What Is My Calling as a Christian?

What you do for work is not your calling.

Oftentimes, we confuse our calling with what we do to get paid—with that perfect job or that ideal career. But what if I were to tell you that your primary calling is not what you do to get paid? But that it’s actually something that transcends what you do to get a paycheck?

If you’re a pastor or church leader, there was a point in time (and in some contexts you might be still working on it) where the main goal was to help your church understand the Reformation doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers.”

I believe that today we need to make an even further shift: from priest to missionary.

It’s one thing to help our church members understand that they are the church and that it’s the role of the pastor to equip the saints to do the work of ministry, rather than do it for them (Eph. 4:11–12). So in this sense, every member is a minister or every member is a priest. And in this way, the concept of doing ministry is often seen as an internal matter of caring for the flock, and helping them mature.

But today, in order to reach the nations, we must move beyond priesthood and call people to see themselves as missionaries—the “sent out” ones.

Just imagine if everyone in your church saw their primary calling as being missionaries—wherever they live, work, and play—and their secondary calling as being whatever they do to make a paycheck?

I’m not talking about training up overseas missionaries here. Nor am I advocating that you ask everyone to quit their job and become full-time local pastors.

I’m using the word missionary as a noun referring to people who see their primary calling as being sent on God’s mission, rather than their own.

I’m specifically talking about helping ordinary people understand that all of their life is about mission.

This starts by helping others understand that their first and foremost calling is to go and make disciples of all nations, while getting a paycheck from their employer.

In other words, every plumber, poet, pastor, and police officer in your church has the same calling—to go and make disciples. This is our missionary mandate as the church! We are all sent and on mission with God wherever we are and in whatever we do for a living (John 20:21). And this precisely is our primary calling.

When a church focuses on developing disciples with a missionary mindset, they are not just pushing their pet peeve or peddling some “trend.” Instead, they are starting from a biblical foundation of the nature and purpose of the church, rather than a cheat sheet of the latest models and strategies.

*This was a modified excerpt from my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry.