Why Endowed Latter-day Saints Should Never Decline a Calling

Latter-day Saints have been repeatedly taught to never turn down a call to serve. The prophets have been clear on this matter, I cite just three apostolic witnesses to establish this truth: “Just as service in the Church is not sought, it is not turned down.” Dallin H. Oaks, “Let us be honest with ourselves and never turn down an opportunity to serve in building and serving the kingdom of God.” Franklin D. Richards Oct. 1970, “It is not in the proper spirit for us to decide where we will serve or where we will not. We serve where we are called. It does not matter what the calling may be.” Boyd K. Packer, Oct. 1997.

Despite the words of the prophets being clear that Latter-day Saints do NOT turn down callings, there is a growing trend within the Church of rejecting callings. I believe this alarming rise in rejected callings stems from the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture as taught by social media influencers (including therapists), in the Church.

I want to deconstruct the main four reasons people give for turning down callings.

1st. It is a matter of agency.

Satan lost the war to take away our agency, now he obsesses on getting us to misuse it. It is true, we have our agency and we can reject callings, but using our agency to reject callings causes us to break our temple covenants. When each member of the Church goes to the temple and receives their endowment, they use their agency to covenant to consecrate EVERYTHING up to and including their very lives to build the kingdom. When a calling is extended to us, it is the Lord asking us, “Will you keep your covenants?”

A story that perfectly illustrates this is when President Nelson was called as a Stake President. In 1964 when asked to serve as a Stake President, knowing that it might hamper his career, Russell M. Nelson replied, “I already made this decision in 1945 when I was endowed. I will keep my covenants to consecrate my time and talents unto the Lord. If I need to find a new career to serve, I will.”
20 years later he was asked to give up his career to serve as an apostle.

You have agency, and if you have been endowed (like the preface to the article mentions) then your agency was used to enter into covenants. Now your agency can be used to choose either to keep your covenants and accept calls to serve, or to break covenants and reject calls.

2nd. The call would inconvenience me or my family.

Inconvenience is one of the biggest reasons people give for turning down a calling. Being too busy with work, or school sounds like a valid reason to turn down a calling. Many influencers and especially therapists claim that this excuse is justified. When Robert C. Gay was called to be a mission president by an apostle he had bought into this excuse. The result? He declined the call. The Apostle extending the call did not miss a beat and replied, “You really don’t get it, … You are either going to live your life by covenant or convenience. There is never a convenient time to serve. This is a matter of faith. You either believe that the Lord will bless your life with the blessings you need as you do His priorities, or you don’t.” Robert C. Gay and his wife accepted the call to serve as mission president. He was later called to the seventy and now serves in the Presidency of the Seventy. (Story as related by Elder Gay in the May 2020 Devotional)

“Opportunities to serve others in meaningful ways, as we have covenanted to do, rarely come at convenient times. But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants.”
M. Russell Ballard, April 1999.

3rd. I have medical/mental health problems.

There are many severe medical and mental health problems that would appear to excuse us from service. Even Enoch and Moses felt this way. Both of them suffered from being “slow of speech” or in other words, they had Dysarthria where they stammered and slurred their words. (See Moses 6:31, and Exodus 4:10). Others suffer from a whole host of various medical or mental health problems. But the Lord’s reply to Moses applies to all of us, “And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?” Exodus 4:11.

When my mother was called as the Primary President in our ward her health was in a rapid decline. My dad legitimately thought she would not last another year or two max. So a call not just to the primary, but to be the President seemed out of the picture. So she expressed her concerns but accepted the call. When she was set apart the bishop blessed her to fulfill the full five-year term of her calling, and that she would be healthier at the end of five years than she was at the beginning. This was nearly 10 years ago.

One of my favorite stories from The Ensign also addresses this very issue:

Our doctor informed us that there were medical complications preventing us from having children. We went to other experts for more than one opinion. However, even after surgery, we were left with little hope of conceiving. The doctors advised us, “Relax and let it happen. Be patient and maybe your million-to-one chance will happen.”

… The pressure of my work was constant, and most years I took classes at the local college at night. Church responsibilities also increased. I was called to serve as a counselor in the elders quorum presidency and spent many hours in meetings, helping with service projects, and doing missionary work and home teaching. I recalled what the doctors had told us about relaxing, spending time together, and reducing stress! Then the phone rang. It was a call to meet with the stake president.

Melanie and I met with President Woolsey the following Thursday, and he called me to be the elders quorum president. He explained at length the tremendous responsibility of the calling. As he discussed the considerable time commitment involved in “losing yourself in the work,” Melanie could no longer hold back her tears.

President Woolsey stopped the interview. He knew Melanie’s tears were not tears of joy over the position I was being called to that day. She explained the six years of waiting and wanting a family. She also explained the doctors’ instructions of spending more time together and reducing stress in our lives. After President Woolsey listened to us with great love and understanding, he still felt inspired to issue the call. Melanie asked for a blessing, and President Woolsey readily obliged. He blessed her that she might have the righteous desires of her heart on condition of her faithfulness and support of this new calling.

As I assumed my new responsibilities, we went forward with heart, might, mind, and strength. Imagine our joy and surprise and relief when, soon afterward, my wife found out she was expecting a baby.

Tears of Joy
By Chris A. Newbold
Ensign, July 1999

If you have medical or mental health issues that you feel would make accepting the call and magnifying it impossible, relate those to your leaders, but reiterate your willingness to serve. Sometimes with this additional information, further revelation will come to them on someone else to call, perhaps it was a test of your willingness. But other times like President Woolsey, they might still ask you to serve. Have faith and trust in the Lord who made heaven and earth.

4th. It was a calling of desperation not revelation.

The idea that a Bishop has extended a calling due to desperation and not revelation is unfortunately not uncommon. I’ve seen dozens and dozens of comments online reiterating this idea and I have even had family and friends suggest it. On the note of desperation, there is no clause on the temple covenant that says, “You only need to keep this covenant to build up the kingdom if your bishop is not desperate.”

Now, with that being said, it is the duty of the Bishop to pray and get confirmation about a calling before it is extended. There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord for confirmation if you are really struggling with a call, but often you “receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” Ether 12:6. Therefore, it is vital that we understand and presume that our leaders are acting on inspiration. Dallin H. Oaks taught this, “We respect our leaders and presume inspiration in their leadership of the Church and in their teachings. But we are all privileged and encouraged to confirm their teachings by prayerfully seeking and receiving revelatory confirmation directly from God.”

NOTE: If a calling is extended properly, it will be framed that it is not the bishop requesting, but after study and prayer it has been confirmed that it is the Lord extending the call through His servant. I love this story related by Boyd K. Packer as it shows how Spencer W. Kimball learned this lesson when he was a new Stake President:

When I was a young man, I heard Elder Spencer W. Kimball speak in a stake conference. He said that as a new stake president in Arizona, he left his office in the bank to call a man to be stake leader of the young men.

He said, “Jack, how would you like to be leader of the young men in the stake?”

Jack responded, “Aw, Spencer, you don’t mean me. I couldn’t do anything like that.”

He tried to persuade him, but Jack refused the call.

Brother Kimball went back to his office to brood over his failure. He knew the stake presidency had been inspired to make the call. Finally it came to him: he had made a terrible mistake! Of course, Jack would not respond.

Perhaps he recalled what the prophet Jacob had said when he “taught them in the temple, having first obtained mine errand from the Lord.”

President Kimball now did as Jacob had done in ancient times. He “obtained [his] errand from the Lord.”

He returned to ask Jack to forgive him for not doing it right and started over: “Last Sunday the stake presidency prayerfully considered who should lead the young men in the stake. There were several names; yours was among them. We all felt that you were the man. We knelt in prayer. The Lord confirmed to the three of us, by revelation, that you were to be called to that position.”

Then he said, “As a servant of the Lord, I am here to deliver that call.”

Then Jack said, “Well, Spencer, if you are going to put it that way …”

President Kimball replied, “I am putting it that way!”

Of course, Jack would not respond to a casual invitation from Spencer, but he could not refuse a call from the Lord through Stake President Kimball. He served faithfully and with inspiration.

Boyd K. Packer Oct. 1997

Information Precedes Revelation

When a calling is extended that you do not feel you can do, explain your situation. One of the biggest misconceptions about callings is the idea that there is only one “right” person for each calling. Most of the time there are many “acceptable” options. But understanding your situation might change the call. When you feel like you could not fulfill your calling explain your feelings and concerns, but also your willingness to serve.

For example, years ago my mother-in-law was extended a call to serve in the nursery. At the time she was struggling with raising kids and her mental health, never interacting with adults. She explained to the Bishop that she was living for adult interaction she got in Relief Society. She explained she was willing to accept the call, but that if there was another way that would be preferable. The bishop with this new information went back to his counselors and rescinded the call to Nursey and extended it to someone else, later my mother-in-law was called to serve elsewhere.

Follow this pattern if you truly struggle, share information, ask for additional prayers, and if the call still comes, remember, “In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we do not seek, nor do we decline, callings that come from God through inspired priesthood channels.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf

What if I get a Prompting that I Should Decline a Calling?

What if the Holy Ghost tells you to reject a calling? Well, if you have done the above, IE, expressed your concerns and asked for your bishop to consider them and pray about the calling again, and he comes back and explains that they have prayed and gotten a confirmation that the Lord, is extending this call to you and that he is merely the messenger delivering that call, (just as explained by Boyd K. Packer).

If after all this you still have the Holy Ghost telling you to decline a calling, respectfully you are not listening to the Holy Ghost. President Eyring in Oct. 2021 warned us that “it is crucial that any personal revelation we receive be consonant with the teachings of the Lord and His prophets.” Because if it is not consonant, it is not from God. The new 2023 edition of Preach My Gospel states, “As you pray for inspiration, compare your spiritual impressions with the scriptures and the teachings of the living prophets. Impressions from the Spirit will align with these sources.“

God will not tell his prophets to repeatedly teach members to never decline a calling that comes through the authorized priesthood channels. And then allow His Spirit to tell you to reject the calling coming from an authorized priesthood channel. Simply put, it is not in the economy of heaven for such insubordination within the Godhead to happen.

Summary: Just ask yourself:

One of the best ways to see through the sophistries of influencers mingling their teachings with scriptures is to apply the Church history test. Does what they advocate jive with Church history? What would happen if the prophets and saints of yesterday lived what these influencers taught? 

Could you imagine yourself in a Pioneer General Conference, watching one of the early prophets issuing mission calls on the spot, with no prior interview or extension of the call? Both calls to proselyte as well as calls to move your family and settle in a new area? Could you imagine the Pioneers who have just traveled over the entire United States, just built their houses, and now suddenly are being called to settle the Iron Mission saying, “Now Brigham, is this desperation or revelation?” or the newlywed man being called to serve a mission stating, “I am not sure if this fits my family life?” Sure some of them did so, but they’ve been forgotten by history and overshadowed by those who replied like Nephi: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded.”

Stories like Orson Pratt should be our example! When he was 23 years old he was called as an Apostle, but there was a problem, he was not even in the meeting or even in Kirtland at the time! So they sent word to him to come to Kirtland to attend another meeting, but it did not tell him about his call. When he arrives he walks into the meeting, still unaware that he has been called to be an Apostle, to find out that the people had been praying for his arrival. He learned of his call, he then accepted the call to serve, and he did so faithfully till his death nearly 50 years later. (See story #5 in Five Lessons for Young Adults from Young Apostles)

Some additional quotes that are too good not to include:

“The Lord through His servants calls us to serve in various callings, which we accept with total commitment.”
Elder Edward Dube

“Applying this rule [“Thy will be done, not mine.”] in our lives can mean never to turn down an opportunity to serve in building the kingdom when asked by one in authority. Our callings to serve in the Church, coming from an authorized agent of our Heavenly Father, can properly be construed to be the will of the Lord.”
Franklin D. Richards

“In the service of the Lord, it is not where you serve but how. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one takes the place to which one is duly called, which place one neither seeks nor declines.”
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Conference Report, April 1951, pp. 153

“Please consider who it is you are refusing or neglecting to serve when you decline a calling”
Dallin H. Oaks

“Never turn down a call from your bishop.”
President Boyd K. Packer

“We do not aspire to callings nor should we ever turn down a call to serve” “Not Where You Serve, but How,” 
President J. Reuben Clark Jr. Improvement Era, June 1951, 412.

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