Book Review: Women, Work, and Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World

Name of Book: Women, Work, and Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World

Author: Joanna Meyer

What’s the “Big Idea”?

In a time of competing and polarizing narratives of how a woman “should” live, Women, Work, and Calling provides an alternative, gospel-focused story. From “trad-wives” to “the future is female,” different cultural streams, while well intended, often pull us away from the truth of our identity and the complexity of being a woman in the world today. Author Joanna Meyer brings her readers back to the opening story of Scripture as she animates our imaginations toward what it looks like to live, work, and lead as a woman in our various callings of life.

Broken into four parts, this short yet resonant book addresses ideas like vocational imagination, strength and power, challenges at work, and relationships, all from a biblical and redemptive lens. She also calls upon the diverse wisdom of female leaders to weigh in on the conversation. If you’re looking for a book to help orient your mind toward Christ, excite your redemptive imagination, and help you lead in a distinctly Christian, yet female way (or if you’re a man curious to understand and encourage the women in your sphere of influence), this book is for you.

Why does it matter to our life, work, and leadership?

1. Women, Work, and Calling puts language to the struggle, frustration, and hurt many women experience in the workplace, making this book valuable to men and women in all sectors of work and ministry life.
2. This book serves as an important reminder that when women hold back their using their gifts everyone suffers, offering a more wholistic and creation-centric approach to work life.
3. Not only does Women, Work and Calling provide deep insights to chew on, statistics to support its claims, and stories to help our imaginations, but it also offers reflection questions at the end of each chapter to help individuals and groups digest its larger meaning and implications.

Favorite Quotes

1. “[The] varied experiences [of women] remind us that to be biblical, our vision for women’s roles must be accessible to any woman, in any stage of life or socioeconomic status, anywhere in the world, at any point in history. To imply that a single model represents a biblical ideal denies the diversity of the human experience – and the diverse roles we see women play in Scripture.” (p. 18)
2. “Humble confidence comes from knowing what is true of you: you are made in the image of God and he has given you specific strengths for the roles he intends you to fill. When you commit to stewarding the gifts God has given you, it frees you to excel, for God’s glory and others’ good.” (p. 43)
3. “I challenge you to embrace the range of roles and responsibilities God has for you. I believe the world will become a healthier, more beautiful place as more Christian women leverage their vocational power to love God and serve their neighbors. But that work must be done in God’s ways and through his strength.” (p. 106)