The Call (Or, Vague and Ineffective Spiritual Slang)

As a child, I grew up entrenched in the moderate side of the conservative Baptist spectrum. I went to GA’s every Wednesday until I was twelve, and at that point, I traded GA’s for youth group. I went to Sunday School nearly every Sunday until I graduated high school, and when I did, I plugged in immediately to the local Baptist Collegiate Ministry and started attending a Baptist megachurch in the area.

At every one of these institutions, the idea of the (capital C) Call was emphasized ad naseam. It became a holy game of Where’s Waldo?, searching for, and sometimes manually inserting, God’s Call into my life, though, no one really ever elaborated on a) What exactly they meant when they say The Call, or b) the means by which one discerned it.

The Call. (thuh * kawl) n. 1. The politically correct name used for one’s career aspiration when speaking in a church setting. 2. The name used for vocational Christian ministry, especially during an especially emotional invitation after a provocative sermon, sometimes as a means of subtle coercion. 3. The indistinct draw or pull toward a certain place, person, group, goal, or occupation. (taken from Beasley’s Un-Standard and Clearly Satirical Dictionary of Spiritual Slang, © 2010.)

In my own experience, I have felt “Called” to several things over the course of my life. As a little girl in GA’s (Girls in Action), I felt “Called” to be a missionary every week when we celebrated their birthdays and prayed for their ministries and families. As a teenager, enveloped by a mostly loving and occasionally challenging youth group, I felt “Called” to be a youth worker. As a student in high school—whose confidence was repaired and nourished by an excellent educator—I felt “Called” to be a teacher.

As a camper, I felt “Called” to be a camp counselor, and as a summer camp counselor, I felt “Called” to be a camp staffer (that is, to throw myself joyfully into more than just the summer “counselor” duties). When I was a student, I felt “Called” to be a teacher, and now that I’m on my way to being a teacher, I feel “Called” to be a seminary student.

Point being, the Call I’ve heard for my life has changed as I live.

So now, since I’ve defined “The Call” above, I will now dismantle each of my definitions for it.

Objection to Definition 1.

 Definition 1 defines the Call as “The politically correct name used for one’s career aspiration when speaking in a church setting.” This, in my opinion, is how most people tend to use the term. They take Colossians 3:17 and use it to justify how they spend their time.

Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”

Plenty of people say their job or occupation is their Calling but do little or nothing with the intention or even awareness that they do so as Christ’s representative.

Objection to Definition 2.

Definition 2 is “The name used for vocational Christian ministry, especially during an especially emotional invitation after a provocative sermon, sometimes as a means of subtle coercion.” This is the invitation-time use of the term, and there are problems here, too. Not everyone is called to quit their jobs and rush to seminary in order to fulfill their Calling. And furthermore, whose to say that vocational Christian ministry requires quitting your job and going to seminary in the first place? Third of all, it’s problematic to bombard people with feelings of guilt and obligation to serve the church in a moment of intense emotional and spiritual turmoil that some feel during an invitation, whether we choose to analyze those feelings or not.

Objection to Definition 3.

Definition 3 defines The Call as “the indistinct draw or pull toward a certain place, person, group, goal, or occupation.” Maybe this is the definition closest to the truth, but I don’t think we’re there quite yet. I used this definition for most of my life, especially when I considered the feelings I had about being a youth worker or missionary or camp staffer. I felt a draw towards those goals or activities, so I assumed it was God calling me to them. But because the “Calls” I have felt in my life have consistently changed over time, I don’t think this definition is quite right either.

So, I propose a fourth definition.

The Call. (thuh * kawl) n. 4. The holy and ineffable magnetism of God.

I think that each of the callings I felt growing up and feel now are one and the same, each valid in its own right. Each time I felt drawn to a particular career goal, or to a certain school, or to a mission opportunity was part of one great Calling, the siren song of relational love.

I say The Call is the same for everyone, though manifesting in different and deeply beautiful ways for each, and, if you’ll excuse the play on words, here it is:

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” –Jesus, John 15:15

Again: The Call = The holy and ineffable magnetism of the Spirit, pulling us closer to God through loving, relational friendship with Jesus.

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I’ve said all that to say this: let’s get rid of spiritual slang, purge it from our lexicon. It’s limiting and exclusive, and doesn’t make much sense anyway.

-H