Test-driving your vocation: Acting on the whispers of vocational calling
GROWING BEYOND THE DOORS
By Rev. Canon Grayhame Bowcott
ARE THERE days when you feel like you are being called by God to try something new? Gentle nudges in your life that might spotlight the invitation to leadership roles in the church? Or perhaps a desire to dig into a new learning opportunity, to explore theological studies, or discern where God might be calling you in life?
These are examples of questions that have been inspiring Anglican leaders and learners from across Canada to recently decide that now is the time for them to answer their calling to ministry.
For many, God’s call to step into their vocation has been whispering to them for years, but life always has a tendency of filling up our days, our to-do lists, and our anxieties. But here’s the thing with a vocational calling, it usually doesn’t go away when we ignore it. The longing to live into God’s direction in our lives, unlocking our personal gifts with learning, mentorship and the opportunity to put them into service to God and others, is something that will resonate deep inside us.
There is a reason why I am an Anglican priest today. It was about 24 years ago that I was attending my grandmother’s church, (St. Anne’s in Byron, London), when the Anglican priest at the time, The Rev. Peter Wickerson, asked me a question that completely changed the way that I approached the question of Christian vocation. At the time, I was a young man in search of meaning in my life. I was employed, unhappily, as a realtor, and I was spending all my waking hours working my butt off to try to save money for a wedding proposal, and a future life with my fiancé.
I will always be grateful to Rev. Wickerson for recognizing in me a longing to step closer in my faith, but at that time in my life I was finding every single excuse to avoid exploring my vocational call. Peter asked me the most profound of questions, the one question that changed everything:
“Grayhame, if you weren’t working so hard to pay the bills, to impress your fiancé, and to earn the respect of others; if you could set all of those expectations aside for a moment, what would you do instead? What do you think God would want you to do?”
I had never thought about life that way before. About a life that wasn’t being dictated by all the external pressures and expectations, but instead, approaching life by praying over where God was calling me to be myself and to trust that God saw potential within me that I couldn’t even see for myself.
Reverend Wickerson continued by saying that he had a hunch about me. If I wanted to act on that hunch, he promised to do two things: 1) to pray for me; and 2) to connect me to his friend at Huron College, Dr. John Chapman (Huron’s Dean of Theology at the time). Prior to Peter’s intervention, I could not imagine a life where I had the freedom to live out my vocational call. It’s for this reason that I will always be indebted to Peter, and to God, for unlocking it for me.
Vocation is central to our identity as Christians. While it may take years or even decades for a vocational call to grow in us, sometimes the best way of discerning God’s will in our lives is to “try on” a new learning experience or opportunity.
One of the real joys of my own personal ministry, through my role as the Program Director of Huron University’s Licentiate in Theology Program, is the opportunity that I have, every week, of listening to future students who are asking vocational questions in their lives and wondering: is now the time to act on them?
There are some common doubts that arise in my conversations with these seekers. Doubts such as: Why would God call someone like me? Maybe God is looking for someone else? Isn’t theological study for ‘special people’? And maybe I’m too busy to do this? My response to each of these questions is: why don’t you take your vocation for a test drive?
This question has literally had potential students burst out in laughter! Test-driving our vocational call might seem like a refreshingly new approach to understanding our Christian identity. How do we know if God is calling us to something new, if we don’t act on it? However, the idea of a vocational test-drive isn’t new at all. Reverend Wickerson understood this, and I hope, in sharing this article with you, a few more people might come to understand it too!
If you are ever interested in having a conversation about exploring your Christian vocation, or if you are seeking a safe pair of ears with a prayer (or two), you are most welcome to send me an email any time: grayhame.bowcott@huron.uwo.ca
Rev. Canon Dr. Grayhame Bowcott is passionate about fostering congregational relationships and sharing our Anglican vocation with others. He serves as Rector of St. George’s, The Parish of The Blue Mountains, and as Program Director for the Licentiate in Theology program at Huron University.