I had a student named Mary.
She was in my Introduction to Life Calling class — a course I taught to high school juniors to help them enter their college search with a framework for calling instead of the alternative (which is pretty much just the way of the world - money, career, prestige). Mary was bright, thoughtful, had a strong faith.
And she refused to engage.
She drove me crazy. Mostly because, in retrospect, she reminded me of myself at 17. (The people most like us tend to do that.)
The curriculum was genuinely good. It came from a Christian university with a Center for Life Calling — serious researchers who discovered their incoming freshmen had no framework for calling and wanted to change that. They built a tool around three overlapping circles: God’s mission, your unique design, and your purpose in the world. Find the sweet spot where all three overlap. That’s your calling.
Helpful? Absolutely. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something significant was missing — not just from the curriculum, but from the assumptions underneath it.
One day I finally confronted Mary. Why wasn’t she engaging?
She said something like: “When I want to find out where God is leading me, I’m going to ask God.”
I heard it. I didn’t ponder it. It didn’t fit the model.
But she was onto something I wouldn’t fully understand for years.
Here’s the gap I eventually identified: the Venn diagram approach — as helpful as it is — doesn’t actually require a living relationship with God. You can do personality assessments, gifts inventories, strength profiles. You can study Scripture, map your experiences, find your sweet spot. And you might end up with something that feels like calling.
But the whole process assumes calling is primarily a data problem. Gather enough information from the Bible, combine it with information about yourself, apply it to your options, and land in the “right" place”.
Mary’s gut said otherwise. So did mine.
Where was the dynamic element? The assumption that God is still speaking? The mystery? The relationship?
A few years ago, I was cast in a supporting role in a feature film.
Four days on a movie set — acting in scenes, inhabiting a character, working alongside other actors. And something clicked. Not that I was called to be an actor. But the way we were working together, the mindset of the whole thing — it aligned perfectly with what I’d been trying to articulate about calling for years.
That’s where Live Called was born.
Here’s what the movie set gave me: What if calling is less like a puzzle to solve and more like the relational partnership between an actor and a director?
The actor didn’t write the story. Doesn’t direct it. But the actor has said yes — yes to entering the story, yes to submitting to the director’s authority, yes to the collaboration.
The actor’s job isn’t to figure out the plot. It’s to learn the character, understand how their part moves the story forward, and do that in ongoing partnership with the director — who has insight and ownership the actor simply can’t have alone.
The best actors — the ones holding little golden statues — are the ones who dive headlong into that process. Trusting the director. Collaborating with the other actors. Committed primarily not to their own performance, but to telling the story well.
That’s the shift Live Called is built on.
Not finding your calling — but living a called life.
Every day. In a story God is already writing, that you’ve already been cast in (if you’ve said yes to Jesus), under the direction of a Director who knows the whole script.
Your part includes big decisions (where to live, what work to do, what to study) and small ones (how you respond, who you notice, what you say today). All of it moves the story forward. All of it matters.
And here’s the thing Mary already knew at 17: you don’t figure this out simply by filling out assessments and finding the “sweet spot.” You figure it out — or better, you live it out — in relationship with the Director.
Not a puzzle to solve. A partnership to develop.
That’s what we’re here to explore together.
(This is where it all started — if you’re new, welcome to the story.)
