Vocation vs Job revisited

An extract from a post by Bob Hyatt in the Out of Ur blog, again on the topic of where 'job' ends and 'vocation' begins - or vice versa.

First, as always, I need more fully to embrace the Gospel at a personal level. My failure at turning off ministry and making true rest a part of my weekly rhythms reveals within me a basic disbelief of the Gospel truth that Jesus is enough and that my identity can and should be rooted in his finished work for me--not the results I get, the church I pastor , how well (or poorly) it’s doing, or whether I think people are approving or disapproving of me based on the amount of access I give them to myself and my time. The only way we pastors will ever find sustainability and longevity in ministry is if we do what we tell other people to do ALL THE TIME: Rest our souls in the finished work of Christ. Stop getting our identity from our job/ministry. Take some time to unplug, unwind and, more importantly, connect with God, our families and our own souls again.

Video-venues

The celebrity church must die. And doing anything—like video venues—that prolongs its life, even in the name of the lost, runs counter to the best interests of the Church in all its expressions, big and small, and its mandate to see more people not only reached, but gifted, trained, and sent.

So says Bob Hyatt, whose church has moved from pub to pub in Southwest Portland as its outgrown each venue. As he writes, We are the church on a pub crawl.

In his article on 'Out of Ur' he speaks against churches that are going multi-site in the sense of having one preacher in one location being videoed to several other locations. Closeness of congregation, and interactivity, are for him the keynotes. Check out the rest of the article here.

Bob Hyatt is a father of three, leading pastor of the Evergreen Community (Portland, Oregon) and a church planter with a passion for helping other planters. He blogs at bobhyatt.typepad.com and runs PastorHacks.com. He also edits the online e-zine, Next-Wave.org.