Some people are lucky enough to get paid to do what they love. But many are not.

In You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful, (Brazos Press, 2025), award-winning author Karen Swallow Prior has encouraging news: If you pursue the good, true, and beautiful in all your work, you will find your greatest fulfillment.

In this conversation, we discuss:

* The difference between passion and calling. How does this help us make vocational decisions?

* What are the various callings we have, not just in our 9-to-5, but in all of life?

* How does our context determine our callings, including when and where we live, who is in our lives, and what needs arise?

* How are our callings from outside ourselves, often in the service to others?

* How can we find meaning in every role, regardless of what our career is?

* How can we reintegrate our vocational lives through truth, goodness, and beauty?

Our discussion will help anyone and everyone who wants to know that our daily work, ordinary though it may be, can fulfill a higher calling to God. You will gain a renewed sense of purpose, knowing you are created for virtue in all that you do.

Scroll down to learn more about Karen Prior.

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If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior is the 2025-26 Karlson Scholar at Bethel Seminary. She has been a reader and a writer her entire life. She earned her PhD in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has taught at Liberty University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She has written or co-written several books, including study guides for some of the greatest books in British literature.

Would you consider buying Karen’s books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore? They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

After another day of trying to meet deadlines and working on projects, you’re again dissatisfied with how much you did or how well you did it. Then you go home, grab a bite to eat, and then go to your kid’s concert or sporting event. When you come back home, you see that big house chore that has been waiting for weeks. You sigh and drop into bed thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get more done?” We are constantly colliding with our limitations.

And we think that it is because we are fallen, sinful people. But what if? What if our limitations are a gift from God, that this is part of the very good part of being a created being? What if we are not supposed to carry the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be?

Our guest on this episode is theologian Dr. Kelly M. Kapic. He’s written a book that addresses this guilt we all experience when we feel that we should always be doing one more thing. Its title is You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why that’s Good News (Brazos, 2022). This book has won a number of awards, including Christianity Today’s Book of the Year award in the category of Popular Theology.

Scroll down to learn more about Kelly Kapic.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Kelly M. Kapic

Kelly M. Kapic is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College, where he has taught since 2001. With a PhD in Systematic and Historical Theology from King’s College University of London, Kapic has written or edited over fifteen books.

His earlier work includes Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, A Little Book For New Theologians: Why and How to Study Theology, and The God Who Gives: How the Trinity Shapes the Christian Story. He also completed two volumes with the economist Brian Fikkert: Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty isn’t the American Dream and A Field Guide to Becoming Whole: Principles for Poverty Alleviation Ministries. His upcoming release will be Christian Life (in the New Studies in Dogmatics series of books from ‎Zondervan Academic).

We recommend purchasing these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

The murder of Charlie Kirk has shaken both political and faith communities. It is fortunate that we interviewed Shirley Mullen a couple of months ago. We are glad to provide that interview now. She encourages us to take up the courageous middle in the midst of the kind of polarization that has led to this kind of violence.

We are experiencing increased suspicion and animosity in our churches, our workplaces, and even our families. It has also led to a false sense that our options are limited to choosing only one side.

When we look around us, we see people so extremely confident that they are absolutely right and that the opposition is not only absolutely wrong, but downright evil.

Is there a better way? Are Christians called to be peacemakers and bridgebuilders? And can they do that without jettisoning our core convictions?

Into the fray comes Dr. Shirley Mullen and her new book, Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Future (Baker Academic, 2024).

Scroll down to learn more about Shirley Mullen.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Shirley A. Mullen

We welcome Shirley Mullen, who served as president of Houghton University for fifteen years before retiring in 2021. After receiving two doctorates (one in history from the University of Minnesota and the other in philosophy from the University of Wales), she spent four decades in the field of faith-based liberal arts education, serving as a professor, residence life director, chief academic officer, and president. In her role as president of the college, she led her institution to a place where students and faculty could be courageous in creating space for people to be in the courageous middle.

She continues to invest in the next generation of leaders through mentoring and serving on the boards of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Jericho Road Community Health Center, the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, and the 1st Amendment Partnership.

We recommend purchasing this book from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about this book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.