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I know, the subject is a little vague. Briefly, I have been inactive for 10+ years and am considering a return to church. I have decided, for my own sanity, that this return would at least in the beginning entail only sacrament meeting. The idea is that I would meet with the bishop beforehand and explain where I’m at, inform him that I intend to only attend sacrament, that I will not accept a calling (I don’t believe calling are inspired), and I won’t accept a home teaching assignment. I have known him for over 25 years and doubt that he will have a problem with any of this. I see by lurking here that many of you have callings and some of those involve teaching. Before my crisis of faith I was GD teacher. I was at a point where I could not in good conscience continue in that position because it required teaching things that I did not (and some cases still do not) believe to be true or that I do not believe are part of the gospel. (I’m still figuring out what’s gospel and what isn’t – it’s hard to tell sometimes.) I’m still that way, and I do recognize that the majority of callings at the ward level are teaching callings. I also realize that at some point I may desire to do more than attend just sacrament meeting. I have no problem saying no, with or without explanation, but my question here is when you are offered a calling how do you respond? In my case, how might you respond if it were a teaching calling?
Just as a side note, there are very few callings I wouldn’t say no to at this point anyway. Unless someone can shed some illumination on how to teach what I don’t believe, teaching is out, I hate (and I do mean hate) clerical work, and I’m not into what I refer to as “weenie” callings like being on the Scout committee – the less essential ones, if you will. I know that limits the possibilities, which is part of why I don’t want one.
My philosophy is very simple: Quote:If they call me, and if I accept, they get me.
Solves all the issues, since they can release me if they don’t like what they get.
It also keeps me from being disappointed or offended if I am released – and that is just as important.
DarkJedi, Well, if you tell the Bishop you don’t want a calling, then you aren’t going to get one.
Perhaps you should just start back to SM and if you are ready at some point in the future, you could sit down with the Bishop and offer to volunteer and maybe ask where they could use you, or you offer where you’d like to work. Serving in the Church is a great opportunity. I mean, the Bishop is paid the exact same amount as the Scout Committee members and the second counselor in the Sunday School. The Church can’t operate without dedicated people who take it as their assignment to bring the bread, print the programs, lead the music, speak, teach, work with the young people, staff the nursery, keep the books, etc. So, from that standpoint, forgetting about what any of us believes or doesn’t believe about the “gospel”, if we are part of a community, it’s good if we do something to support that community.
As for HTing. It’s the EQ President or HP GL who makes that assignment. If you tell the Bishop that you don’t want to home teach, then you are just assigning him a task… to go talk to the EQP/HPGL. If you start showing up to SM, but not EQ/HP, I would doubt that you’d get a HTing assignment without the EQP/HPGL first talking to you.
I guess what I’m saying is that your approach seems to be to set boundaries and expectations of everyone who might consider giving you an assignment, before you set foot in SM, and I would simply say, if you want to go to SM, go. You don’t need to worry about this stuff at this point. If somebody does give you a ‘calling’ all you have to say is, “Hey, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not looking for an assignment right now.” No other explanation, discussion, internal angst will provide any more benefit than that.
Hi On Own Now. Thanks. I do agree that I am playing a bit of “what if” here, but I’m also looking down the road. This site has given me so much hope. These are things that I was not thinking of a month ago or any time over the past 10 years. I was literally so alone, and now I am not. So again, thank you all. So, looking down the road, I can see the time when I likely would return to SS & priesthood meetings after testing the water, if you will, in SM. If I can control my own feelings and thoughts regarding those I disagree with, and I think I can, the time will come when an expansion of activity would likely follow. Much of this thinking has come about by reading other people’s examples and stories here. So taking into account that my thinking will likely continue to evolve, I’m still not sure that I would be ready to accept a teaching calling in the future – even though I see examples of people here who do hold teaching callings. I’m not asking as much how you (collectively) accept callings believing what you believe, it really is more of “if you were me” – although I do want to hear the experiences of members here, how they have reacted, and how they do it.
Lastly, I have to disagree with you that I would be setting expectations for the ward or ward leadership. From my point of view, I’m not setting any expectations for them, rather I am clearly setting what their expectations of me should be. I would certainly not have a problem with spelling out the same expectations for the HPGL (whom I’ve known the same amount of time as the bishop), however, I very aware that they meet and discuss this sort of thing and I would trust that the bishop would share that information with him. The whole idea of meeting the bishop is so that he doesn’t see me walk in the door out of the blue and have any unrealistic expectations of what that might mean. I don’t think I have said this on these forums before, but just so everybody understands, I’m not especially fond of the bishop. He is a very nice guy, and I have no doubt he tries and puts effort into his responsibilities, but I believe he is wholly uninspired and a very poor excuse for a leader.
DarkJedi wrote:so that he doesn’t see me walk in the door out of the blue and have any unrealistic expectations of what that might mean.
But so what if he does? Is it your intention to go to SM to worship the Bishop or feel of His spirit? I think it’s easy for people in our collective situation to put too much emphasis on what others think of us or how they will react to us. The Church is a medium for worship/spirituality/peace/strength/consolation. Yet we sometimes treat it like it’s a class reunion where we have to make sure we show our best selves and put up the best possible front. I mean this with deepest respect and sincerity, because I believe you and I are “kindred spirits”, but rather than going into this with a satchel full of prepared reactions to what-if cases, just go to experience whatever you hope to get out of it. If this results in the bishop wanting to talk to you, just be agreeable, yet candid. If he tells you that you now must clean the chapel, politely decline. In other words, if it is spirituality you are after, make that your first and only priority, and don’t let the mundane details keep you from it.DarkJedi wrote:I was literally so alone, and now I am not. So again, thank you all.
Boy, that’s how I feel about this site. I was alone for so long in all this and I agree with DarkJedi: thank you all, again, for this community. Thank God for StayLDS!I haven’t been extended a calling since my views about the church started changing. I was asked to teach GD about a month before that happened and, as you probably know, just barely stepped down from that after teaching for the last 8 months. Teaching in the church when you don’t believe or agree with what’s in the manual can be frustrating and time consuming. I always had to spend a lot of time creating my own version of the lesson that didn’t step on too many toes but that I could still feel good about presenting. It took a lot of energy, but I mostly enjoyed it. It cause me to really dig deep and explore my beliefs and feelings. That being said, I don’t know when/if I’ll accept a teaching calling again. Definitely not during a church history/D&C year, that’s for sure! 🙂 I like what Ray said and On Own Now. Perhaps as you start attending SM again and explore the SS and PH class waters, you could be observing and thinking about where you would be willing and comfortable serving. Then, when you feel like you could accept a calling, just let your bishop know the areas that interest you and where you feel like you could make a positive contribution.
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DarkJedi wrote:From my point of view, I’m not setting any expectations for them, rather I am clearly setting what their expectations of me should be.
I have been talking about the upcoming baptism of my daughter for about a year off and on. I have known others that were not permitted by their bishop to perform the ordinance and I do not hold a TR. I had thought to schedule an appointment with the Bishop at least 6 months in advance to know if I would be permitted to perform the ordinance. I would go into the meeting saying that while the handbook says that the performer of the baptism doesn’t need to meet temple standards – the ultimate decision lies in his hands. I wanted to know in advance if I should plan on doing the baptism or needed to get someone else.
I was advised against this course of action. Thinking about it now it seems probable that he would ask why I am so concerned about it. I could either come clean about faith issues, non-compliance of tithing, and only attendance of SM or I could stay intentionally vague. If I come clean – he might give me assignments to “help”. If I stay vague he might imagine all sorts of problems.
Instead I asked him in the hallway after another ward child’s baptism what priesthood was needed to be a witness and also what I needed to do prior to DD’s baptism (interview?). He told me that priest or higher are needed to witness and that I didn’t need anything as formal as an interview – a simple chat would suffice.
In general, I find it preferable to operate in the grey area. People know I’m different but nobody really knows exactly how different. If someone wants to know something – then they should ask. I typically find that people don’t ask to know my thoughts.
As far as the actual mechanics of considering/accepting/declining a calling, I’ve decided that the next time I’m offered a calling (I currently have a fairly time-consuming calling), I’m going to tell the person “Thanks for the offer. I’m going to need a week to think about it, ponder it, pray about it, speak with my wife about it, and see what the Lord tells me about it.” How in the world can a TBM argue with that? And I will, in fact, think about it and speak with my wife about it. If we both feel good about it, I’ll probably accept. If we don’t, then I probably won’t accept it. Good luck, mate, and hope you enjoy coming back to SM.
Kuma
This is a tough topic for me. I agree with others that it would be ideal to politely decline if it was something you felt you couldn’t do. But that is much easier said than done. Just a month ago I was asked to meet with the bishop. I don’t know why they can’t say that it is for a calling, or what the calling is ahead of time to give you time to think about it. I guess I could have asked, but the request was through email, and I didn’t think to ask until later when I thought he might not see my email before the meeting. So I went in worrying that it would be a calling for primary, and I didn’t want to do that again. I was mentally preparing myself to say no, but once I was in the meeting with him I could hardly believe how I was going to be able to say no. He is someone I barely know, we just moved into the ward and are trying to make friends, there were people out in the waiting area who might have seen his weird expression when I left the room etc. He did end up asking me to teach primary, but since it was for the oldest class and there are only 4 girls in the class, I decided to say yes. But it was a very tense experience for me. and I still don’t know if I should have said yes, since it has already been hard for me to teach these innocent girls things that I don’t really believe in myself. (It is D&C for them this year too, which is especially hard!)
Anyway, I tell this story to illustrate that the way calling are given is set up to guilt you into saying yes, in my opinion. It sounds like you, DarkJedi, are not afraid to be open about yourself to your bishop, for me it would be very hard. I just want to be anonymous at church. I also agree that callings don’t seem to be inspired, because why would God want someone questioning him and his church to teach children!
😆 journeygirl wrote:Anyway, I tell this story to illustrate that the way calling are given is set up to guilt you into saying yes, in my opinion. It sounds like you, DarkJedi, are not afraid to be open about yourself to your bishop, for me it would be very hard. I just want to be anonymous at church. I also agree that callings don’t seem to be inspired, because why would God want someone questioning him and his church to teach children!
😆 Thanks, Journeygirl. Were I in your situation I would probably be less likely to open up to the bishop – I am more comfortable doing so with my bishop because I’ve known him for so long. If I didn’t know him it would be more difficult for me and I probably would not be completely open with him, but I still have enough dark side energy to refuse a calling – I’ve encountered the spitting & sputtering gasping disbelief at the gall of doing something like that in the past. Actually, I recall a conversation I had with the prior SP when I was beginning to question. He tried to take a parting pot shot by telling me I should take some time to consider my position to which I looked him directly in the eye and told him that I had had nothing but time to consider and that’s why I was where I was. He had no comeback for that.
I agree with you that guilt and peer pressure play a big part in the extension of a calling.
In my mind, this thread is melding with my other open thread about sustaining. I am having trouble figuring out if I sustain or not because I don’t believe most calls are inspired, and I don’t believe most calls are inspired for the very same reason you point out. TBMs would probably just say that the Lord has something for you to learn in that calling and perhaps giving you the opportunity to feel the spirit might help you. Poppycock!
I was a GD teacher for 4 years then a YMP for 2 years. I was a year into my YM calling when my eyes were opened. I struggled through Ward Council and PEC for another year while I was personally in a dark and very angry place inside. I am still hyper-sensitive and easily provoked on some things, 1-1/2 years after the fact. I have scaled back church attendance to SM and I sub as a primary teacher when needed. I just can’t go to SS or PH quorum right now. I was and still am at the point where there was almost no calling I would have accepted. I went calling-less for about 6 months, when I was asked to be the ward employment specialist. Maybe this one was inspired of God because it just might have been the only thing I would have even considered doing. I accepted after thinking about it and it has been good. I get to interact with folks and help people that really need it and have zero expectation or responsibility to preach or teach anything I don’t believe in anymore. It is a great place for me to be in right now.
Maybe a similar calling could work for you Darkjedi?
I do not believe every calling is inspired, but I do believe some are – and some revelatory in nature. I say that from personal experience in positions to be part of the conversation about callings – and in one particular instance where it was my responsibility to pick the person for a calling. I wrote the following post in May:
“
Church Callings: Inspiration or Desperation? Issuing vs. Extending” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2013/05/church-callings-inspiration-or.html Origami wrote:I was a GD teacher for 4 years then a YMP for 2 years. I was a year into my YM calling when my eyes were opened. I struggled through Ward Council and PEC for another year while I was personally in a dark and very angry place inside. I am still hyper-sensitive and easily provoked on some things, 1-1/2 years after the fact. I have scaled back church attendance to SM and I sub as a primary teacher when needed. I just can’t go to SS or PH quorum right now.
I was and still am at the point where there was almost no calling I would have accepted. I went calling-less for about 6 months, when I was asked to be the ward employment specialist. Maybe this one was inspired of God because it just might have been the only thing I would have even considered doing. I accepted after thinking about it and it has been good. I get to interact with folks and help people that really need it and have zero expectation or responsibility to preach or teach anything I don’t believe in anymore. It is a great place for me to be in right now.
Maybe a similar calling could work for you Darkjedi?
Our journeys do have some similarities. I am not as sensitive as I was, but that is partly why I am considering SM only.
Yes, a calling such as employment specialist probably wold be acceptable. There just aren’t many callings like that.
Old-Timer wrote:I do not believe every calling is inspired, but I do believe some are – and some revelatory in nature. I say that from personal experience in positions to be part of the conversation about callings – and in one particular instance where it was my responsibility to pick the person for a calling.
I wrote the following post in May:
“
Church Callings: Inspiration or Desperation? Issuing vs. Extending” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2013/05/church-callings-inspiration-or.html I agree, Ray, some callings are inspired and I have received callings which I felt were. Of course, that was before. I still believe there are inspired callings, I just don’t know how to tell.
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