Work Stories: Shaun and Katie Fox's already/not-yet calling
Welcome to the newest post in a brand new series of guest posts on the subject of our everyday work lives. For the remaining weeks of Ordinary Time, I’ve invited some friends to share a one-day snapshot into their work life that will help us see what they know to be true right now about who they are made to be.
When I imagined this series I knew immediately I wanted to ask the guests for this week to be included. Shaun and Katie Fox are not only dear friends, but people who’ve wrestled well with their own calling and invaluably supported Brian and me in ours. You could almost say we first became friends because of our mutual desire to more deeply understand the meaning of vocation. While we’ve become connected beyond those initial conversations, we never stray very far from them.
I’m also delighted to share the first of a few “dual calling” posts in the series. While none of us ever walk out our vocational journey alone - indeed vocation leads us into community rather than apart from it - there’s a particular challenge and joy for married couples in this life-long quest for vocational wholeness. There’s no family I know who embodies this challenge and joy more wholeheartedly than Shaun and Katie. May their story encourage your own today.
Hi everyone! We’re Shaun and Katie Fox, and we’re honored to tell our story here on Tamara’s blog today. We’ve been married for 13+ years, and we have two daughters, ages 11 and eight.
We serve as co-leaders of an arts ministry at our Anglican church here in Austin, Texas. I (Katie) am a musician and a writer, and Shaun is a designer, photographer, bookmaker, and woodworker, among other talents. We’ve always had a passion not only for the arts, but also for artists, and early in our marriage we had a chance to be shepherded as part of an arts ministry at another church.
We also read the book L’Abri, and wondered about creating a similar community that was geared toward artists. We began to dream of a future life together that includes the arts and artists, shepherding and mentoring, encouraging, and living in community, with space for beauty and hospitality and flourishing. Our life together looks different than we thought it would when we first got married, but we continue to take baby steps toward that dream.
Right now, however, our typical day isn’t spent together, but at our separate places of work and vocation. We get up early, and get our kids fed and lunches made, and then we say good-bye for the day, and Shaun heads to his office around 7:15am. He’ll take over the story of his day from here.
Howdy! I work as a digital product designer for a company called ShipStation. We build software that offers shipping solutions for business owners. My job’s all about understanding the business owner’s needs and making software that’s as easy to use, and intuitive as possible.
I spend a good amount of time interviewing our customers and gathering data to understand how they use our software, and then digesting that data to identify patterns and needs. I then work closely with our team of developers as we build new features for the customers. In the picture below, my team and I are visiting a jewelry maker here in Austin.
I have a great team of designers that work with me, and I really enjoy being with my co-workers. My typical day is full of meetings and spending time working through ideas with other team members.
I love the work that I do, even though I continually look ahead towards other things. I try to steal all the time I can after hours to make art (currently obsessed with woodworking, and I’m building us a new bed) and to work with Katie on arts ministry plans.
I’ll let Katie take over to share about her day now.
Hi everyone, I’m back. :) My time looks very different from day-to-day, and things are a little less linear for me than they are for Shaun.
After Shaun leaves, I finish getting our girls ready to go, and then I leave to take them to school. Our older daughter attends school at a part-time co-op, so she’s at home with me two days a week. Although she’s pretty self-guided, I make myself available to help her with schoolwork, if needed.
If I take both girls to school, I get home again about an hour later, and then I eat breakfast, walk the dog, tackle the dishes, start the laundry, and take care of general household tasks. Then I sit down to work. Depending on the day, that could look like a number of different things. Working on plans for arts ministry programs and events has been a big part of most of my days for a few years now. But leading the arts ministry is equally about caring for the artists themselves, and sometimes that means meeting with them, and spending time listening, or praying, or crafting emails and writing letters.
I also lead an occasional adult choir at our church, and whenever we’re preparing to sing for a special Sunday, that takes up a lot of time. Finding the right music for the particular feast day or celebration and our particular group of singers is time-consuming, and once I have found the music, I need to spend time studying it and practicing conducting. Many hours of preparation happen before we even have our first rehearsal.
This fall, I entered Fuller Seminary as a part-time MA student, so right now a big part of my calling is simply to do my schoolwork. Everyday includes a couple of hours of reading, writing, and/or online discussions. My degree concentration is called Worship, Theology, and the Arts, and I’m so excited and thankful that I have this opportunity. I made the decision to go back to school after going through a discernment process with Shaun and some other trusted friends, and it feels good to be taking these steps toward our future dream.
By about 2:45pm each day, I stop working and move into the next part of my day: school pick-ups, and any after-school appointments and activities for our younger daughter, who has cerebral palsy. Managing her condition used to be a full-time job, but in the past year or so, things have settled down a lot, and it’s not so all-consuming anymore. We’re very thankful that she’s doing so well.
Shaun gets home from work around 4:30, and we like to cook dinner together. Afterwards, he usually does clean-up while I get our younger daughter into bed, and then we spend time with our older daughter until her bedtime. Then once both girls are in bed, we work on arts ministry plans together. Our evenings are usually spent talking, dreaming, brainstorming, sometimes arguing :) , and dreaming about the possibilities. Sometimes we separate to do our own art-making – that kind of dedicated time is especially important for Shaun, since he’s at the office all day.
Even though we currently lead an arts ministry at our beloved church, we hope that someday our ministry will be from our home as an arts center, with space for art-making, gallery space, and performance space, where artists could come for a night or a month or six, and grow and learn and flourish. Even now, all the plans we make have that end in mind. For example, we recently hosted our first house concert, and we really enjoyed it. Hopefully that kind of thing will become a regular event.
For now, with all the things we do with our days, we’re very much living in the already/not yet tension. We’re striving to be content and faithful in our present daily callings, while also faithfully pushing ourselves towards our larger, eventual vision. Being a good spouse, parent, coworker, homemaker, student, artist, or arts pastor is the substance of our daily lives, but we are also working to prepare for the next season with anticipation and hope.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about arts ministry, feel free to ping us at christchurcharts.org. We’d love to connect with you.
Shaun and Katie Fox live in Austin, Texas, with their two lovely daughters. They have been co-leading the arts ministry at their Anglican church since 2015. Shaun is a software designer, but strives to spend time making art on the side. Katie is a grad student at Fuller Seminary, a writer, and a choir nerd who loves to annoy her children through operatic communication. You can read more about their arts ministry adventures at christchurcharts.org.
What about you?
How would you define the various parts of your daily work life in a “already/not-yet” timeline?
A song and a prayer for all of us this week:
“Dear Lord, You alone know what my soul truly desires, and You alone can satisfy those desires.
I have prepared a place for you, says the Lord, a place that is for you, and only you, to fill. Approach My table, asking first that you might serve. Look even for the lowest tasks. Then, the work of service done, you may look for your own place at table. But do not seek the most important seat which may be reserved for someone else. In the place of My appointing will be your joy.
Lord, show me the right seat; find me the fitting task; give me the willing heart.”
(You can read all of the Work Stories here.)