The current job market is very tight, with the most recent statistics showing job losses and weak employment continuing throughout 2010. Michigan and the city of Grand Rapids have approached record levels in unemployment and soon will surpass those set in the early 1980s. The broader nationwide unemployment index, known as U-6, which includes marginally attached workers plus those employed part time for economic reasons, is almost 16 percent.

What is a college graduate to do in this job market? You’re out there as a somewhat homogenous commodity with more than 1.2 million others graduating with bachelor’s degrees this spring, each attempting to obtain the same positions as fellow graduates. Career counselors advise you to differentiate yourself due to this great blending of individuals throughout our culture so that prospective employers can tell you apart from another job seeker. I want to suggest that while your vocation is important, it is not as important as our Christian calling to be engaged in God’s work of reconciliation while on this Earth (II Corinthians 5:16-21).

THE BUTCHER: What if you’ve been trained at Cornerstone University to be a butcher (fill in your major here). If there is a movement away from eating beef for dietary or other reasons, the butcher may find herself out of work. Then what will that do to her self-esteem, and what is her value in the eyes of society? The future for butchers could be quite bleak.

THE BAKER: Being a baker seems to be a good occupation. Almost everyone eats bread daily. However, bread is made from flour, and flour is made from wheat, and the price of wheat has more than tripled in the past eight years. Thus, the baker goes out of business due to the high cost of production in addition to some people going on low-carbohydrate diets. So the baker’s life now has less meaning because he too is unemployed.

THE CANDLESTICK MAKER: While the butcher and baker have lost their meaning in life due to their vocations dissipating, the candlestick maker retains hers because we always need to find our way around in the dark. We always need a light to give us direction. We always need illumination to keep us from stumbling. So while we still have darkness on Earth, those who provide light will always be in demand. Possibly the butcher and baker should, at least as their vocation, go into the candle business to provide a living for themselves and help to others.

At Cornerstone you are being trained to be teachers, musicians, businesspersons and social workers. Our mission as a university is to ensure that you also become candlestick makers, and we do this by “empowering men and women to excel as influencers in our world for Christ Jesus.”