Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

for basic needs. 26 In this scenario, common in Denver, Scum considers it a responsibility to encourage the impatient job seeker and help them reframe their expectations and sense of success. 27 Solidifying identity with contentment would suggest that the church has a significant role to play in guiding emerging adults in discovering there is more to vocation than getting a job or making money. Steven Garber’s exposition on vocation calls for gaining a sense of responsibility for history, a willingness to invest in learning, to participate in social structures for justice, and to act as one is able without discouragement even when one cannot act comprehensively. He speaks of ‘making peace with the proximate’, choosing to live hopefully within limits, and choosing to be engaged with the world even as we realise its injustice. 28 Significance, contribution, and purpose are found in vocation. Scum is well-positioned to help emerging adults, through mentoring and discussion groups, to consider the ethics around choosing a vocation, paying for training, borrowing and marketing, and navigating as a believer within one's chosen field. The practice of contentment would help sustain vocation 26 ‘Trends in Student Aid’, Trends in Student Aid 2016, College Board (2016), p. 3. <https://trends.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2016-trends-student-aid_0.pdf> [accessed 20 January 2017] states that in 2015, 38% of all borrowers with outstanding student loan debt owed less than $10,000 and 16%, including 10% of undergraduate borrowers and 43% of graduate borrowers, owed $40,000 or more. 27 Emilie Rusch, ‘Forty Per Cent of Working Colorado Renters Spend More than a Third of Income on Housing’, The Denver Post, Business Section (2 May 2016), <http://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/02/40- percent-of-working-colorado-renters-spend-more-than-a-third-of-income-on-housing/> [accessed 20 January 2017] 28 Steven Garber, Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good (Downers Grove: IVP, 2014), p. 203. See also Setran and Kiesling, Spiritual Formation, p. 118, who also emphasise the need for a sense of responsibility for others in vocation. Blomberg, Contentment 49 especially if the material rewards of work are not to the degree that the culture would say is ‘enough’. Content with Imperfect Others Contentment with one’s own identity positions the emerging adult to consider the worth of others beyond their utilitarian value. Sang Uk Lee describes a benefit of self-contentment as ‘the wisdom of life that induces people to maintain an abundant and generous spirit in spite of human agony’. 29 Being an inner-city church, Scum attracts a number of mentally and physically challenged individuals who cannot compete with the American cultural value of ‘worth through productivity’. We struggle to be patient with rambling prayers, interruptions, and repetitive antisocial behaviour. Contentment comes not from the ability to