Comments on: Gunning For Callings

By: The Bish

The Bish — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:42:37 +0000

As a former bishop I have a couple of comments on people who “gun” for a calling, particularly a “prestige” calling:

1. Anyone who aspires to be a bishop/stake president deserves to be one.
2. Everyone in the church is equal, but some are more equal than others.
3. No success as a bishop can compensate for the the inevitable failure of many aspects of your home life, regardless of how “righteous” you try to live.
4. Your friends may come and go, but your enemies will accumulate — so be warned!
5. It will cost you far more than your time.
6. You can always tell a bishop, but not much.

And though I state the above somewhat with my tongue in cheek, there is in jest always a measure of truth.

The Bish

By: AJ

AJ — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:41:06 +0000

Oh and btw, if callings are supposed to come from inspiration, why would it matter what you blog?

By: AJ

AJ — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:40:05 +0000

I have known people who aspire to callings. It certainly exists. And no matter what General authorites have said about all callings being equal, some people DO attach prestige to leadership positions. Some people brag about their positions, or more commonly, brag about the positions of close family members. I think if you base your entire social life(and self esteem) around members of the church or more specifically, the members of your own particular ward, you can be more vulnerable to this sort of thing. I can honestly say that I really don’t care about other people’s callings. I am friends with our newly called bishop’s wife. When he was called, I sort of felt sorry for her and for him. I don’t look at either of them differently. I respect his calling and I just hope his family not only survives the experience, but will be richly blessed for it.

Personally, I think I have the opposite problem. I never aspire to callings. I think I would be totally happy if I never had one. Callings make me nervous. They are stressful. I find them a challenge. It doesn’t take much of a calling to make me grow. I would never aspire to be a RS president. I actually admire people who take on new callings with enthusiasm and wish I was more like them.

Also, I agree that most people say “congratulations” to the newly called because they really don’t know what else to say. I think in the majority of cases, it is meant as a show of support rather than an acknowledgment of some sort of achievement.

By: Geoff J

Geoff J — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 15:52:21 +0000

That’s true Jordan. No one should write things that get themselves fired. In the context of this post, though, I suspect that most employers wouldn’t care much if someone posted on various theological musings that sound a bit new or unusual to most Mormons. That group I mention in #60 has a lot more reason to be concerned about blogging on those subjects.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:59:01 +0000

You might also note that those of us with careers in the secular world often need to be more careful about what we say online. There have been more than a few cases where employees have been fired over what they say in blogs. Or when they post to blogs.

By: Geoff J

Geoff J — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 04:06:52 +0000

Let me add that I think people that would like to work for in CES or at BYU some day (or already do) ought to get a free pass on this subject. Everyone has to feed their families after all and some jobs require more discretion with personal opinions than others…

By: Geoff J

Geoff J — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:34:47 +0000

Ha! Ringing the bell is pretty cool, Casey. I’ve been SS president since I moved to Arizona a little over a year ago. I suspect the Peter Principle is in effect though — I would probably be more useful as a teacher. But I end up subbing enough that I get my teaching fix… (I’m stake SS president now so I get to teach the youth in two wards tomorrow!)

By: Casey Blau

Casey Blau — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 03:03:18 +0000

The best calling of all is Sunday School Pres, all the glory of a presidency and you get to ring the bell!!

By: annegb

annegb — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 01:25:52 +0000

Yeah, Mark, actually working closely to those people or having that calling has cured me every time I thought I wanted a particular one. Now I don’t want to do anything.

By: Steve (FSF)

Steve (FSF) — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 17:48:49 +0000

Aspiring to church callings is a form of masochistic mental illness probably indicative of low self esteem and insecurity of some sort. Our SP and Bishops get abused big time by members who forget they’re volunteers, not employees of the church. Why would anyone aspire to that BS? My favorite callings were primary teacher and ward mission leader. I never had a chance to be just Joe senior comp on my mission and that sucked big time. When I went from junior comp to my first DL assignment, I’ll confess it was nice splitting off from my greeny comp whenever I wanted to spend time with real friends, but that was more than offset by getting knifed in the back by AH Elders who would complain to the pres about my unorthodox (but very effective) methods like staying out teaching until ~1 a.m. in the Summer because people routinely ate dinner ~10 p.m. in the Summer in the country. Being a ZL was the worse because the pres and AP’s censured everything at Zone Conferences, so you couldn’t tell the truth about how to be an effective missionary (except one-on-one, and any Joe missionary could do that just as well.). Also as ZL the pres expected you to rat out wayward missionaries like some Nazi; my refusal to do so almost got me sent home a few times. Missionaries get abused so bad; why do some RM’s line up for more?