It was the summer after my first year of seminary, and I was finishing up one of my required internships. I was sitting at the kitchen table of a retired pastor, Rufus, who had a long and storied career, pastoring several strong churches and serving as the director of the Methodist Home for Children in North Carolina. Rufus became a great conversation partner as I wrestled with my call and vocation that summer. 

On that day, Rufus summoned me to lunch to give me a last piece of advice. “I think you’re a good preacher. I think you’ll be a capable leader. What I would tell you is that Jesus is going to lead you into some unlikely spots. I found that when I followed Jesus where I didn’t think I should go – like the Methodist Home for Children – good things happened.” 

I’ve heard that advice both before and since. It usually accompanied a pastor’s tales of weird events that have happened within their congregation. I’ve heard it countless times from bishops justifying an appointment, both as an encouragement and as a defense. But Rufus seemed to be emphasizing something different. It was not just a blanket, “Oh, you’ll have some crazy stories.” There was something else. 

Rufus’s advice has come to mind as I’ve spent time thinking about vocation. I am beginning to think that our understanding of vocation is too narrow. We are conditioned to think about vocation as career. To be a pastor means to have a career in a church-related entity: the local church, denominational agencies, pastoral settings. But work and career are not necessarily interchangeable terms.

I am an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, which means that I am ordained to the fourfold work of word, sacrament, order, and service. My vocation – my calling – is to that work. My career, I’ve discovered, is simply a vehicle for doing that work. 

I have an unlikely ministerial appointment. I work in a college of dentistry at a public university as the director of strategic initiatives. The single largest component of my work is managing a massive statewide initiative to expand access to oral health care in rural parts of the state. On a given day, I might meet with government agencies, chair a taskforce on infection control, develop strategic partnerships, or walk through the construction site of a new clinic on the other end of the state. It is fun and fulfilling work, and I am not sure that I would get to work on projects of this scale in most church settings or even in denominational agencies. I also have other responsibilities, even if they are not formalized. It’s common for colleagues to come to my office to talk through ethical questions about big systems issues. I’ll grab lunch or coffee with a colleague who wants to talk about a difficult subject. These are extensions, I think, of my pastoral identity. 

On the side, I hold a consulting position at a small Presbyterian college, where I teach cohorts of rural clergy and serve as a thought partner for the program’s director. The college has become a theological homebase for me, giving me a space from which to work with other congregations and theological partners. 

A question that I often get is, “So which do you consider your ministry?” The reality is that both roles fill important spaces in my understanding of my ministry. My work at the Presbyterian college gives me space to write and teach, to work with rural and small membership churches, while also supporting the pastors who work in them. And, I put what I learn in those spaces into conversation from the myriad lessons I learn from working in a college of dentistry. Much of my writing and teaching is a result of that conversation. In short, my vocation is a collection of the whole. In my understanding of myself, my work is theological, even if my career is not. 

I’ve noticed that when we talk about the vocation of being clergy, we are often talking about the career of being a church staff-member. But I would offer that we are not ordained for a career. We are set aside for work. For most clergy, it is probably true that their vocations will be lived out in service to a local church or denominational agency, as a chaplain, or some other traditionally understood clergy role. That is good and worth celebrating. But it is not the only expression of the ordained vocation.

In a world where the church has an increasingly diminished societal role, we should be careful to separate the distinction between work and career. Each year, when I submit my reports to my Annual Conference, I think about the work of being an elder. I spend some time reflecting on how I’ve lived out my calling to word, sacrament, order, and service. I reflect on how it looks much different than I anticipated when I was ordained. Yet, it is still my calling. 

When Rufus gave me his advice – just follow Jesus, even if it’s not where you think you should go – I think this is what Rufus was telling me, though I could not understand it then. Rufus was reminding me that Jesus might call us to broaden our understanding of vocation. That the church, and those of us who dedicate our lives to the church, might need to reorient our understanding of the call of ministry. That we should not confuse the career of ministry for the work of ministry, even if they are often linked together. 

Vocation is too important to be confined and limited. Calling is too sacred to be kept in a box. In an age where we’re constantly called to rethink the role of church, perhaps reorienting our understanding of vocation can give us the courage to follow Jesus wherever he leads. Even if we don’t think it’s our destination.