Two Februarys ago, after the 5280 Fellowship winter retreat, I came back to my desk in downtown Denver dwelling on the theme of “connection.”
Throughout the Fellowship retreats, cohort meetings, Saturday sessions and deep dives, I felt an invitation from God to be and become a person of connectedness.
A person who believes that faith and work are connected. A person who believes that the Holy Spirit and our daily lives are connected. A person who believes in each person’s connection to every other person, imbuing us with a sense of responsibility to our fellow man.
It was from this theme of connection that my Fellows Professional Project evolved. At the time, I was feeling the vocational stress of working for one of the largest PR firms in the world, and the relational stress of working in a remote, isolated office. I was craving connection, so I set out to create it, on behalf of myself and others, as so many fellows have done in their personal and professional projects.
Two Februarys later, connection continues to be a key theme and takeaway from my experience in the 5280 Fellowship.
What began with a desire move the needle of connection in my workplace has evolved into a personal and professional way of being.
In my professional work as a writer and strategist for a communications agency, I get the opportunity to connect brands to the best messaging and avenues for their marketing.
As a member of the church in Denver, I have the opportunity to connect my faith to the hard questions of life, on behalf of myself and others.
As a child of God, I have the opportunity to ask the Father how he has called me to connect the relational and emotional demands of a high-intensity world with the upside-down, simple, compassionate way of Christ.
We as God’s people get to do this work of connection because God delights in relational connection among teams and systems. We as God’s people get to do the work of communication because God delights when truth is shared among people. We as God’s people get to do the work of creating because God delights when raw materials and ideas are fostered into more, through avenues such as the design, organization, communication and presentation that we practice in our workplaces.
Connecting, communicating, creating.
The ongoing gift of life with Christ is seeing and stepping into this work before us.
And the ongoing gift of the 5280 Fellowship is donning lenses through which we can identify God’s fingerprints and character throughout our work and our world, and join him there.
To anyone considering how your faith and work intersect: I invite you to ask God to show you the lens of connectedness. You may find yourself seeing far more than even you first anticipated.
And to anyone who finds themselves wrestling with the idea of what “vocation” or “calling” means to them, or to anyone wondering what it looks like to live fully and faithfully as a follower of Jesus in our world today, or even to those simply desiring connectedness in their work and life, the 5280 Fellowship is a gift that could bless you.
May we as a network of Fellows and a network of believers in Colorado continue the good work of connection to which God has called each of us in the work and worship of our lives.
