Have you found yourself on an “Advent”-ure as we’ve considered Finding Calcutta? Do you find yourself longing for and waiting upon the coming of the Lord in your life, your neighborhood, your discipline, your campus, your nation, the creation? Do you find yourself, both as an individual and as part of the Body of Christ, stepping into the new heavens and the new earth? When the Caller speaks, whether in the midst of the mundane or the extraordinary, are you embracing the call? [Read more…] about Finding Calcutta: An “Advent”-ure
Mary Poplin
Finding Calcutta: What is My Legacy?
Probes:
- How would you articulate the gulf between a secular legacy, one of the world’s primary measures of a life’s work, and faithful fulfillment of Christian calling?
- How have you received affirmation/fulfillment in the blessing of Christ’s call and following Christ’s call?
Defining legacy
1. Law. a gift of property, especially personal property, as money, by will; a bequest
2. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome – From Dictionary.com.
The world focuses on what can be experienced directly – what is seen. It is a great temptation to make that the measuring stick of our life’s work, our impact on the world. We are called to trust in God with a belief that he is working through us toward what He knows we can and will become eternally.
There is a Christian legacy for those who know and follow God. Abram’s calling shows this in God’s promises (Genesis 12:1-3).
Finding Calcutta: I’m not called to be Mother Teresa, but . . .
 What do you think about . . .
- The nature of calling in the formal work of the church?
- Our need to recognize God’s call and act in faithful response to it:
- in personal actions and obedience?
- in ways modeled by Mother Teresa as recorded by Mary Poplin in Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service (InterVarsity Press. 2008)?
Calling to Formal Ministry with the Church
Mother Teresa’s special calling to start the Missionaries of Charity in ministry to the poorest of the poor took her out of an established school mission when she was 36. She left a formal ministry position to which she had been called and to which she had entered in fully. We have various responses to her ministry, her calling:
- Intimidates
- Inspires
- Models Christ-likeness
- Serves as a witness to a curious, confused and often negative world
The key for each of us is in understanding that we are all called, individually and corporately as part of God’s church. Mother Teresa’s life serves as a model, pointing through her faith and actions to the God who calls us. As Mother Teresa said, “You can do something I cannot do. I can do something you cannot do. Together let us do something beautiful for God.â€
What would Mother Teresa have said in response to those who would say her calling was preferential or special? [Read more…] about Finding Calcutta: I’m not called to be Mother Teresa, but . . .
Finding Calcutta: “call awareness” w/o losing “Caller dependence”
Questions to explore:
- What is the definition of calling?
- What are biblical characteristics of “finding” one’s calling?
- Who comes to mind as examples of biblical characters who “found†their calling?
- What are sins that undermine our calling and we should be prepared to address?
Definitions of Calling
[T]he truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service — Os Guinness. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life Nelson. 1998, 4.
The Christian’s calling is to a life oriented to, sustained by, and expressive of Jesus Christ, the risen and exalted Son of God, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. – T. M. Moore. Dynamic of Spiritual Life (2). The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. 1/25/2011.
As I prepared to teach, I realized the only worldview I was leaving out of my classes was the Christian worldview. I said that if anything in Christianity was true, I was withholding it from my graduate students. I felt like a liar.†– An “anti-definition†from Mary Poplin‘s Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service (InterVarsity Press. 2008,  149).
[Read more…] about Finding Calcutta: “call awareness” w/o losing “Caller dependence”
Finding Calcutta: Find yourself in doing, not criticizing
Questions on the table:
- What are the spiritual principles for our attitude and our actions in pursuing God’s calling?
- How are attitude, action and audience part of our calling?
The Attitude of the Called
Our eyes and our heart should be on our God. Criticism and cynicism do not have a place in our calling.
Mother (Teresa) believed that criticism weakens our will to obey, and that our will is the only thing that God will not take from us. Mother Teresa wrote to her sisters, “It is much easier to conquer a country than to conquer ourselves. Every act of disobedience weakens my spiritual life. It is like a wound letting out every drop of one’s blood. Nothing can cause this havoc in our spiritual life as quickly as disobedience” (Mary Poplin. Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service. InterVarsity Press. 2008, 64).
After the above statement, Mary Poplin presents her insights into the damage rebelliousness caused in her spiritual life. [Read more…] about Finding Calcutta: Find yourself in doing, not criticizing