Vocation and Story

Discerning the body: Recentering Christian community in the vocational formation of university undergraduates

“…The current conditions of the global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and political polarization heighten awareness of what has always been true: universities have powerful, if sometimes missed, opportunities to help students envision their life’s trajectory in a manner that can accommodate the limitations, vicissitudes, and obstacles (as well as opportunities and gifts) that will inevitably occur along students’ vocational journeys (Cavanaugh, 2016: 44). Thus, our final recommendation looks to the rituals of transition that universities employ or might consider as opportunities for “discerning the body.” Such rituals create generative spaces where students might imagine their futures within the “framing narrative” of the pattern of Christ, defined by both the calling to sacrificial love and the hope in the resurrection (Henry, 2016: 172). These community rituals can also build on the strength of both a university mission statement (ACU, n.d.) and the Evangelical culture of commitment to the mission of the church (Smith, 1998: 36–47, 59–61).…”