You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan concludes his four-part conversation with Lauren Bethel of the International

Christian Alliance on Prostitution. As Dan and Lauren respond to audience questions, they reflect on the nature of calling,

and they talk once again about the invitation to live as people who are open to beauty.

What elements are involved in having a life of longevity in this work?

Lauren.

Okay.

You know, I often share that I think the first thing that we need to deal with is the issue of identity.

Are we about this work because it gives us an identity? Because if we are working

with victims of human trafficking or walking in the streets and doing noble things, does it

make us feel good and does it make us have something to talk about with our friends?

Or, because if it does, if that's why we're about this work, then we are not going to survive.

We are going to die. And we will leave and we will be worse off

for having ever worked, have ever done it. Our identity always, first and foremost, has to be,

I am the beloved daughter and son of God. What I do absolutely doesn't matter.

What I do is what God has called me to do.

I came to this when I had been working at the New Life Center

about three or four years, five years.

And in our churches, in my denomination, I had come on home assignment.

I'd spoken like 200 times.

I had taken a choir of girls we had sung in 146 places.

I mean, it was crazy.

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