"Finding our vocation [calling] is not just 'finding my lifework,' or even 'finding what God wants me to do' …Finding our vocation is largely a matter of finding where God is, the God who hides in our neighbors, in ourselves, and in [the] world. Once we notice the Hidden God … in families, the workplace, the community, and the church—and when we realize the part we play in [God's] design—we have found our vocation." Gene Edward Veith, God at Work

"The act of weaving is spiritual leadership." Jim Kitchens

"Jesus is in the legislature where I am called to serve. If he were not there, I should not be there either." Byron Rushing

"Don't knock down people's props without providing a new structure for them to fall on." Craig Dykstra, Pastoral Excellence Conference

"How people live is the real measure of effectiveness of a congregation." Hendrick Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity

"[…founders of America's first and most prestigious business schools] intended not only to standardize the production of managers for the nation's corporations but also to professionalize the occupation of management itself. If they had succeeded, managers might have come to play a role in the business-dominated society of the twentieth century analogous to the role of the clergy in pre-industrial America." Harvard Business Review 82, no. 2 (February 2004); 14

Shortly after it was formed in 1948, the World Council of Churches put heavy emphasis on engaging all baptized people in the ministry of the church. The intent was to create a world wide community morally equipped to prevent the institutional evil and atrocities witnessed in World War II. Addressing the Council in 1994, Conrad Razor noted that the laity had almost disappeared from ecumenical discussions, but in the previous generation, empowering the laity was THE ecumenical agenda.

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