Greetings friends - we’ve been reflecting all week on how thankful we are for you! We hope your Thanksgiving was filled with love, joy, and way too much great food.

This newsletter series is building a thread of connection - themes of the human soul that weave us all together. This week, we’re reflecting on another longing every human shares:

We all want to do work that truly matters.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

The idea of meaningful work often invokes conversations about calling - what am I called to? Where is God calling me? These kinds of questions are deeply rooted in us. They come from a fundamental human need for purpose and significance. Often, conversations about calling begin with an assessment of  your strengths, suggesting: whatever it is that you’re good at, find a way to do it for God.

ReWire approaches call a bit differently. We’ve learned that truly significant work - that is tuned to the Spirit’s work in the world and comes from a place of personal passion and purpose - rarely begins with personal strengths. It begins with our own pain and suffering.

When we allow God to move us to deeper connection, God invites us to inward reflection - and inevitably, into the wounded places in our hearts. God never touches on our pain to bring condemnation - only love and healing. We’re moved here by the Spirit because these are the specific places that will hold us captive. Our inward work, especially the work God does to bring healing and restoration to the wounded places in our souls, is how the Spirit will move us outward. It is through our pain and woundedness that we are compassionately connected to pain in others and the world. If God’s mission in the world is to bring healing and restoration, God’s work in the world must be active in the pain that requires healing. That’s where God is. That’s where Jesus was - always in a position to encounter the pain and suffering of others. In order to work in powerful collaboration with you, we are invited to follow God into our own pain so that we might faithfully encounter the pain around us.

Frederick Buechner writes,

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”

- Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC (pg. 118-119)

ReWire Director, JD Ward has nuanced Buechner’s assertion this way: “You are involved in a Divine calling when your engagement in healing the pain of the world brings healing to your own soul.”

So, instead of asking, “What am I called to do?” Maybe the better question is…

What breaks your heart? Why?

This is the guiding formation work ReWire does every day. We create environments where people encounter God, join in the deep inner work of reflection, and then discern how the Spirit is leading them outward into meaningful, Kingdom-shaped work that brings restoration to their communities and healing in their souls.

Your Support Truly Makes a Difference

The work of spiritual formation is slow. It’s relational, it’s personal, and it requires resources - trained guides, teachers, and spiritual directors, spaces for formation and discernment, support for Kingdom Outposts, the development of courses, and support for leaders across the country.

If you believe the Church needs more people who are healed, grounded, and equipped to live out meaningful work in the brokenness of the world, we want to ask you directly:

Would you make a year-end gift to support the work of ReWire?

Your giving helps us:

• accompany more people in the inward work of healing,

• train and equip more Kingdom Outposts,

• support leaders who are living out their calling in real communities,

• and expand the reach of a formation model that changes lives from the inside out.

Your generosity directly fuels meaningful work in individual lives, in churches, in neighborhoods, and across the world.

If you sense the importance of this work, please partner with us through your year-end giving. Your gift will truly make a difference.

Thank you for journeying with us.
Thank you for helping others discover work that truly makes a difference.