Live Your Calling

Kevin and Marie Brennfleck, Live Your Calling: A Practical Guide to Finding and Fulfilling Your Mission in Life. Jossey-Bass, 2005. 277 pages. ISBN 0-7879-6895-1.

Kevin and Marie Brennfleck's Live Your Calling is a practical handbook on discovering your interests, goals, values, passions, gifts and talents and living out your mission in life. Kevin and Kay Marie Brennfleck are specialists in helping people identify their giftedness and find their purpose in life. They are National Certified Counselors and National Certified Career Counselors. This book was helpful to me in better understanding my own calling in life. The authors lead the reader through some different exercises to fill out their own Life Calling Map.

Live Your Calling is divided into six parts. The first two chapters provide an overview of the book. In chapter one the authors discuss God's general calling and individual calling. Our primary calling is to follow Christ. Our work, or vocational calling, is one of our secondary callings. The authors note, "Your vocational calling is a summons from God to use your gifts in the world, whether it be within paid employment, the home, or volunteer activities" (7). Chapter two describes "Life Calling Compass" principles. The first principle is to "keep our primary calling primary." The primary calling is our relationship with God. The second principle is to "use our gifts to meet needs in the world" (15). The last principle is "God calls us to proactive stewardship of our gifts" (17).  To be faithful stewards of our gifts we must cultivate and exercise our gifts. Another point made in the chapter is that vocational calling is a "lifelong journey."

Part two begins the process of completing six inventories to identify the important parts of how God created you: "your most-enjoyed skills, core values, preferred roles, personality traits, compelling interests, and spiritual gifts" (xiii). When you finish these inventories you will transfer the results to your Life Calling Map. The authors include examples of other Life Calling Maps and provides hints in filling out your map. The last part discusses obstacles to living your mission. Some of these are fear, money, business, negative thinking, hurts from the past. Each chapter includes methods or strategies for overcoming these obstacles.

Living Your Calling is an excellent handbook for discovering your own calling. It is practical and easy to understand. This book is recommended to anyone who desires to discover their own mission in life.