Called and Equipped

Preface

The Middle Ages had a particular form of torture known as the “rack.” It’s a device on which a person is tied, and at the turn of a crank, they are stretched into submission or confession or whatever the administrator chooses. Today this particular form of torture has evolved into an almost ten-month stint called public-school teaching.

After a welcome-back by your school administrator and a brief visit with your colleagues, you are strapped into staff development, a particularly heinous form of torture that may require large doses of chocolate to remain in some degree of consciousness. The cranking and the stretching begins. How can I possibly go through this again?

Two things are true:
• Teaching is an extremely tough job.
• You just gotta have a sense of humor!

Teaching is not a glamor job. People do not go into teaching to make money. Most people go into teaching because they want to make a difference. They want to touch the future. They want their lives to matter. They feel called.

That, in and of itself, is a noble thing, but too often this call is torpedoed by reality, change, and bureaucracy. Of late, societal pressures of COVID-19, political astigmatism, a strained economy, mental health crises, and even gun violence have piled on more stress so that a career that begins with an honorable calling sometimes sinks into mediocrity, even survival.

Many workers are hopeless, who, having endured cuts after cuts, are doing much more with much less. Left to our own devices, one can endure for only so long, for when hope gets dimmer and dimmer and the negative keeps choking the good, it’s hard to arrive fresh and unburdened each morning to face our charges.

The Christian faith is supposed to be practiced beyond Sunday worship, but often Sunday peace and joy are pushed aside and bullied by the anxiety and stress that is so prevalent in workplaces today. Called and Equipped was born of a need that was inspired by long, frustrating, and harried days as a teacher navigating the rough seas of public school while trying to maintain some semblance of a faithful Christian in practice.

The enemy is not intent. Most people know the value of study, meditation, and prayer when it comes to strengthening faith. The enemy is time. Carving out a quiet time during a hectic day for reading and contemplation amid the avalanche of the urgent is the hard part.

While this study was written from a teacher’s perspective, non-teachers have taken the study and have found it to be very easy to apply the principles to their work as well. Everyone has been in a classroom so they can relate to this study and transfer learning to their unique work situation.

Called and Equipped can certainly be a self-study, a go-at-your-own-pace study, but just as worship is enhanced by other believers at church, this study can be more effective when a group of coworkers meet together to discuss and personalize the study. The Bible is all about relationships—first with God and then with other people. Everyone brings to the table a different perspective, so it’s good to bounce faith concepts off one another as well. How can these ideas work for my life and our work situation?

While the study was originally designed as a six-week study with five readings per week and then meeting together to discuss that week’s reading, it has also been done as a “no homework” study, where everyone comes together and reads through one day’s reading and discusses it. As participants become familiar with the rhythm of the study, reading can be done outside of the meeting time, and the pace can be picked up if desired.

The intent is to be “user friendly” to participants while growing a cadre of Christian believers in a work setting to encourage one another. It doesn’t take much salt to season a dish. Even a small group of Christians coworkers can flavor a workplace climate and make a job much more palatable.

When you meet, be sure to begin the session by asking God’s Holy Spirit to bless and guide your time together. As you discuss questions or comments concerning the material, make sure it is a safe space for everyone. At the end of the session, prayer requests could be raised as the group closes in prayer.

Finally, expect God to work in your life. Expect to begin to see things just a little differently. Be open to change as God leads you.
Dealing with the public has become exhausting. Even when you are a Christian, it is hard, but Christ made promises to His faithful. Matthew 11:28–30 says,

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

If our Christian faith won’t work for us in the classroom or in our workplace, it won’t work anywhere, and Christ is crucified all over again. As we grieve and wring our hands about the death of our dreams, we can open our eyes to see Jesus—resurrected—alive and well. Our bitterness and loss can turn to joy. Our careers can be enriched.

You who feel harried and burdened, come. Come see how God called ordinary folks like you and transformed them into so much more than they could ever ask or imagine. There is one Master Teacher, and He wants to mentor you and be your coworker. He is calling you. Will you come and let Him equip you?