Thanks to Jenna for getting my butt off the blogger bench.

Today I spent almost the whole day doing some of my favorite things: traveling and networking.  My little dirty secret:  I actually LIKE public transit – it gives me great delight in playing the game of transferring buses, deciphering train map puzzles, and timing the whole thing just right.  Today I took Pace Bus 250 all the way from one end of the route to the other – all the way to O’Hare Airport’s Kiss n’ Fly.  The bus driver looked at me a bit suspiciously as I looked longingly into his eyes…

From there, I met Dave Rudin, who is pastor at Summit View Christian Church in Hoffman Estates, and we carpooled it the rest of the way.

It’s amazing how church planters are really most interested in the same things.  They are interested in how to bring someone in desperate need of Jesus to a place where they are ready to follow him, and grow them even beyond that to the point where they are a mature believer helping others come to know Christ.  This process of reproducing disciples is the heart of what church planting is all about.  In fact, most of my interactions with the term “church planting” have left me somewhat wanting, since Jesus never asks us to “go into all the world and plant churches” – but rather make disciples.

Today’s group conversation however centered around our own discipleship.  The process of spiritual formation and personal growth is a favorite topic of mine – especially when talking like this in groups.  It’s inevitable that people will start throwing resources and new ideas around, and I’ll start writing them down like a crazy person.

Speaking of sweet resources: check out 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller, and this sweet quote by Kahlil Gibran:

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,

it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple

and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread

that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,

your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,

you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

All work is empty save when there is love;

and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,

and to one another, and to God.

What is it that gets your heart racing – that makes the time fly by?  If you’re only working for the money, chances are good you won’t last long in the job.  If you just put your resume out there and hope someone bites, chances are good you’ll hate your job just like the rest of America.  But if you discover your calling – your vocation – and can think of some way in which your job fits into the higher calling, then even cleaning toliets or sweeping floors can be genuine work and worship to God!  May we all find our calling, and enjoy the work God has brought us to.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 7:03 am and is filed under Blogosphere, Christian Leadership, Day Job, Money, Quotes, Resources, Trust. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.