When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time hanging around my family's parish. On Saturdays, I'd clean up the church and set up tables for dances. One night a week I would answer the telephone in the rectory while I tried (and failed!) to figure out trigonometry. On Sundays I'd serve as an altar boy. My mother's brother, a favorite uncle, was a priest and my hero, and I admired a couple of teachers who were priests. All of this led me to wonder if God wanted me to a be a priest. Did I have "the call"?

For years, I went back and forth on this question. Mostly, I just ran away from it. Though I tried a couple of careers, the idea persisted. So I decided that the only way to reach an answer was to give priesthood a try. I entered the Jesuit novitiate (an early stage of seminary training), but left after only one semester. Those few months, however, helped me put more than 10 years of confusion into order.

Here was the surprise: It was only by taking the first step toward priesthood that I was able to see that God did indeed offer me a vocation, but not the only one I thought possible. God was calling me to the vocation of being one of the laity—a layperson in the Church. I had always thought that only priests and sisters got "the call," though I wasn't sure what this was. Did they receive a midnight vision or hear a deep voice as they walked down the street?

Despite what movies and dramatic stories might portray, a call is more likely to be a message from God that is sent through our own dreams and desires, our feelings. God tells us our own road through our families, friends and teachers. Priests, sisters, brothers and all the saints aren't the only ones "called." We all are. We just have to learn to listen and read these daily signs. Discernment, a fancy word that just means figuring out what God is telling us, works for all vocations.

So, since being a layperson—that is, someone who is not formally ordained or has not taken religious vows—is a calling, then you should really think about this life-style and choose it, not just fall back into it because you decide not to enter a convent or seminary. And maybe this calling—to choose active membership in the Church—is right for you now, though you might get another call later in your life.

I think the most important lesson I learned when studying for the priesthood myself is that being a layperson is not a lower or higher calling than that of priesthood or religious life. It was simply, for me, the right calling. That's the key.

Choose With Enthusiasm

Many adults today speak of a vocation crisis. They are worried that few young people are deciding to become priests, sisters or brothers. In the 1950's, seminaries and convents were packed, and almost every family had some relative or friend taking vows or getting ordained. Today, however, some people don't understand—even suspect or mock—anyone deciding to make the commitment to enter religious service. That's unfortunate, to be sure.

So how do we improve this situation? First, clearly more teenagers, and adults as well, should consider priesthood or religious life when thinking about their futures. This way of life should be looked at along with lawyer, doctor, plumber, teacher and other appealing choices.

Second, however, is to look at this situation not as a negative problem—"What a predicament! We don't have anybody to be our pastor!"—but as a positive opportunity. Someone recently wrote that now is the "Catholic moment" when Catholics should take the lead to make sure that Christian values are part of everyday (secular) life. This "vocation crisis" can be instead a chance for us laypeople to understand and embrace our special vocations, making this a "lay moment" in the history of the Church.

Indeed, you have a contribution to make to the Church that no one else can make. While the decision to become a priest, sister or brother is awesome and requires a tremendous sacrifice—not being able to get married is one big factor—many other life choices require sacrifices that can be just as challenging and worthwhile and also serve the people of God.

A famous passage from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians reminds Christians that the Church needs different people in various jobs to create a living community. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit," St. Paul writes. "[T]here are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone" (1 Corinthians 12:46). "Everyone" includes priests, sisters, brothers and laypeople. In St. Paul's time, in fact, laypeople played a central role in leading and organizing the first communities of the new Christian faith. This challenge is still with us.

Act With Love

Laypeople work in many more types of jobs than most priests and religious. In this range of professions, they often face difficult moral decisions (especially in the medical profession), but can also bring the message of Jesus to their co-workers in these situations. Cheating on the job or stealing from a customer or employer is definitely not Christian behavior. Laypeople can set a good example in the workplace and demonstrate how the message of the gospel can come to life in a particular situation.

Being a lay Christian does not just mean praying on your knees. It means rolling up your sleeves and bringing your faith to work. There are almost two calls in one. One way to do this is to ask yourself, when making career decisions, how you can best live your Christian vocation. Think of your career, in fact, as an "apostolate" or service. The challenge is to bring the spiritual into a world that often seems separate from God. This happens in the daily events of work and school, where it's often hard to practice the lessons learned at Sunday Mass.

Living Your Vocation—Now

About 30 years ago, when many of your parents were young and before you were even born, the Church underwent a radical change and did some rethinking of the way it participated in the world. The leaders of the Second Vatican Council discussed the subject of the laity and how laypeople could help the Church update itself. Vatican II specifically urged laypeople to live the gospel in the material world. The Church has always had lay members, but it seemed time to remind them and the clergy to be apostles by more actively promoting the gospel.

Vatican II published several documents about this topic. The first is known as the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity. In it, the role of the laity is called a "noble obligation." A second document, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, also discussed how laypeople were especially qualified to help bring new life to the Church. The place of the laity within the whole Church is also treated in Chapter IV of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. A quick review of ideas from these documents can give ideas on just how important laypeople are to the Church and, in addition, how we can pursue that role.

Look for religion everywhere. Laypeople are encouraged to study many fields: medicine, teaching, law, all technical careers, science, the arts. You don't need to be ordained to bring Christ to people. You can do this in any field. Mary was neither a priest nor a sister. Jesus was a carpenter and had to deal with deadlines, business dealings, even splinters!

Every day, technology presents us with new questions about life and death, such as whether family members should "pull the plug" on very sick people. If laypeople are properly educated in both their special field of training and in the Word of God and Jesus' primary commandment to love one another as he loved us, they can bring those values to difficult decisions in the world.

Get involved in politics. This may sound surprising, but Vatican II went out of its way to specifically mention that the world of politics represents a good field for laypeople to enter so that they can improve people's lives. In the United States, there is a strict separation of Church and state. A bishop will never be elected president, and few ordained or vowed persons hold government positions. That does not mean, however, that laypeople cannot be elected and bring with them into a job as state senator, town councilperson or community board member those Christian values which can help many of their neighbors or fellow workers on their jobs.

For instance, a discussion about homeless people sleeping on the streets in a town can be filled with more humanity by a committed lay elected official who can remind his or her colleagues that the townspeople have a responsibility to help, not shut out, their fellow citizens.

Find God in your family and community life. Although definitions of what makes up a family seem to be written and rewritten almost every day, the fact remains that Jesus said wherever two or more of us are gathered in his name, he'll be there. This is true of married or unmarried parents, school clubs, sports teams, community organizations or even a small cluster of friends. There is a special spirituality that is part of such group activity, that spirit of cooperation of which St. Paul spoke.

Think about each group to which you belong and God's place in that group. Maybe the central focus of the group is the Church—a parish youth club, for instance, or a service activity where you visit the elderly in a local nursing home. It could be, though, that your peers don't see God as part of what you are doing, and it can be embarrassing to bring up God because some of your friends might not understand and think you are some kind of fanatic. Fine. You don't have to convert anyone, but God is certainly in the kind of sportsmanship you could practice, for instance, when you lose a close game but congratulate the other team.

Become part of a new wave of activism and volunteerism. Parishes are big places with many activities. A diminishing number of priests and religious can't keep up, so why not start an activity on your own? Many people today are volunteering in soup kitchens, staffing homeless shelters, visiting the sick, collecting clothes for the poor, raising money in all kinds of fun ways (dance-a-thons, bike-a-thons, walk-athons, cook-offs) for charities. What kinds of activities might you join—or invent—where laypeople can make a unique impact?

Look around. The Church in the Modern World called upon laypeople "to animate [energize] the world with the spirit of Christianity" and "to be witnesses to Christ in all circumstances." Simply by looking at the newspaper or watching the TV news, try to identify a few events where lay Catholics can make an important difference. This can be on a national or international level, or even in your own parish, school or neighborhood. Your imagination is your best asset in this kind of exercise.

Read and think. Talk and pray. This is the best advice I ever got during the time I studied for the priesthood. You can apply it to anything, of course, but it works very well when thinking about your lay vocation. Read about vocations and types of service. Talk with your friends, family or another individual who seems to you like a very service-oriented and "called" person. Think about how your career plans and dreams could be expanded and inspired to make them into an apostolate: something more than just a job or a way to make money. See how you can fit a vocation to be a layperson with a call to be a faithful witness to the gospel at work.

God's gifts of imagination and creativity may open up whole new types of services. There are plenty of ways that laypeople can live the Church's teachings without being ordained or taking formal vows. All it takes is faith that God is leading you to a greater good and the commitment to help God work through you and carry these goals to completion. Faith and commitment: In the end, isn't that what a vocation is all about?

Christopher M. Bellitto is a teaching fellow and graduate student at Fordham University. He has taught high school English and worked as a journalist for newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek. He sings in his parish choir and continues to write for secular and Catholic publications.

These seven members of St. Paul Parish in Florence, Kentucky, gave this edition a thorough going-over, asking for definitions, simpler vocabulary and other changes: Gretchen Bonar, 17; Debbie Hart, 13; Kevin Mullane, 15; Mike Paolucci, 15; Shaina Rutte, 15; Dan Schwartz, 15; and Amy R. Smith, 18.