Skip to main content

Job, Career, or Calling?

Once again this week I am sharing an insight from the FCA Coaches Ministry event in Springfield, Illinois (USA) back on March 11. It pays to hang out with insightful people.

A statement made in passing by that day’s featured presenter, Dr. Jeff Duke, was that some people who work in sport do it as a job, a way to make money. Others have sport as their career, demonstrating sustained excellence across time. Still others treat sport as a calling, having a strong sense of purpose for life. I’d like to develop those thoughts, one at a time.

We all know people for whom sport is their job, nothing more. This surely applies to the player who tolerates practice, travel and all that sport requires. We probably know coaches whose primary interest in sport is the paycheck. This even fits the administrator, vendor, equipment manager, or physio who has a job in sport like they would have a job in a bank, a restaurant, or driving a truck. They measure things like hours, money, and maybe productivity, but nothing deeper than that.

It is likely we know people for whom sport is their career. They have excelled in at least one facet of sport and have found it to be more than just a job. They find it to be fulfilling and more rewarding than just their paycheck. These people tend to work longer hours with less complaint that those who just have jobs. They tend to commit more deeply to the people and to the institutions they serve. They tend to stay longer in the service of one university, high school, club, or team than others. These people measure achievement, long-term relationships, terms of service, and value continuity.

Many of us know, and more of us are, people who live in sport as a calling. We are vocational about sport. We have heard God’s calling to the sporting world and to sporting people. We believe we were uniquely chosen, equipped, placed, and are sustained for life in sport. We trust God with situations and relationships that are beyond what career or job oriented people would ever engage. We measure things like conversations, discipleship relationships, hours of investment in players, teams, coaches, and families. We think in terms of decades, and even generations.

If you have a job in sport, good. Be great at it and it could become a career. If you have a sporting career, I hope it brings you rich fulfillment and reward. If you find your heart desiring even more, you may have a calling. If your calling is to live in sport, you are divinely ruined. Nothing else will satisfy your soul or engage your mind. One can quit a job or make a career change at almost any time. But one cannot quit his or her calling. God will protect His divine investment in your heart until it is fulfilled.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sport Chaplains at the Olympic Games

Today marks the official beginning of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London with the Opening Ceremony this evening. Among the thousands of people in the Olympic Village throughout the event is a collection of our colleagues from around the globe. There are sports chaplains, carefully selected from a wide variety of ethnic, national and sport backgrounds, speaking many different languages and from both genders, who are officially recognized by the London Organizing Committee and provided uniforms and credentials. They work through the Olympic Village’s Religious Services Center and have already been in London for over a week. They will also stay beyond the Olympic Games to serve in the Paralympic Games.   Please pray for these, our colleagues and fellow-servants, as they serve our Lord and the people in sport in these days of exhilarating triumph, painful defeat and even crippling despair. Some of these people were themselves Olympic competitors in past years and are thereby...
1 comment
Read more

Retirement announcement

On 30 May, I will officially retire from my service as Character Coach Director for Nations of Coaches ( https://nationsofcoaches.com/ ), a ministry to college basketball in the USA. The health challenges my wife, Sharon, is experiencing have led to this somewhat abrupt change. At this point in our soon to be 50-years of marriage, she needs me more than I need to work. The spring and summer months will reveal how strongly she will recover and that will determine if and when I can resume some level of ministry. She is my highest priority. I am contemplating making myself available to sports ministry leaders for mentorship, coaching, and consulting. I will provide more details as they become available. In the short term, I am available for chats via telephone or Zoom, if I can be of service to you. Sharon and I are moving from our home in Carbondale, Illinois to an apartment near our son’s family in Southeast Missouri. I plan to continue to produce content via blog posts, Bible studies, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

More Reflections from the Front Lines of a Cancer Battle - Week Four as a Widower.

Week Four as a Widower. Formerly, I had to work hard, schedule well, and plan wisely to achieve some solitude. Now, retired and widowed, solitude surrounds me, all day and all night. I, the incurable and unapologetic extrovert, find myself alone…. a lot. In crowds, alone. At church, alone. Waking up in my bed, absolutely alone. I am not as emotional about my loss as I was a few weeks ago. I am more emotionally numb than anything at this point. I have enough tasks to keep me busy presently, but I know after the sale of the house is closed, the banking is completed, and I return from the Congress in Texas, a lot of open space and unoccupied time awaits me. That is worrisome. I have a number of people with whom I correspond daily. I send one set of folks battling disease scripture and prayer. Another few receive a daily prompt for devotional reading. Dozens of sports chaplains across Latin America receive a link to each day’s post of my devotional book in Spanish, which they in turn share...
1 comment
Read more