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My wife came home from an interview with our outgoing Bishop, who is en route to a position in the Stake Presidency. He asked how she would feel about myself in a rather hefty calling in the Ward again. She gave a diplomatic answer, since we’d discussed how she might respond. He responded that I shouldn’t count on this last 10 month period of being in a lightweight calling as lasting forever — as he’s been only giving me a break since he knew I was sort of burned out from my last stint in a high profile ward calling. I’ve decided I don’t want any more high profile callings for a while. If you read my posts, you’ll see I’m serving on a combination of TBM testimony, and also personal reasons that have nothing to do with truthfulness or testimony (Probably 30%-70% in the testimony/personal reasons categories). I certainly don’t have a sense of mission any longer, that’s for sure.
So, any suggestions you might have are welcome on how to say in “no” in such a way that:
a) Preserves my ability to be called for other positions in the future, if I want to (and I may)
b) Doesn’t stonewall and keep them wondering if I have a porn addiction or some other skeleton requiring confession, which will only make them press…
c) Leaves them believing I’m still supportive of the Church, the gospel, and leadership in general…..which I am, although I do have opinions that are “somewhat” contrarion to popular LDS belief.
Comments welcome….
Personally, I would say, Quote:“Thank you for asking me. I really appreciate it. I will need to talk with my wife and pray about it. I’ll give you an answer by _______ (insert your acceptable time table).”
Then I would do exactly that – talk with your wife and pray about it – with a full undersatnding that you might or might not “get an answer” but you’ve done all you can to ask.
If you feel like you get an answer, great. Problem solved.
If you don’t feel you’ve gotten an answer, I would make any decision with which you are comfortable.
If that decision is, “No” – then so be it. I would respond with,
Quote:“I have talked about it with my wife and prayed about it, and I just don’t feel like I can accept it right now. There’s no “worthiness” issue involved, but I just can’t accept it.”
If pressed, I simply would repeat that same basic message.
If the decision is, “OK, as long as I can do it my own way in harmony with my own conscience” – then so be it. I would say what I said to my own Bishop once – which was, essentially,
Quote:“I don’t think I can magnify the calling in the way that you want it done, but I am willing to do it as long as you understand that I will do the best I personally can do.”
(Mine was Primary Chorister, so it’s a little different than your situation.) In yours, I would add something like,
Quote:“If you still feel inspired to call me, you are getting ME – and I will do the absolute best I can, but I still will be ME.”
(That basically was my response, but I got called into the High Council at the same time, so it was irrelevant in the end.
First of all it makes me sad that saying no to a calling seems to imply that you are somehow unworthy. That just seems wrong to me. Second, I think that Ray gave you very good advice. The only thing I would add is that you have to feel good about any service you render in the church. I’m always hearing that there is no difference between a nursery leader and the prophet so hold your leadership to that.
I have found that it depends greatly on your priesthood leader. If they are inclined to present it as “This is what the Lord wants you to do. I am His messenger”, it can be difficult to say ‘no’ and walk away with your dignity. Or it can be handled much more sensitively. Once I observed a calling presented as follows: “We have been thinking about the possibiliy of calling you to such-and-such position. How do you feel about that/do you feel there are any reasons why you wouldn’t be able to accept such a calling?” Notice that the calling hasn’t actually occurred. I realize that may be splitting hairs, but for some it is a very meaningful distinction. I am much more inclined, by the way, to respect leaders who operate this way because it demonstrates both humility and a meaningful concern for the feelings of other. doug wrote:I have found that it depends greatly on your priesthood leader. If they are inclined to present it as “This is what the Lord wants you to do. I am His messenger”, it can be difficult to say ‘no’ and walk away with your dignity.
This is the part I’m afraid of. While Ray’s approach is a good general approach, the whole “We prayed about this, and the finger of the Lord rested upon Brother SilentDawning” makes it hard to say “No” because the person extending the call believes they are an emissary of the Lord.
I no longer believe these things are inspired a lot of the time, however…so to accept a calling for that reason doesn’t seem to work for me anymore.
Plus, I was out doing home teaching this evening with my new perspective, and the chasing after less active people on my list who really don’t want to see me is something I’m not at all excited about. I found it hard to come up with homegrown reasons for it given the low success rate. Nor is sitting in meetings where activation and hometeaching is discussed of any allure to me anymore. I’m truly through with the home teaching program adminstration part of it — with the unrealistic standards for what constitutes a visit, and the fact that you can never get 100% when you’ve got 24 active companionships for 300 families.
I guess I’m going to really have to pray earnestly if they extend a hefty calling and the finger of the Lord is literally going to have to rest upon me if I’m going to accept anything (I’m exaggerating a bit). My heart is totally in a different place right now given my last experience. I feel despondent even thinking about a return to priesthood administration or missionary leadership where there is a severe amount of effort for very few results…not happening…
Quote:If pressed, I simply would repeat that same basic message.
This is the stonewalling I’m trying to avoid. I’m wondering if there are valid reasons I can give that will help them move on, but with the relationship intact….I will be starting a new educational program as a student….perhaps that is justification enough? Last time I used that reason for an additional Masters Degree, which I completed a year ago — when I gave that reason, they questioned why I even needed to go back to school, and I had to justify it a number of different ways. They still didn’t buy into it and I ended up putting myself into overload for 2 years by continuing in the hefty calling I had at the time.
SilentDawning wrote:— when I gave that reason, they questioned why I even needed to go back to school, and I had to justify it a number of different ways.
Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right. No wonder you’re concerned.
I think I’ve learned to say “no” effectively, in a positive and comfortable way in church. It doesn’t preserve all your requirements you listed though. The most common way to preserve your status in an organization is to always say “yes.” (broad generalization). I think answering confidently with your most honest reasons is the best way to stop rumors and second guessing. People fill in the missing blanks from their own mind.
It’s tough.
I’m thinking of sharing the bout of depression I had in relation to some of the experiences I had as a priesthood leader, and how I have to protect myself from experiencing that again. This will probably assure no further calls to hefty priesthood leadership callings in this Stake, however, which hurts one of my criteria of leaving options open. But having burned the ship with that admission, I could use the opportunity to try to effect some change in this minds of this new Stake Presidency who is extending the call.
I could mention that I can’t put myself in a position where, if I’m having trouble coping with the demands of the calling, I’m expected to hang in their months on end without any communication from the Stake about what’s happening or if the whole need for a release has been forgotten. Let them know this has happened to myself and others in the past, and share my philosophy that lack of communication is often perceived as lack of caring by the members, myself included.
Also share the meeting we had in which the Stake President said “big discussions happen in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, but what happens in your quorum presidency meetings is more important”. How that idea lost its motivational value when the SP can leave their leaders hanging for months on end when performance is suffering and they’ve emotionally checked out of their calling. If such quorum presidency meetings really ARE that important, it would be a crisis when you no longer have a functioning leader, and Stake leaders would act quickly to fill the void.
Also, share my repeated reaction when the High Counselors come to our Ward to speak and preface their callings with the statement “The Stake President cares about you…….etc”. When I hear that, it sounds like a vain repetition of the directive in the General Handbook that they say those things — there probably is no substance to it in the minds of other members who have had experiences like myself with the SP. I feel a bit jaded when I hear that statement now, as my experience is that the SP DIDN’T care about members who were suffering and unhappy in their callings like I was.
Also share my philosophy that we can’t expect each leader to have the spirituality of Mother Theresa all the time — that a goal of leaders in a position to call others could be to help the people under them have positive experiences in their callings and in the Church…..and if they burn out on a calling, why not release them immediately, give them something worthwhile to do, and leave the position they were holding VACANT until they can find someone at their leisure? They do that when they WANT someone in a hefty calling to serve elsewhere, why not do it when people ask to be released? They just did it with the Bishop in our own Ward. Wanted him in the SP so they pulled him and we are now running without a Bishop.
Anyway, I’m just musing…I figured if I’m going to cut off my opportunities for service by confessing that certain priesthood leadership experiences have triggered clinical depression, and thus hurt my eligibility for future callings, I might as well help the new SP see the impact of the former Stake Presidency on my own willingness to serve in the future for a while. Perhaps it will shape their own thinking and effect change in a small way. Who knows what I will do, but these thoughts have occurred to me in the past.
I recognize they will probably label me apostate and move on….and then I’ll feel like a third class citizen until I move out of the stake at some point, and perhaps start acting like one more than I am now. That deters me somewhat, because at least now they see me as someone they might rely on to do the work of the Lord. Also, the fact that I haven’t had the depression for two years, and that meds cleared it up in three weeks and no meds since then….perhaps I shouldn’t bring it up.
I really hope that after you say no they don’t label you or treat you like a third class citizen. I said no to a calling once and it wasn’t the bishop that extended the calling. He seemed pretty offended when I told him my reasons why but then after that he was very kind to me and still said hi.
I really wonder sometimes though what type of records are kept in the bishops office. If it was the bishop and I said no would he write that down on a file under my name and the reason why? Could something like this exist on me now and future bishops will not give me a calling because I said no once?
mormonmom wrote:I really hope that after you say no they don’t label you or treat you like a third class citizen.
I said no to a calling once and it wasn’t the bishop that extended the calling. He seemed pretty offended when I told him my reasons why but then after that he was very kind to me and still said hi.
I really wonder sometimes though what type of records are kept in the bishops office. If it was the bishop and I said no would he write that down on a file under my name and the reason why? Could something like this exist on me now and future bishops will not give me a calling because I said no once?
I doubt if that would happen. I never saw that when I was a Stake Exec Sec or a Bishop’s Counselor….they might take notes so they can remember what happened if they have to report back to the Bishop but they would probably be personal notes and not official Church records. The good news is that these Bishoprics and Stake Presidencies turn over eventually, and you often get a semi-fresh start eventually. Also, your own personal circumstances change as well and you move, and get placed into a new administrative structure which knows little or nothing about your history in the previous ward/stake…unless there was something that affected your membership record, like Church discipline…
Acceptance or declination of callings is not recorded anywhere – or, at least, it isn’t supposed to be, and I have never seen or heard of it happening. Short answer… By being Japanese.
(Well, you weren’t expecting that, were you?)
What I mean is that the Japanese are masters of this, offering levels of vagueness and possibilty and rarely saying “no” directly, all in the service of politeness. I think we could learn some lessons from them maybe. It’s good to be blunt sometimes, but there are other ways of going about things.
http://www.piclist.com/images/www/hobby_elec/e_japanese3_7.htm “Positively no!”
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