The High Calling

I was recently invited to participate in a beta preview of a new faith based website called The High Calling. The site is designed to help followers of Jesus Christ bridge the gap between their religion and their work.

Marcus Goodyear was kind enough to send me an invitation. He also asked if I’d be willing to review the site and I am glad to do it, especially when you figure Mark is already an active blogger over at Good Word Editing.

So over the next few days I’ll be writing about the site here. I thought about just doing one long review of the site. But I think it will be better to break it up in smaller chunks. So let’s get started.

Filling a Need

There is definitely a huge need for some serious help in connecting faith with work. There are far too many Christians who lead ineffective lives because they so thoroughly compartmentalize their lives away not realizing that all facets of our lives are interconnected.

As a quick example, my current primary employment is in the maritime industry. As a result I spend a lot of time down on the docks. And since I’m at the mercy of the ships, my schedule is far from 9-5.

Yesterday was Sunday and I had to go out to a ship in the morning. If things went well, the plan was to take care of my business then head out to church. Before I went up to the ship I needed to attend, I stopped by one of the offices to gather some paperwork.

On my way out of the building I ran across another guy I know who is a client of ours. The way he was dressed got my attention. He usually has wears jeans and a polo shirt, which is sort of the unofficial uniform of the management types at the ports. It’s what I usually wear too.

But yesterday this guy had on dress clothes and a tie. Because it was Sunday morning I’m guessing he had a similar plan to mine, only his church doesn’t have as casual a dress code as the one I go to.

What took me back is that I would have never pegged this guy as a church-goer. Often you can tell. Unfortunately too often it is because the person is obnoxious about their religion.

But I’ve had it happen before. There are several rough types I work with and around on the docks that spend most Sunday mornings sitting in a pew somewhere. Then they come back and are exactly the same in the workplace as everyone else. The only way you’d know is if you happened to notice they were dressed differently when they stopped by the office on a Sunday morning.

It made me wonder how I’m perceived out there.

And it is confirmation to me that we need a site like The High Calling.

(I never made it to church yesterday myself, by the way. There were complications when I got to the ship. The Captain was yelling at a government official. Fortunately for all concerned the Captain noticed the guy from Homeland Security had a gun and backed down. But it slowed everything down for me and I missed church. Some days are like that.)

Like I said, over the next few days I’ll be talking specifics about the site and mention both things I like about it, and things they might consider doing even better. If the idea getting better at connecting your faith with your daily work appeals to you, you might consider going ahead and sign up to become a member of TheHighCalling.org .

Continue the Tour

If you are interested in getting more feedback on the High Calling site, check out these folks who are also participating in the tour:

Gordon Atkinson
L. L. Barkat
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang