Peculiar at Work

I think most Christians feel their Christian peculiarity the most in their workplaces. Work gives us a place and a long period of time where we form connections with non-Christians; it’s where others notice our peculiarity. Some of our students have part-time work, and many of them start to notice their own peculiarity there.  Do we cherish this peculiarity, or do we feel the temptation to conform to a different story and a different people?

This November, we are looking closely at peculiarity in the workplace. On November 21, we will have our Pursuit of a Calling day, where students consider different career opportunities for themselves. Our assembly this week was on the topic of “Peculiar
in Work”. This assembly was different than most. We started with a brief review of a Biblical foundation for work and questions to work through when considering a vocation, and then we had a panel of guests with a variety of experiences of peculiarity in the workplace.

We’re very thankful that Kim Pennings (DSW), Rik Haklander (mechanic), Calvin Schouten (business owner), and Phil Dekker (engineer) agreed to sit on our panel and take questions from our students through a moderator.

It was a powerful assembly. We are thankful for the honest responses and the shared thoughts from each panellist. They took questions about the challenges of being a Christian at work, how being a Christian impacted their choice of work, and how others
respond to their faith. They also were able to share the joys of peculiarity in the workplace, and even the benefits. Students and staff appreciated the very practical nature of this assembly, and we look forward to future discussions and reflections from this
assembly in the week(s) to come.

Thanks, again, to our panellists, for taking time out of their work schedules to join us for the assembly. You were a blessing! MVD