Having heard much from Mormon friends about how busy they are "doing things for the church" and read here quite a bit about the time-consuming callings that are required of church members, I have a few questions:


-Do all members have callings, or is it just a chosen few?

-What type of work is typically given to one who is "called"?

-Are those who attend singles wards given the same types of callings as married people? If not, how do the callings differ?

Thank you to anyone who has time to respond.

Calling is order

In the Branch we lived in it was not uncommon for a member to have multiple callings concurrently. At one point I held 5 callings at once.

ETA: you asked for more than I originally answered with.

All members in "good standing" - meaning you havent gotten yorself in trouble or made the mistake of telling your bishop of your misdeeds - will be extended callings.

Some callings are more time intensive than others. Leadership positions are time hogs. Seminary teachers teach every day. Teachers. Music, clerks, Young Men, Young Women, Elders Quorum, High Priest, Relief Society, primary, ward missionary and on and on - all requiring "staffing". You are told you need to be anxiously engaged in good works. Turning down a calling is bad. Members are told callings are from God, divinely inspired. You can be called on a ward level or stake level, in which case you are responsible for an even bigger job.

And dont get me started on all the required meetings as a result of your calling(s).

Singles wards will be similar, though usually without the youth programs. Also, they usually have a married man called to be the bishop.

No one is paid, you are to give your all. Some callings are considered more "prestigious" Primary President as opposed to nursery leader for example. Every one should have a calling and they are not above making one up for you - hander out of the sacrament programs for example. Even at the ageof 12 when youenter the YM and YW programs, you could be called as the Beehive class president or the secretary.

I held callings since the age of 12 and sometimes more thhan one at a time. More than 31 years of service including when it's my family's turn to clean the building.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2012 01:15AM by epsynonia.

notamo Wrote:
>
> -Do all members have callings, or is it just a
> chosen few?

All members have callings - at least all members who at all consider themselves active in the church. Sometimes very dependable people have more than one calling

> -What type of work is typically given to one who
> is "called"?

Callings are any job that needs to be done in the church. People are called to teach adult Sunday School, kids Sunday School, men's priesthood class, women's Relief Society class, to do visiting teaching (women) and home teaching (men) where they make home visits once a month to check on members. Other callings are things like leading music, doing the monthly newsletter or weekly program for the services. Cub Scouts and Boy Scout leaders are often fulfilling callings rather than doing the work because they are interested in it or talented outdoorsmen/women. Even the bishop of the ward and his counselors are "called" by the area Stake President to preside over the congregation. There is also a membership clerk who keeps track of members and a financial clerk that keeps track of the money. My TBM mom is currently serving as the church librarian and my last calling at church was to work in the nursery with the under age 3 children. There are other callings too.
>
> -Are those who attend singles wards given the same
> types of callings as married people? If not, how
> do the callings differ?

Many of the callings in single's ward are the same, as you can see from the list above, the exception being that there is no need for callings that work with children. Single members with children are encouraged to go to family wards.

One other thing you didn't ask that might interest you is that you have no say in what calling you are given. You don't get to volunteer based on your skills and interests. The bishop literally calls you into his office and proclaims the Lord needs you to do a certain job in the church and if you are a good member, you take the job on and do the best you can at it. In some ways, it's good because you do learn a lot of skills. But fundamentally it's bad because the best people aren't always given the job. It goes to the person most available. People who aren't motivated or interested don't put the same effort into their job. You see this especially in the scouting program - often you see leaders called to be over a scout troop that really don't care to be there and don't know enough to keep the kids safe in outdoor situations. They can't teach what they don't know so Mormon scouting is "soft" compared to other scouting programs. You have to hope the person the bishop called is a good person and not a freak show. I saw people in nursery with no clue about safety for children that small or what choking hazards were or who made no effort to do anything other than herd the kids around until their parents returned. And one lady had a real temper - she had to be released because we caught her being mean to the kids. Yet the bishop was prompted to "call" her to work in the nursery.

Finally, here is how a calling really works. I was a Relief Society president and a Primary president. These two auxiliaries work closely with the bishop to put the right people in the right callings. We would look over the ward membership list to see who was "free". Then, we'd make a list of a couple of people who were either new move ins or who had been in their calling a long time and could be moved to fill a position that was empty. Most people don't stay in the same calling more than 3-5 years, although there are exceptions like my neighbor down the street who keeps ending up in Scouts because he LOVES scouts and is really good at it. So they will give him a different calling, then send him back to scouts for a couple of years - back and forth. Another guy in our ward has been financial clerk for so long I wonder why he hasn't gone inactive again (he was once) because he's been in the front seat for over a decade, watching the changes in how money is spent.

Anyway, back to callings. We decided on who we wanted and then we'd pray about it and think we'd come up with the one the Lord wanted because we felt good about that person. We'd give the name to the bishop and he'd pray about it and decide if he wanted to move the person. Sometimes he wouldn't want to, no matter how we felt about our answer to our prayer. Then the process would start again. It was mostly about who we thought was free plus how we felt about that person plus if the bishop gave us permission. God wasn't passing any major information to us. And then that person got called to do that job, whether they liked it or not. Once in a long while, someone would say no to a calling but they were looked down on for it and gossiped about because of it. Only if there were real health problems would someone maybe be given a break but even then, a lot of people would look down on them because they should have had the faith that God would give them the strength to do the calling he wanted them to do.

My convert daughter became ward librarian....funny, as she does not like to read....only for course work. Well, she said she had to prepare things and find things the teachers need for their lessons. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall watching her. She knows so little about Mormonism...having joined due to falling in love. They moved so as far as I know she has no new calling in a different state. I think they try to give them something-to keep them busy. No volunteering for stuff in the Mormon church. YOU are told what you will do.

A couple more things....Women are NEVER EVER given a calling that gives them authority over a man.

Some people have red flags (denoting unforgivable sin) on their files, and will never be called to certain positions or be allowed to progress too far. Some of these are warranted, a lot of them are not.

They never do background checks.

The bishops friends are usually in leadership positions. They just rotate the positions from one person to another. In a lot of wards its always the same people in leadership, just with a different group.

For some reason you have to be a man to ring the bell between classes so the teachers know when to wrap it up. I always asked the bishop why I couldn't have that calling. Never got an answer. That was the only calling I ever 'wanted' just because they wouldn't let me have it.

A lot of people aspire to be bishop or relief society pres. It's viewed as a position of status. Myself, I think its insane to want those jobs.

If you're a scout leader (or any leader actually) and something goes wrong, you can be personally sued. You may lose every thing you have. The church may, or may not back you up. Most members wouldn't sue another member, but there is NO guarantee.

That's very helpful, thank you. :)

One of the reasons I was curious as to who was called is because I couldn't imagine there being enough work for everyone in the ward to have a job, but I can see otherwise by the size of that list.

I'm especially surprised to see that there's Sunday school for adults. Is that for converts?

Sunday school for Everyone. Forever.

No - it's for everyone. The Sunday meetings usually go like this:

First is Sacrament Meeting, which is for everyone including very small children. They pass what in other churches is called communion, have a few talks and a few songs. This lasts a little over an hour. Then everyone goes to Sunday School. Except for the kids under 11, who go to Primary, which is basically kids Sunday School. Nursery is for kids 18 months to 3 years old. Both Primary and Nursery are two hours long. Sunday School for adults and teens is only one hour. The last hour, men go to Priesthood class, women go to the women's group Relief Society and teenagers go to the teen group, which is also split up by gender into Young Men's and Young Women's classes. The Sunday meetings last 3 hours total.

The only exception to attending the classes by age and sex is if you are teaching. If you teach a Young Women's teen group, of course you would have to skip the women's group Relief Society. And if you are a teacher in Primary, you would miss your own Sunday School class, as well as the Relief Society meeting.

Hope that makes sense.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2012 01:56AM by CA girl.

That holds true for some other churches, as well. I found out only after I stopped attending a Calvary Chapel Christian church years ago that the Pastor forbade any woman from holding any job that would give her authority over a man (there were no callings, only paid positions and a few jobs that were genuinely volunteer positions--no one was asked to do anything). If I'd known that when I started attending there, that would have been enough to make me quit and go elsewhere.

The pastor could never have gotten away with that in a secular organization. He'd have been sued to high heaven, no pun intended.

Is everyone also assigned to give the talks on Sundays, then, on a rotation basis?

Pretty much. Most wards will have a youth speaker, then an adult, then a musical number or congregational hymn, then another adult speaker in the lineup most Sundays. The first Sunday of the month is Fast and Testimony meeting, which is basically an open mike meeting. Anyone can get up and give their "testimony" of how true Mormonism is and why they think so. Each testimony can last as little as a minute but is usually a few minutes. Some people go on and on but most keep it under five minutes. People just get up as the feel the spirit.

Another Sunday is called High Councilman Sunday, and the two adult speakers are usually someone from the higher up leadership called the Stake, which is over 8 or so congregations and another adult of his choice. The Stake High Councilman usually speaks with his wife or a recently returned missionary from the area, talking about his mission. That only leaves about 2 Sundays a month, with two adult speakers each Sunday. So you don't get called to give a talk all that often. Usually once every several years if you don't move. The bishop will often ask new couples in the ward to talk in order for the ward to get to know them. If you live in a ward with a lot of people moving in and out - like a ward with a lot of apartments - you can go even longer than usual between talks. Same with single's wards and student wards, where there is a high turnover of people.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2012 02:13AM by CA girl.

I was a live out nanny for several years.
Apparently, because "I was so great with kids"
The bishops in
EVERY. SINGLE. WARD.
I have ever been in
thought it would be fantastic to call me as a nursery leader.
Uh, I got paid GREAT money to
watch over and care for the children of incredibly wealthy parents.
I was great at my JOB.

I said no, every time.
Repeatedly.
Why the hell would I want to
watch horribly behaved, always ill Mormon children
on one of my cherished days off
for free???

I'm afraid I was never a good Mormon woman...

For Mormons, a calling is when someone in the bishopric asks you to volunteer to do something.

That's a very watered down and literal interpretation of the concept of a calling compared to mainstream Christianity.

I was talking to a friend who is a never-mo pastor of a non-denom church in Utah. He told me that he used to be puzzled because the ex-mormons in the congregation rarely volunteered. Then an ex-mo member of the congregation explained that Mormons view putting yourself forward as a volunteer was seen as arrogant - to think you actually had a talent in a particular area! (I wondered at the time if they weren't also a little burnt out.)

After that he started asking the ex-mormons "would you consider volunteering in the church? If so, what area of ministry would you be interested in?" Always making clear that it was completely voluntary and their decision.