There is an article in the NY Times today by an interviewer from Harvard. He writes of the many young students and their families who come to his home for an alumni interview. He is gracious to them, admires their work, and lets them leave knowing that they will never get it. Harvard has gotten so selective that only one of his forty interviews has made it into the class over the years.
The article made my throat tight, because thirty five years ago, I was that student. We drove to a home in a rich area of Binghamton, were received into an elegant hall with a grand piano standing nearby, and I tried to turn my standing in the top 3% of my class into an entrance into Harvard.
High school is a time that you can dream anything. I know that not all of you had a happy high school experience. But for many, there is top standing in sports, clubs to be president of, class newspapers and yearbook where you can write or be in production, plays to have a role or run the sound board. The encouragement of teachers allows you to experiment and think of any possibility.
Like the girl in this week’s Harvard interview, at some point after high school ends, the first limits on your dreams appear. My son’s math teacher told us at graduation that no graduate of Grover Cleveland should try to go to college. That teacher took a happy occasion and almost made a tragedy of it. I’m happy to report that my son went on to college and graduated and even has part of a Masters in Ancient Chinese Art.
The plan that God has for your life is that you should have great joy exploring how God has made you and that you would gain insight into the home runs that God has planned for your life. God has some tasks set aside that only you can accomplish.
For many people here, you have set aside your dreams. Either a negative interview for the college you wanted or the disdainful comment of a teacher or a failed exam convinced you to close those windows of opportunity. I want to look with you this morning at how people get stuck without a sense of vocation in life. This is the third in a series on basics of Christian life. 101 was getting a daily relationship with God. 201 was getting started in a church and Christian fellowship. 301 today is finding a sense of vocation that God is going to use your life meaningfully and richly.
When we post for jobs opportunities, literally hundreds of resumes pour in. Each resume gets about 10 seconds of attention to see if it is worth reading. We get so many resumes that I finally wrote a paper called 10 reasons to immediately stop reading to help us deal with the mass of paper coming in. Our number one is no sexual email addresses. If your email is sexualfavors at yahoo.com, get another one called Mr.Smith at yahoo.com for applications. I can give you the rest of the list if you’re interested.
The point is that we don’t get 200 qualified resumes and have to choose one. The tragedy is that we get 150 from people who are lost in life and we’re lucky to get 10 that look right for an interview.
If God has given you gifts, then how do you determine your gifts and how God may use them. The message today is simply a practical working out of our theology that God has gifted each of us uniquely so that the human family works together in an intricate and beautiful way. I want to look at some common problems that we have finding and using our gifts.
The first is depression. You may say pastor, if I had a job I loved, I wouldn’t be depressed. It is a chicken and egg argument, but it is very hard to see who you are when you’re in pain. Dale Galloway is a pastor and I appreciate his comment when he says that you have to have the emotional and spiritual strength for whatever you are trying to do. If you are depressed, then you should be in one of our adult disciple groups, you should be in church weekly, and you should have a prayer partner. The church can help you get emotional support. We really can. I will help you. You have to start where you are.
The second problem is people with only one gift. God has made some of us with a generous mixture of gifts but we’re not that great at any one thing. But if God gives you a lot of one gift, then you are unlikely to have much of anything else. Billy Graham is an example of that. I have always been interested in his life. He is handsome, has a great voice, and has a gift of preaching. That seems to be about it. His wife reports that he forgot one of the children’s names when returning from a trip so he doesn’t seem to have the gift of family. I used to know his staff and they commented that he is disorganized and other staff members schedule his day. He just obeys.
Billy Graham has a healthy organization. He uses his gift and they use theirs. But if you only have one gift and you haven’t found your organization yet, you are in trouble. Often times, people with one gift don’t find job satisfaction until they’re forty years old. And a lot of people give up and take a job that wrecks their soul because they conclude that there is no need for them in society. Two ways you can get support are to look for a volunteer opportunity that uses your gift and a second is to start a Bible study and job support group here and we have a monthly meeting of small group leaders to help you do that.
The third problem is a lot of gifts looking for a team. Many people who are multiply gifted are not leaders. They are people with a lot of assets hoping that someone will call on them. They have the competencies but they like to have someone else in charge, organizing the basic project and keeping it on track after it starts.
And a final problem is people who have such complex gifts that they cannot easily identify them. If you have not had a good early childhood experience, or if you are a high F on the Myers Briggs scale, or if you have an unusual and complex gift, it is going to take a while in the learning lab of a healthy church to get your gift working.
One of the most helpful experiences for me was to take the Myers Briggs profile that you see mentioned in your bulletin. The web site explain that more. I was in Nyack New York, taking the test in a car on the way to the airport. And it was like a flashlight coming on to give me confidence to keep moving forward.
And what does this all mean for our church. We need some organizers. I say more and more that organizing our ministry has to happen with my cooperation but it will not happen through me. Friends, our church has founded a school which is still taking energy from me. We are in a difficult relationship with the Spanish and Chinese congregations which takes more energy. I want you organizers to come to me. I want committee chairs to take a more aggressive role in calling people for meetings. What I can offer is coaching and our monthly meetings for leaders, Sunday school teachers, nominations committee, and disciple group leaders will keep us communicating and supporting the growth.
This message is foundational for Christian life. But I hope that God has called people here specifically to deeper consideration of our church and the role God may be calling you to fulfill.
