I was invited recently to reflect upon the past 20 years of my career and my calling, as I see it, as a Christian working within early childhood.
In 2003, my church ran a Kaleo course, which encouraged us to discover our calling and respond to God’s direction in our lives and ministry. (Kaleo course is accredited to Rev. Barry Brown, Golden Gate Community, San Francisco, California.) This course, completely changed my outlook about work!
I had recently left teaching and had just begun working with Private, Voluntary and Independent settings as an Area SENCo and advisory teacher in North Somerset. I had loved teaching reception children, but as teaching was something I fell into, having not really thought of anything else I could do with my life, I hadn’t really seen it as God’s work!
The course encouraged us to think about what God calls us to and how he calls us. We were invited to think about our passions, skills and gifts and before we attended the course we asked two trusted people to consider what they thought our gifts were. I asked my parents and my sister. Their comments really encouraged me as they highlighted my strengths and areas that I could serve God with. I acknowledged that in addition to wanting my own family one day, I was passionate about changing children’s lives for the better and supporting families. I was also very passionate about young children’s learning and teaching and was able to see this as a way of serving God at work.
Through prayerful consideration we were invited to put all of these ideas together into a Kaleo statement which summarised God’s calling on our life. This statement was a little like a mission statement for our lives which outlined what we considered our calling to be. This was mine:
To practically demonstrate God’s love to children, friends, family and colleagues through personal evangelism (helping, giving, offering hospitality and a listening ear).
I began to see my workplace and local community as somewhere I could live out my calling and was, and continue to be, inspired by this passage from Colossians 3: 23-24 which I have printed on my office wall:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
Over the years I have tried to live out and follow my calling in several different ways; I started a crèche in church to enable parents with babies and toddlers to attend the service; then once I had my own family, I began and ran a weekly Tot’s Praise service in our church hall, which was a mini-church service aimed at preschool aged children and their families/carers; and I also ran a community toddler group in our church hall.
In more recent years, I have returned to work full time and have chosen to research how early childhood educators love the children in their care. My work around developing a loving pedagogy stems from my calling… to practically demonstrate God’s love. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14) so we can all follow his example and demonstrate God’s love to children and families. After all, as St. Teresa of Avila famously said, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
Are you called to serve the community in relation to young children and families in your area?
Tamsin Grimmer