allow the more interesting parts to be effective.

Still, we may find ourselves simply looking for or remaining in the best achievable job fit for the current time. In this case, God may be calling us, for a season, to a job that does not require use of our giftedness in many aspects of the job. Hendricks notes that even this may be an element of spiritual formation in the life of a believer: “You never find the perfect job, the perfect fit this side of heaven. That’s okay because that builds your character.” Moreover, the Lord calls each believer to serve him even in the mundane tasks in order to accomplish a worthwhile goal. As Bock notes:

Bock: I do think this other dimension is undervalued—the mundane part. . . . So you do it and you realize, “Yeah, this isn’t the funnest part of what we do.” But you also realize that by investing in it and taking it seriously you actually are helping to accomplish and make better those times when you are doing what you want to do, and you’re making it more effective in doing so. And so it has value and you make the best of it.

I’m sure every stewardess in the world says, “I wish we weren’t mandated to tell people how to fasten their seatbelts on every flight.” I mean, I think about how boring it is for me, imagine for the person who has to say that all day long, every flight they’re on, that’s the thing they’re going to be telling people. And you sit and there and you go . . . “I think I have it bad. Think about the person that has to do this all the time!”

This example reveals an opportunity for a flight attendant to use his or her giftedness even in mundane tasks. When faced with a routine aspect of work, Bock suggests asking if there is a way to express one’s gifting in the way one performs mundane tasks.

Bock: We all know people we’ve met who have very mundane jobs, but they’ve worked hard because of their personality or whatever to make that job seem special. The thing that pops in my mind immediately are some of the stewards that you meet on Southwest Airlines who’ve managed to be very creative. . . . By injecting their giftedness and their creativity and how they go about it, they transform the way in which [a repeated task is] done, and even more interestingly the way in which people perceive it.

Hillman: Their experience of it—

Bock: Yeah. Everyone who’s heard that announcement 600 times is engaged in that particular example because it’s so fresh, and it’s been so personalized. So I think sometimes we think of giftedness as “Where I am,” but sometimes giftedness is thinking about how I’m doing what I’m being asked to do.

In the end, God calls all men and women to use their gifting in a variety of settings, including vocations outside professional Christian ministry. Because of this, the church must seek to communicate the value of human giftedness and help Christians understand the way God has created them.

Whether or not you think of yourself as a gifted person, God has gifted you so that you can use your giftedness to serve Him and your neighbors as you do your daily work. Work—and how you do it—matters. After all, God made us to subdue the earth and care for one another as we do it. We have been gifted for this calling, whether at church, at home, or in business.

Notes

1. Bill Hendricks, The Person Called You (Chicago: Moody, 2014), 194.
2. Ibid., 28.