On 'Call'...

What does it mean for one to have a 'calling' or to be 'called'?

There are several definitions of the word call - a phone call, a deliberate sound made to communicate with another, a vocation, and so on...

Usually, it simply means 'vocation' or job - especially when one is well suited to, or successful at their job. (i.e. He has a real calling to be a fireman)

And that's fine, but what I'm thinking about now (and have been for a while) is a more specific use of the term - the meaning of 'calling', as it is usually understood, in the spiritual sense or in religious usage.

And I know that various religions have differing understandings of this concept. Even within Christianity, various denominations use the terms differently and to mean slightly different things. Or they use the terms like 'call' and 'calling' to refer to denominationally specific ways in which pastors are selected, hired, assigned, etc.

Generally, I would say that most people think of this kind of 'a calling' as a strongly felt need or desire to work as a minister or pastor.

Interestingly, I grew up attending church in a denomination that did not use the terms 'call' or 'calling' in this way. Well, some may have, but I don't remember it at all. The first time I remember hearing about this idea was from my good United Methodist Grandmother, God rest her soul. I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old when I heard her talking on the phone to one of her church-lady friends, 'You know, brother so-and-so was called into the ministry.'

When she got off the phone, I said, 'Granny, who called that man to tell him to be a minister?'

'God did, of course.'

Now this created quite a confusing mental image for me at the time: Picture me as a little kid imagining a guy sitting in his living room watching Good Times or whatever when the phone rings...

'Honey, you'll never guess who's on the phone...'

Nope, not even close. And I know almost no one who thinks it would happen that way - that it is ever that direct and specific.

I also think we use these terms in too specific a manner within Christianity even without the benefit of a six-year-old's overactive imagination. Maybe a 'calling' is not necessarily to enter the full time ministry. If one has a calling as a Christian, must it always be as a clergy person?

Could not one receive a call to be a Sunday School teacher? A Church Musician? Leadership roles in the Laity? Aren't these ministries also? In that case, doesn't everyone have some role? At least shouldn't they? Aren't all Christians, then, called in some way? Even if it is just to mow the grass in the church cemetery?

What about outside of Christianity? Could God call a non-Christian to become a Christian? Wesley might have thought so, but the quasi-universalist in me doesn't think it would be quite like that.

What if God is simply calling all people into a relationship with God and to use what talents and skills they possess to help others? I like that better - but who knows?

So, What is a 'call'?

Who gets 'called'?

Why, and for what purpose?

How?

And how do they know any of this?