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By Sally Peters
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Sara Fortin
& Sally Peters
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The preacher and novelist Frederick Buechner
has written that God calls you to “the kind of work that
you need most to do, and the world most needs to have done
… the place where your deep gladness and the world’s
deep hunger meet.”
“Discover Your Call” workshops, based on the Dependable
Strengths Articulation Process®, are being offered at
churches around the country. Created by Centered Life at Luther
Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota), together with the Center for
Dependable Strengths (Seattle, Washington), these workshops
help people name and claim their strengths and identify specific
goals for more fully using their unique pattern of strengths
in all areas of their lives. Centered Life is dedicated to
furthering the idea that knowing our strengths leads to a
greater understanding of God’s call for our lives.
Centered Life offers a facilitator training for people who
want to conduct these workshops in their own congregations.
The training is offered twice a year at Luther Seminary in
St. Paul. In October, 2006, the facilitator training was offered
through Whitworth College’s Weyerhaeuser Center for Faith
and Life and will be offered in January 2007 at Spirit in
the Desert Retreat Center in Carefree, Arizona. Participants
love the course because it helps them to identify their own
strengths and sense of call and empowers them to help others
uncover their own giftedness.
Here are comments from recent participants:
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It addressed my own need to clarify my vocation.
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Very relevant, useable and transforming.
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I especially liked the supportive setting for self-exploration.
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I have discovered my calling and now can go forward
with confidence and faith.
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I learned what my God-given strengths are to use in
making decisions about my future.
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I can say “no” when a task doesn’t
fit my dependable strengths.
- Exceptional, empowering, enlightening.
Congregations are especially interested in helping young
people discover their strengths and call. So Sara Fortin and
I adapted for congregations the middle school and high school
curriculums originally developed by Len Hoover and Allen Boivin-Brown.
People who have successfully completed the facilitator training
may purchase this additional curriculum. The middle school
curriculum is just three hours and is ideal for pastors to
incorporate into confirmation training. The high school version
can be used for a high school retreat or in nine, one-hour
sessions.
Sally Peters, a CDS certified Local Instructor, is the
manager of Centered
Life, a non-denominational initiative begun in 2001, by
Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota). For more information
on Dependable Strengths® in congregational settings, contact
Sally by email: speters@luthersem.edu.
Or phone 651-641-3353.
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