A social imaginary, as described in Desiring the Kingdom, is the myths and narratives, stories and understandings we tell ourselves that form how we view the world. A prevalent one that we have in our culture is ‘I deserve what I have because I worked hard for this.” “I have found that the poorer…
Posts By
Caris Adel
How Does Vocation Impact Our Places of Work?
What makes a business ‘Christian’? Is it merely slapping a Jesus label on it? ‘A place where Christ is modeled, not preached’? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing all the time, anyway? Or is it a business that tries to align itself with kingdom values, even if the name Jesus isn’t front…
Is It Who You Are, Or Just What You Do?
We can’t have healthy, Jesus-based discussions on identity and vocation, roles and purposes, until we admit what it is that Jesus has really called us to do. There is a myth we cling to that blinds us to who we are: “People get their worth and identity from their job.” And the church, which…
What Does Christian Vocation Look Like?
“Therefore, restoring identity and recovering vocation must be the focus of a biblical understanding of human transformation.” (WWP) If our vocation is to be working for the kingdom by loving God and loving others, what exactly does that look like? What does it mean to love something, someone? What does it mean to love…
Being an Image of God
My goal for this series is to explore the ideas of identity and vocation and how they can apply to our lives. All of this discussion and the opinions coming out of it are held very loosely, but because these are such important topics, it’s worth wrestling with them a bit. For example, when…
Identity and Vocation, Defined
What is identity? What’s vocation? Why are they important? When you do figure out a definition, how does it affect your life? I’m going to spend the rest of the month digging into Identity and Vocation, and what it means for us. A lot of the ideas for this series come from Walking with…
2013 Book List
These are the books I’d like to read this year. I’ve never made a specific list like this before. This list is dependent on being able to inter-library loan most of these, my changing moods, and varying interests as the year progresses. Nonetheless, this is a good guide for me instead of just choosing books willy-nilly like…
One Word 365
I’ve been pretty open about my name being a pseudonym. As I think about 2013 and picking my one word, I wondered. Can I somehow learn to merge my deep, idealistic thoughts and wonderings with my daily-interacting-with-real-people life?
What I’m Into – December 2012
Books Gosh, what have I been reading? It’s all kind of a blur with Christmas. Let’s see. I read a slightly cheesy Christian fiction novel, The Trouble with Cowboys. And then I skim-read Coming Home, a finale book for the Baxter Family, by Karen Kingsbury. I can’t stand her writing anymore, but I love…
Finding God in the Rituals
She said God is not in that church. They say they don’t understand the standing and sitting, the rote prayers, a service that is emotionless and meaningless. They say that God transforms through people, not ’empty religious rules and rituals’. And they built a church on that premise, and for many other reasons, I…