Vocation
Reed Hallums
Doctor Windham-Hughes
Freshmen Seminar
14 October 2013
Vocation: The Purpose of the Lutheran The idea of a vocation in the truest sense of the word doesn’t often come up in the typical school or workplace. The prevailing idea seems to be to simply get the job done, whether it’s the student doing homework, the teacher teaching, or the executive closing the deal. One’s true vocation however is hardly ever brought up. This is where California Lutheran differs from the majority of both religious and non-religious schools.
California Lutheran’s vocation can be described in three areas: Helping students find their vocation, leading through example, and helping students find and solidify their own religious views. This overarching sense of vocation can even be found on the subgroup levels at CLU. A clear example of vocation at this school is what I’ve been a part of in choir. The “community” of choir shows the distinction, between a career and a job, that Darrell Jodock talks about in “The Third Path”. He says the Lutheran sense of vocation is, “a well dug deep to provide something helpful for the entire community” (2). In choir everyone has a specific job they find enjoyable and helpful to the overall sound. The key difference between career and vocation is purpose: everyone has a specific job they enjoy, the community relies on for function, and the person relies on for purpose. Cal Lutheran seems to a have a sense of vocation based on what was described in the last paragraph. None of the professors are doing what they do just for a job. They try and engage the students as much as possible and make sure you understand the material, as opposed to high school where it seemed like the teachers had to be there for an allotted amount of time and if the students learned, great, but if not, at least they tried. In other words, they got the job done. On the CLU website the overall message is about the student, and nurturing “all the dimensions of a
Doctor Windham-Hughes
Freshmen Seminar
14 October 2013
Vocation: The Purpose of the Lutheran The idea of a vocation in the truest sense of the word doesn’t often come up in the typical school or workplace. The prevailing idea seems to be to simply get the job done, whether it’s the student doing homework, the teacher teaching, or the executive closing the deal. One’s true vocation however is hardly ever brought up. This is where California Lutheran differs from the majority of both religious and non-religious schools.
California Lutheran’s vocation can be described in three areas: Helping students find their vocation, leading through example, and helping students find and solidify their own religious views. This overarching sense of vocation can even be found on the subgroup levels at CLU. A clear example of vocation at this school is what I’ve been a part of in choir. The “community” of choir shows the distinction, between a career and a job, that Darrell Jodock talks about in “The Third Path”. He says the Lutheran sense of vocation is, “a well dug deep to provide something helpful for the entire community” (2). In choir everyone has a specific job they find enjoyable and helpful to the overall sound. The key difference between career and vocation is purpose: everyone has a specific job they enjoy, the community relies on for function, and the person relies on for purpose. Cal Lutheran seems to a have a sense of vocation based on what was described in the last paragraph. None of the professors are doing what they do just for a job. They try and engage the students as much as possible and make sure you understand the material, as opposed to high school where it seemed like the teachers had to be there for an allotted amount of time and if the students learned, great, but if not, at least they tried. In other words, they got the job done. On the CLU website the overall message is about the student, and nurturing “all the dimensions of a
Cited: "Our Lutheran Identity | CLU." Our Lutheran Identity | CLU. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. Jodock, Darrell. "The Third Path: Gustavus Adolphus College and the Lutheran Tradition." Thesis. Gustavus Adolphus College, 2002. Print.