Tag Archives: Bethel University

How can I find meaning in my work? A Twin Cities area October mini-conference addresses the question


Faith work t-shirtOne more post related to my faith-and-work activities. The Bethel Work with Purpose initiative team has put a lot of time and care into developing a well-resourced conference on work and vocation. The other day we sent out an invitation to pastors and seminary alumni, and I’d like to extend this invitation to Grateful to the Dead readers too. If this question of how our faith and work lives relate to each other, or questions about finding meaning and “a vocation” in work, engages you, please join us for this “mini-conference.” If you know someone who could benefit from the conference, please let them know:

Greetings,

I write to invite you to join us at MISSION:WORK, a mini-conference for workers and their pastors (seminary.bethel.edu/work-with-purpose), Thursday night, Oct. 10, and Friday morning, Oct. 11.

Recent Barna research shows that young adults of the Millennial generation who have remained active in their churches are three times more likely than those who “dropped out” to say they learned to view their gifts and passions as part of God’s calling (45% versus 17%). They are four times more likely to have learned at church “how the Bible applies to my field or career interests” (29% versus 7%).

The truth is: churches benefit in many ways from equipping their members–especially young adults–for applying their faith to their work. But “most churches,” says Barna president David Kinnaman, “leave this kind of vocation-based outcome largely at the door unless these students show interest in traditional church-based ministry.” Continue reading

Pietism, Calvinism, and vocation – reflections from Bethel’s Chris Gehrz


Chris GehrzPlease, talk among yourselves as we at Bethel University engage in a little love-fest.

My colleague in the College of Arts and Sciences, historian Chris Gehrz, always provides lively insights on his Pietist Schoolman blog. Today, triggered by my post here on the divine value of secular vocation, Chris said some nice things about me on that blog. Then he mused a bit on Pietist (lack of?) contribution to thought about vocation, and some of his favorite sources on the same topic, which happen to be Reformed.

I’m skipping the encomiums (but thanks, Chris!) and moving to the latter part of his post:

Where I talk with students about vocation, I have to admit that I’m drawing chiefly on the Reformed tradition: from the section of John Calvin’s Institutes (on being faithful to one’s divine calling) that is my favorite thing to teach to the first-year students in our Christianity and Western Culture course to theFrederick Buechner sermon on calling that I discuss with our department’s seniors at the end of their capstone seminar. It’s no surprise that, when I started talking about vocation in my initial tenure interview, our then-provost (now-president) chuckled, “For a Pietist, you sure sound like a Calvinist.” Continue reading

Historians at play


See below for some great church-historical posts from this week in cyberspace. There’s more where these came from: my Bethel University colleague Chris Gehrz’s (yes, that’s his smiling mug at right) new blog, The Pietist Schoolman.

Evangelicals at a Crossroad: A Dialogue


Over at Christianity Today’s history blog this week you’ll find Evangelicals at a Crossroad: A Dialogue, in which three Bethel University professors discuss the historic significance and present health of evangelicalism. I’ve clipped the beginning here, then provided the link to read the rest at the CH blog:

This past summer two professors at Bethel University, St Paul, Minnesota and one at sister institution Bethel Seminary (me!) were invited to participate in a recorded dialogue that would become a printed piece in the schools’ magazine. The three of us, guided by questions posed by a moderator, considered where evangelicalism is today and where it may be headed.

By necessity tentative and partial, our wide-ranging conversation nonetheless raised some important issues. When we were done, we had a meaty article, of which (for reasons of space) only a brief portion ended up being printed in the magazine.

Though somewhat longer than our typical blog posting, we offer the full edited article (“never before published,” as the marketing wallahs might say) in hopes that it will spark some conversation among our readers who care about the historical movement called evangelicalism:

Continue reading Evangelicals at a Crossroad: A Dialogue