Within the wider landscape of ‘faith at work’, calling can help us consider which work we do as well as the way that we do it.

Gill Frigerio, a career development coach and educator working at the University of Warwick, will lead us in a day, with on- and off-line space, to consider the issues of calling and career from a perspective of Ministry in Secular Employment. The day will include input from Gill, small and whole group discussion and activities to enable us all to consider the role of calling in our own and other peoples’ working lives. There will be time for a reflective activity away from the screen as well as some which we are guided through as a group – and some social time afterwards! Gill is currently working on a Doctorate in Education, conducting action research looking at career and calling for Christians at work. She hopes that attendees might agree to her using their reflections during the day to contribute anonymously to her research. But if you would rather not do this, that is no barrier to full participation.

She is a lay Anglican, with a commitment to MSE, and also works as a Spiritual Director, discernment adviser and is on the national Setting God’s People Free advisory group.

Structure of the Day

Session 1 Career and Calling (and its MSE relevance)

Gill will provide an orienting introduction to the day and lead us in discussion of how ‘career’ as a concept can be understood, drawing on recent past, contemporary contexts and looking to the near future. To help us do this we will draw on some consideration of a key transition point in our own work and educational journey, and discuss the things that influenced us.

Session 2 Calling or Falling

How does the career development world use the idea of vocation and calling?In this session Gill will present some of the main ways in which careers work embraces the idea of calling and we will discuss how useful that is for the majority of working lives, with some activities to try or review.

Session 3 Call me

Following an introduction we will each go away to work in quiet with reflections on our own experience of calling and a discernment exercise.

Leading into a break for lunch; followed by a discussion in pairs of that reflective exercise.

Session 4 Calling all the people Coming back to a full group, here we will relate what we have discussed to our own working lives and ministry and see how we can bring in theological understandings of calling and work.

Session 5 Calling, work and mission

Transforming working lives. We will bring together the themes of the day to consider how calling and career can invigorate our mission. What does this mean for our own calling, and for the mission of the whole of God’s people?

Followed at 17.00 by a “Meet in the ‘bar’!” for those who would like to stay on for a social time at the end of the day.

LINK to the event (in Zoom) will be emailed to signed up participants a few days in advance of 13 February.