Years ago, I received a call from the executive secretary of my Mormon ward looking to schedule a meeting between the bishop and me.

I was instantly on my guard and refused. The secretary reassured me that it was nothing bad.

Me • “Think, Mike. This is me.”

Him • “OK, it’s probably a little bad then.”

One of the more ominous utterances among churchgoing Mormons is that of being “called into the bishop’s office.” There generally are only two reasons for it, both cause for concern.

The most common response is, “Great, what does he want me to do now?” This is followed by “Crap, what did I do now?” Either way, life is about to become more stressful.

In my case, the reason had to be something I wrote in this column, said during a public address or irreverently expressed in Sunday school. Since none of these had previously been worthy of ecclesiastical praise, it had to be bad.

It was horrible. I went, chatted with the bishop for a few minutes and came away with a job wrangling the ward’s Cub Scouts.

The first couple of weeks I wished I’d been disfellowshipped instead. It was then I realized that my bishop indeed was guided by the Spirit — and that getting even had been the entire point.

I fooled him, though. Once I persuaded the boys to lower themselves to my level of maturity, we got along fabulously. They had never before seen a pinewood derby car explode. Not inside a Mormon cultural hall, they hadn’t.

Being called into the headmaster’s office doesn’t always end this well.

Recently, a friend was summoned. The point of the visit was to discuss the sturdiness of my friend’s testimony after someone ratted him out over comments he made in a religious podcast.

After the meeting — which didn’t go as well as either the bishop or my friend had hoped — he confessed to being worried about what the bishop had planned now. He didn’t want to be disciplined for being truthful.

Honesty in ecclesiastical interviews can be overrated. Before you get all squirmy, let me just say that answering a question doesn’t always have to be followed by a lengthy explanation. Here’s an example:

Bishop • “Do you look at pornography?”

Me/You • “No.”

And “no” is where it should end. There’s no reason to blurt, “But I’m always mentally undressing the women in the ward, especially Sister Babs, Sister Work-Done, Sister Slinky — whoa, is she hot or what? — and, once or twice, even your wife.”

Try turning the interview back around to the point of being constructive. Once, when an LDS stake president called me in for the express purpose of telling me to stop using the word “butt” in my column, I interviewed him about the propriety of such a request.

“Brother X owns a video store that rents R-rated movies. Brothers M and G own convenience stores that sell tobacco and beer. Brother R owns a grocery store that stays open on Sunday. And I know for a fact that Brother W once told a guy to drop ‘the %@#& gun!’ I know because I was there saying the same thing.”

All of the above [except for me] were on the stake high council at the time. I wanted to know if the stake president also called them in because their jobs involved nonchurch-approved behavior — or was it just me? It seemed fair.