Church Callings

In the predominantly Protestant environment of the early Latter-day Saints, individual churchgoers often expressed their religious commitment as a “holy vocation” and a “calling.” The work of ministry was expected to flow from that calling. The term “ordination” often referred to the formal conferral of ministerial authority on one who had embraced a calling from God. Joseph Smith received several revelations between 1829 and 1831 that used similar language when appointing members to offices in the Church. Although the term “calling” continued to convey the meaning of a holy vocation, Latter-day Saints increasingly used the term to refer to specific roles within the rapidly expanding organizations of the Church.

Beginning at the founding meeting in 1830, priesthood offices were the callings in the Church, each associated with specific duties. As the Church grew, additional duties extended from this priesthood structure, often first as assignments within a priesthood office. Officers assembled in councils and quorums to carry out their collective responsibilities on behalf of their local congregations and the Church at large.

At this time, leaders proposed appointments and assignments in public meetings and attendees voted openly in favor of or against such proposals, sometimes eliciting discussions about alternatives. It was in this context that certain leaders were said to be “elected” to their office or calling. For instance, Joseph Smith explained to founding members of the Relief Society how the revelation directed to Emma Smith (Doctrine and Covenants 25) referred to her as “an elect lady, whom [the Lord had] called” and “ordain’d” her at that time to preside over the Relief Society. After the members of the Relief Society voted to sustain Emma as their president, John Taylor “laid his hands on the head of Mrs. Smith and blessed her … to stand and preside and dignify her Office, to teach” the women of the Church. For the rest of the 19th century, other officers of the Church generally undertook their responsibilities along this same pattern: being called of the Lord through revelation and inspiration, being presented to others for a sustaining vote, being “elected” or sustained by a consensus vote, and being “ordained” or “set apart” by the laying on of hands to receive blessings in fulfilling the duties of their office.

Throughout the 19th century, the Church encompassed a plethora of local needs and extended both civic and religious assignments to members of wards and stakes. Supporting organizations like the Primary, Sunday School, and Mutual Improvement Associations made assignments irrespective of priesthood office, usually to volunteers. In the missions, missionaries were often ordained to the offices of seventy and elder, then called multiple times on separate mission assignments. When the first sister missionaries received calls to serve full-time missions in the 1890s, their assignments were formalized with a setting-apart blessing. By the turn of the 20th century, “callings” increasingly came to be associated with roles and responsibilities in Church organizations whether they extended from a priesthood office or not.

Around this same time and as the Church continued to grow, leaders worked toward streamlining operations and reducing confusion across wards, stakes, and organizations. A correlation committee, aiming to achieve greater clarity and uniformity across the whole Church, reviewed literature produced by the Church or any of its auxiliary organizations. Within this setting, the term “calling” referred to any responsibility or assignment extended to a person for a period of time. The distinction between being “ordained” and being “set apart” became more pronounced. Ordination was associated exclusively with the conferral of priesthood authority by the laying on of hands and receiving an office in the priesthood, whereas being set apart described a person formally receiving a responsibility and having special blessings associated with that role pronounced by a priesthood holder. In the same way leaders and councils extended callings to individuals, they extended “releases” to discharge a person from their calling. As callings rotated more often through regular members and were no longer attached exclusively to a specific office, releases became more regular and lifetime callings became less common.

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, callings functioned as the primary conduit for volunteer service and mobilizing the activities of congregations. By the early 2000s, callings were considered fundamental to every member of the Church; President Gordon B. Hinckley taught that every member needed a friend, a responsibility, and to be nurtured by the word of God. To that end, volunteer service has been coordinated across virtually all missions and congregations of the Church by callings.

Church Resources

Learning and Serving in the Church (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016).

General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2024), ChurchofJesusChrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook.

Bibliography

The following publications provide further information about this topic. By referring or linking you to these resources, we do not endorse or guarantee the content or the views of the authors.

David J. Whittaker and Arnold K. Garr, eds., A Firm Foundation: Church Organization and Administration (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2011).

Jonathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Related Topics: Adjustments to Priesthood Organization, Common Consent, Correlation, Wards and Stakes

1. Richard Watson, A Biblical and Theological Dictionary: Explanatory of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Jews, and Neighbouring Nations, American ed. (New York: Methodist Episcopal Church, 1832), 192–94, 722–23; Robert S. Michaelsen, “Changes in the Puritan Concept of Calling or Vocation,” New England Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 3 (Sept. 1953), 315–36; Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 107–9; Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 116–28. This Protestant vocabulary surrounding ministerial appointments and ordinations in the English language dates to the Reformation period of the 1500s (see “Calling (n.),” in Oxford English Dictionary [online], oed.com/view/Entry/26439).

2. Kathleen Flake, “Ordering Antinomy: An Analysis of Early Mormonism’s Priestly Offices, Councils, and Kinship,” Religion and American Culture, vol. 26, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 139–83; “Revelation, May 1829–A [D&C 11],” JosephSmithPapers.org; “Revelation, June 1829–B [D&C 18],” JosephSmithPapers.org; “Revelation, July 1830–A [D&C 24],” JosephSmithPapers.org; “Revelation, July 1830–C [D&C 25],” JosephSmithPapers.org.

3. “Articles and Covenants, circa April 1830 [D&C 20],” JosephSmithPapers.org.

4. See Topics: Founding Meeting of the Church of Christ, Common Consent.

5. Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Mar. 17, 1842, 8–9, JosephSmithPapers.org; see Topic: Female Relief Society of Nauvoo.

6. Representing the Church at the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893, Emily S. Richards explained this distinction as it had been observed previously: In the “Church organization proper, woman holds no official position. That is, she may not hold the office of an Apostle, nor a High Priest, nor a Seventy, nor a Bishop, nor a Deacon, nor any other office in the Priesthood. But in choosing the officers of the Church by a vote of popular acceptance, woman’s vote is as potential as man’s, and in auxiliary societies in the Church … women hold official positions to which they are set apart by the laying on of hands and prayer by the proper officers of the Church. Thus women are ordained to be officers” of the “Relief Societies,” “Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Associations,” and “Primary Associations”; Emily S. Richards, qtd. in B. H. Roberts, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Parliament of Religions,” Improvement Era, vol. 2, no. 12 (Oct. 1899), 901.

7. Gordon B. Hinckley, in Conference Report, Apr. 1997, 66–68.