LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Christians on Leadership, Calling and Career
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
Christians on Leadership, Calling and Career
As a competent career counselor, it is important to have good information about how your
clients view vocation. This includes being both ethical and thorough in investigating religious
beliefs that impact your client’s career priorities, values, and decisions.
Intake Form
Virtually all counselors and coaches will start with some sort of intake form. Generally, the
client or potential client is providing information about their presenting problem, background,
and goals. Gathering some basic information this way, on a form that is given to every single
client, can normalize the belief system inquiry in a way that benefits clients with and without
belief in a higher power.
While the initial form is usually a written form filled out by a client on their own, general
best practices are to review the intake with the client. Counseling trainees must heed warnings
here that if the helping professional holds negative feelings towards religion, people who
ascribe to particular belief systems, or people who lack identified belief systems, the caregiver
will need to work through those emotions in order to be a safe person for clients in a discussion
about faith and vacation. Negative feelings are more overarching than perspectives like
“religion is just a crutch” or similar thoughts; these negative feelings also include any insecurity,
longing, or uneasiness the therapist may feel about their own beliefs.
The following is an example of a short intake section on spirituality that includes both open
and closed ended questions:
Do you wish to discuss spiritual issues in your counseling sessions as they pertain to your
career development? If not, please disregard the following questions.
Do you have a religious affiliation that is of importance to you?
Do you attend a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place of spiritual gathering?
Are you currently receiving guidance from a spiritual leader who provides insight into
your career experiences and goals?
Is there anything related to your spirituality that has caused you concern in your career
exploration/development?
Are you aware of any spiritual resources or practices in your life that could be used to
help you cope with or solve your career related problems?
Some open-ended questions or reflections include:
If you feel that a higher power provides guidance for your career decisions, what does
that look like in your life?
“Tell me more” about all of the above close ended questions.
Value Sort Cards
An exercise commonly occurring early on in career counseling and coaching sessions is the
use of value sort cards. Card sorts are “nonstandardized and subjective assessments commonly
used in career counseling to help clients clarify their skills and career interests” (Duffy,
Friedman, & Martin, 2008). Career related satisfaction and happiness is enhanced when an
individual’s values are well aligned with their work and work environment (Esquibel, Nicholson
& Murdock, 2015).
In this type of assessment, clients typically sort between 30 and 40 cards of various themes
or ideas into categories as a way to develop personal or career-related priorities and, as they do
so, themes tend to emerge. It is preferable for clients to identify patterns within the sorted
categories themselves so that the themes are personally relevant to them. Card sorts are
sometimes preferable to more standardized assessments because the information gathered
therein is done so informally and through client speech. Therefore, clients are actively engaged
in the process of self-awareness. Additionally, through this process counselors can see firsthand
how clients organize thoughts and ideas, as the success of the exercise is dependent on the
client’s ability to engage in the process and recognize and explore patterns or themes (Duffy,
Friedman & Martin, 2008, pg. 1421).
Clients often enjoy this exercise but also realize the difficulty of decision-making. Career
professionals may consider investing in a set of value sort cards that includes spiritual values, or
creating their own card sort system. Regarding counselor-created value sort cards: “While these
are not validated or tested for reliability, a positive feature of this approach is that the cards
can be tailored to a targeted population” (Osborn, 2010). Examples include “Serving a Higher
Purpose” as a “Work Outcome” value or “Life Values” including Spiritual Health, Spiritual
Growth, and Church or Religious Community Involvement.
Career Direct and other Career Assessments
The Career Direct assessment describes itself as “an individual, personal growth resource
designed to help you maximize your God-given talents and abilities. More than a simple career
test, it analyzes four critical areas: personality, interests, skills, and values” (NEEDS DATE AND
PAGE). This assessment is one option for clients with a Christian belief system to receive career
aptitude feedback that integrates Judeo Christian values into the feedback and results.
Benefits of Faith Integration into Career Services
There is a significant and overarching reason to acknowledge religion in career counseling,
writes Larry Cochran in Career Counseling (1997). Cochran discusses the importance of creating
a narrative at the beginning of counseling, which helps to create meaning in a person’s life.
Cochran emphasizes the importance of creating a narrative at the beginning of a course of
career counseling to learn more about the individual and create goals that align with every area
of a person’s life, including their faith values. Learning to acknowledge a client’s spirituality and
religious beliefs as they relate to their careers can help make people better counselors.
According to Cochran (1997, NEEDS PAGE), “True spirituality results in making people calmer,
happier, and more peaceful, and it is a mental attitude that can be practiced at any time.” Thus,
as counselors practice being more open to a client’s spirituality, understanding it, and applying
it to their career goals, a counselor has sharpened their abilities to be more aware and
empathetic to all clients’ basic needs.
One benefit of having knowledge of a client’s belief system is the ability to assign
homework or reading that may encourage or inspire your client partly due to a shared belief
system with the author. Several Christian millennials have been inspired by Christian author and
speaker Jon Acuff, who shares motivational career advice centered around protestant Christian
principles. “You know who we should fire, that guy who keeps learning how to do his job even
better, said no one ever”, writes Acuff in Do Over (NEEDS DATE, p. 109). On the topic of
“calling”, a popular but sometimes ambiguous topic in career development for Judeo-Christian
clients, Kevin DeYoung writes, “So the end of the matter is this: Live for God. Obey the
Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do
whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you’ll be walking in the
will of God” (2014, p. 122). Authors like Acuff and DeYoung, who offer advice on career and
calling through the lens of Christian counseling, can be a powerful homework tool when faith is
integrated into career counseling.
Concerns
One of the greatest concerns that can come from integrating faith with career counseling is
the same for many different types of counseling, and it can be summed up in one word:
presumptions. Every counselor has the unique task of hearing an individual’s story, values,
goals, concerns, and problems without prejudging or projecting an assumption on the
individual. A career counselor must listen to a client’s faith values and how they relate to their
career goals without prejudging or presuming a negative outcome due to their own differing
stances on faith. A counselor or coach must remain objective, listen, and provide clear,
nonjudgmental advice to the client on how their career choices can help them meet their
personal goals, faith values recognized and included. In a 2009 Counseling Today article,
entitled Connecting With Clients of Faith, Scott Young states: “as counselors, we need to be
intellectually curious with these clients and open to looking at the strengths their religious
beliefs provide. Don’t prejudge their beliefs harshly, and don’t be rigid. If you have a hidden
agenda in wanting to change something in somebody, it will never work. It will only sabotage
the relationship. This should be a guiding principle against the temptation to subjectively
counsel a client of faith.
References
Acuff, J. (2015). Do over: Rescue money, reinvent your work, and never get stuck. New York, NY:
Penguin Publishing Group.
Aten, J. & Leach, M. (Eds). (2009) Spirituality and the therapeutic process: A comprehensive
resource from intake to termination. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Cochran, L. (1997) Career counseling: A narrative approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
Publications, Inc.
Duffy, R., Friedman, S.,& Martin, P. (2008). Card Sorts. In F. T. Leong, E. M. Altmaier, and B. D.
Johnson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Counseling Vol 4: Career Counseling (1421-1423). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2008.
Esquibel, J., Nicholson, B., Murdock, J. (2015). Understanding the impact of career values on
career satisfaction: Utilizing card sorts in career counseling. Career Planning and Adult
Development Journal, 30(4), 234-246.
Corey, G. (n.d.). Integrating Spirituality in Counseling Practice. In Vistas Online. Retrieved from
https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/integrating-spirituality-in-counseling-
practice.pdf?sfvrsn=6
DeYoung, K. L., (2014). Just do something: A liberating approach to finding God’s will. Chicago,
IL: Moody Publishers.
Koenig, Harold G. (2004). Religion, spirituality, and medicine: Research findings and implications
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Stream, IL: Tyndale House.
Newport, F. (2013) More than 9 in 10 Americans belief in God. Retrieved from
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Osborn, D. S., & Bethell, D. S. (2010). Using card sorts in career assessment. Career Planning
and Adult Development Journal, 25(4), 101-114.
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