Surge Has Subsided But Missionary Work Continues Apace

[Scott Lloyd]

Eleven new missions are being created (a net increase of 10), as reported in my story here.

 

It was foregone that there would be a surge in the missionary force following the announcement two years ago of the lowering in the ages of eligibility and that the number would drop somewhat in the wake of the surge.

 

What is remarkable, according to what Elder Evans told me, is that the number has not lessened nearly as much as was anticipated.

 

If there is to be a large-scale departure of young people from the Church over the issue of gay marriage or what-not, it's not being reflected yet in the response to the call for missionary service.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Buckeye]

Eleven new missions are being created (a net increase of 10), as reported in my story here.

 

It was foregone that there would be a surge in the missionary force following the announcement two years ago of the lowering in the ages of eligibility and that the number would drop somewhat in the wake of the surge.

 

What is remarkable, according to what Elder Evans told me, is that the number has not lessened nearly as much as was anticipated.

 

If there is to be a large-scale departure of young people from the Church over the issue of gay marriage or what-not, it's not being reflected yet in the response to the call for missionary service.

 

Very encouraging news .... except of course for those unlucky souls called to the new Utah-Orem Mission. 

[stemelbow]

Thanks again. You're killing it today. Killings a good thing.

[Scott Lloyd]

Very encouraging news .... except of course for those unlucky souls called to the new Utah-Orem Mission. 

They don't even have BYU in their boundaries -- although they do have UVU.

[cinepro]

It will be interesting to see how history looks back on this era of missionary work. 

 

As I've mentioned before, we saw the "surge" in our own area, with wards being given one or even two extra sets of missionaries.  In our own ward, where there wasn't enough for even one pair of elders, we had a few months where we had four elders and two sisters!  Now we're down to two elders and two sisters.  While the surge was predictable, I wonder how those who served during its time will feel, when they see how their missions were effected by the logistics of having to temporarily absorb those missionaries in existing missions.

 

Also, how do the statistics of the "surge" work?  Meaning, at what point do we reach the leveled-average of numbers of missionaries that only reflect the net increase, and not the front-loaded bump from the lowering of the age?  The age change was announced in 10/2012, so is it assumed that the surge of young men would be complete by 10/2013 (at which point any 18yo men are entering at the point where previous 18yo would be 19)?  If so, the surge wouldn't work through the system until 10/2015. 

 

Likewise for the sisters.  The lowering of the age from 21 to 19 would create a two year surge, and the last of the surge-sisters would serve for 18 months, so the surge in sisters wouldn't be over until 4/2016.

 

Not sure if that makes any sense.  Someone who is better at statistics can correct me if they can see what I'm trying to say.

 

Another good way to look at it would be to look at the numbers of new missionaries each month.  Are these stats available?  And obviously another important stat would be how many are returning home early.  I suspect one byproduct of the surge has been an increase in the early-return rate, which should be accounted for if true.

Edited January 9, 2015 by cinepro

[readstoomuch]

There were just too many missionaries in our area and the transition to service/service component is just starting to get off the ground. I hope the elders/sisters still had a good experience. Even the mission rules about dinners was complicated. The party line that the missionaries are only there to help the members do their missionary work or that we need to find more people to teach the missionaries doesn`t go very well. As a ward missionary, many of the members wouldn`t meet with us, even if we told them we weren`t going to "guilt" them into doing missionary work. The Surge should have been planned with an expansion in service at the same time. Dittto for Facebook contacting. The Surge would have had more for the missionaries to do.

[Boanerges]

Good questions, Cinepro. I have wondered myself about the surge being over. The age change was announced in October conference of two years ago. I understand there was an immediate surge in applications, especially from sister. I also understand some were not ready right that minute and didn't apply for a couple more months. Either way, the calls and departures were not instantaneous - that is to say, people weren't called and departed on Oct. 10 after applying a couple days earlier. My own son and both his room mates at BYU waitied until the end of the winter semester to leave.

 

This is actually the second article I have read about the surge being over. I question that it is. I think it will be over in a few months for elders, and may be ending now for sisters, but I don't think we can really say it's over yet.

[Boanerges]

There were just too many missionaries in our area and the transition to service/service component is just starting to get off the ground. I hope the elders/sisters still had a good experience. Even the mission rules about dinners was complicated. The party line that the missionaries are only there to help the members do their missionary work or that we need to find more people to teach the missionaries doesn`t go very well. As a ward missionary, many of the members wouldn`t meet with us, even if we told them we weren`t going to "guilt" them into doing missionary work. The Surge should have been planned with an expansion in service at the same time. Dittto for Facebook contacting. The Surge would have had more for the missionaries to do.

 

I agree, the two sets of missionaries in our tiny ward have way too much time on their hands with nothing to do. I think performing service is way more productive than knocking on the same doors missionaries knocked on 6 months ago.

[Scott Lloyd]

It will be interesting to see how history looks back on this era of missionary work. 

 

As I've mentioned before, we saw the "surge" in our own area, with wards being given one or even two extra sets of missionaries.  In our own ward, where there wasn't enough for even one pair of elders, we had a few months where we had four elders and two sisters!  Now we're down to two elders and two sisters.  While the surge was predictable, I wonder how those who served during its time will feel, when they see how their missions were effected by the logistics of having to temporarily absorb those missionaries in existing missions.

 

Also, how do the statistics of the "surge" work?  Meaning, at what point do we reach the leveled-average of numbers of missionaries that only reflect the net increase, and not the front-loaded bump from the lowering of the age?  The age change was announced in 10/2012, so is it assumed that the surge of young men would be complete by 10/2013 (at which point any 18yo men are entering at the point where previous 18yo would be 19)?  If so, the surge wouldn't work through the system until 10/2015. 

 

Likewise for the sisters.  The lowering of the age from 21 to 19 would create a two year surge, and the last of the surge-sisters would serve for 18 months, so the surge in sisters wouldn't be over until 4/2016.

 

Not sure if that makes any sense.  Someone who is better at statistics can correct me if they can see what I'm trying to say.

 

If I've understood Elder Evans correctly, he took all this into account when he said "the numbers have not come down anything like we would have projected." That is to say, they have anticipated a gradual lessening all along, but even so, it is ahead of what they expected it would be at this point in time.

 

 

And obviously another important stat would be how many are returning home early.  I suspect one byproduct of the surge has been an increase in the early-return rate, which should be accounted for if true.

 

 

One would intuitively expect there to be a commensurate increase in the rate of early returns. That is to say, the number would increase, but the percentage would hold steady. Whether that's what has transpired, I can't say. I do know that we saw a rash of early returns in our ward for a while, though none of them were due to worthiness issues.

[Scott Lloyd]

I agree, the two sets of missionaries in our tiny ward have way too much time on their hands with nothing to do. I think performing service is way more productive than knocking on the same doors missionaries knocked on 6 months ago.

It's to be expected that there would be some growing pains with such a dramatic increase in so short a period. But, as reflected in my article, the Missionary Department is endeavoring to get the number of missionaries per mission down to around 200, which they have determined through experience is a manageable number.

[Buckeye]

It's to be expected that there would be some growing pains with such a dramatic increase in so short a period. But, as reflected in my article, the Missionary Department is endeavoring to get the number of missionaries per mission down to around 200, which they have determined through experience is a manageable number.

 

The church can accomplish this by simply making more missions. But if the number of missionaries stays near the new peak there will still be the same number of units to spread them across. Yes, there will be more mission presidents and staff, so more attention to the missionaries and more consistency to numbers coming and going (great!), but that doesn't solve the root problem. At the end of the day, if the numerator (missionaries) increases and the denominator (members) stays the same, the result can only be less per capita support for each missionary - i.e., less referrals, dinners, splits, etc.

[Scott Lloyd]

The church can accomplish this by simply making more missions. But if the number of missionaries stays near the new peak there will still be the same number of units to spread them across. Yes, there will be more mission presidents and staff, so more attention to the missionaries and more consistency to numbers coming and going (great!), but that doesn't solve the root problem. At the end of the day, if the numerator (missionaries) increases and the denominator (members) stays the same, the result can only be less per capita support for each missionary - i.e., less referrals, dinners, splits, etc.

Granted, creating additional missions is only one element of what needs to be a multi-element approach to meeting the challenges.

 

I did find interesting the anecdote that Elder Evans shared about the stake up in northern Utah with only 10 non-members in its boundaries being able to keep a set of sister missionaries busy reactivating people, teaching their family members and friends, etc.

 

I recall being on my mission in the mid-1970s and hearing that there was to be a mission created in Salt Lake City. I was astounded and wondered how they would do missionary work, since tracting would be out of the question. It turned out there are more ways to do missionary work than tracting, and we now have several missions in Utah.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Buckeye]

Granted, creating additional missions is only one element of what needs to be a multi-element approach to meeting the challenges.

 

I did find interesting the anecdote that Elder Evans shared about the stake up in northern Utah with only 10 non-members in its boundaries being able to keep a set of sister missionaries busy reactivating people, teaching their family members and friends, etc.

 

Yes. I think the two big fronts for growth in missionary work are reactivation and service. That's where more and more of the effort will be going.

[Kenngo1969]

Too often, among too many, being released early from one's full-time mission is seen as a tragedy.  As the account recounted in this column proves, however, it needn't be so:

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865619045/Returned-LDS-missionary-talks-about-mental-illness-and-early-release.html?pg=all

[Scott Lloyd]

Too often, among too many, being released early from one's full-time mission is seen as a tragedy.  As the account recounted in this column proves, however, it needn't be so:

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865619045/Returned-LDS-missionary-talks-about-mental-illness-and-early-release.html?pg=all

We talked about this matter in staff meeting yesterday.

 

I mentioned that one of the missionaries in our ward who returned early due to health reasons I was glad to see come home, because I so badly needed his service as pianist for the ward choir I direct. Alas, he went off to school all too soon.

 

This was after he had returned to the mission field to give it another go, but the health problems didn't subside.

 

A more eager, dedicated, spiritually minded young man I have never met, willing to serve in whatever capacity he was asked.

 

I believe everyone in our ward recognized this, and there was no crisis that I was able to discern in his early return.

[rockpond]

Eleven new missions are being created (a net increase of 10), as reported in my story here.

 

It was foregone that there would be a surge in the missionary force following the announcement two years ago of the lowering in the ages of eligibility and that the number would drop somewhat in the wake of the surge.

 

What is remarkable, according to what Elder Evans told me, is that the number has not lessened nearly as much as was anticipated.

 

If there is to be a large-scale departure of young people from the Church over the issue of gay marriage or what-not, it's not being reflected yet in the response to the call for missionary service.

 

I thought we always expected that the increase would hold to a large degree because the age change made it so much easier for sisters to serve and often allowed YM to serve before heading off to secondary education/military service.  In any case, I'm not surprised at the increased numbers -- we have absolutely amazing youth in the church.  I'm continually impressed by the quality of the YM/YW in my ward.

 

My understanding is that the loss of young people from the church is happening in their 20's, post-mission age.  At least that's the message I keep getting.

 

Locally, we're still struggling to figure out how to keep all these extra missionaries busy.  It's proven to be very difficult here... hopefully other areas of the country have been more successful.

[rongo]

I don't think the "surge" is anywhere near over. Missionary service has become, and was intended to become, an extension of the youth program in an attempt to stop the bleeding of youth going inactive or missing. As such, I think there will be continued emphasis on many 18-19 year-olds serving missions, including many more sisters than historically. 

 

We have *way* too many missionaries in the field, in my experience, and that, rather than "the times have changed" drove social media and service missionary work more than "old-school missionary work is ineffective." In my part of the world, missionaries are tripping over each other in small areas. Our mission president (Arizona Tempe) tells us that he gets calls every month asking if he can find a place for 30 or so 18-19 year-old elders and sisters. Every month. Small units are getting two or three companionships.

 

Another part of this societal trend (increasingly immature and not resilient youth in the Church, mirroring the larger society) is leading to increased psychological problems and early returns now than ever before. Even though they are not doing missionary "work" per se, and attempts are made to shield them from rejection and adversity (i.e., tracting). I think this is because they are bored stiff and feel like they don't really have a purpose, even where they are doing a lot of service and social media contacting. I served in my dad's mission (northern Germany), and couldn't wait to go --- and had a wonderful mission experience. Even though it was "hard" from a bureaucratic "effectiveness" standpoint. A lot of our young people know about these old-school mission experiences, and compare their coddled one with that and experience some dissonance. 

 

The Arizona Tempe mission will be piloting a program where the last six months of the mission are spent far removed from missionary work, for the most part, and being counseled on "life skills." Specifically, job searching, resumes, dating, cooking, budgeting, mental health, marriage and relationships, etc. The president says that the purpose for this is because so many missionaries are returning home and experiencing huge stress and struggles with these basic life skills, and the Church is hoping to send them home better equipped to handle life. All I know is that I would have been frustrated, stressed, and upset if my mission had completely de-emphasized finding people and focused on being online a lot, service, and half a year of "life skills" training.

 

My father was recently released as a YSA bishop, after six years. He and my mom have been called to teach mission prep, but one week out of each month has been set aside for a family services counselor to teach coping skills. Really foofy, bizarre stuff, like having the kids take their shoes and socks off, sit in a circle with their eyes closed, and "feeling" the stress melt away. 

[rongo]

 

 

I recall being on my mission in the mid-1970s and hearing that there was to be a mission created in Salt Lake City. I was astounded and wondered how they would do missionary work, since tracting would be out of the question. It turned out there are more ways to do missionary work than tracting, and we now have several missions in Utah.

My father-in-law is a ward mission leader in a wealthy part of Sandy. The area is almost 100% LDS, and the ward encompasses only a couple of city blocks. His missionaries are *really* depressed and frustrated, because tracting is not an option, but everybody's neighbors are LDS, too. They have nothing to do, other than service. I really think that some areas would be better served being staffed entirely with ward missionaries (who would teach anyone who pops up) and letting these missionaries serve in areas that have more potential for missionary work. It's emotionally damaging to the missionaries. When we were visiting, they hadn't taught a single lesson in two months. In northern Germany, we could manage to teach a couple of lessons a week, at least (usually).

[Scott Lloyd]

I thought we always expected that the increase would hold to a large degree because the age change made it so much easier for sisters to serve and often allowed YM to serve before heading off to secondary education/military service.  In any case, I'm not surprised at the increased numbers -- we have absolutely amazing youth in the church.  I'm continually impressed by the quality of the YM/YW in my ward.

 

The age change resulted in an immediate pent-up influx into the missionary force of two years' worth of young men and three years' worth of sisters. You can't sustain such explosive growth, not immediately, anyway. The remarkable thing is that the subsiding has not been as great or as rapid as anticipated. And yes, it might have something to do with increased flexibility for young women.

 

My understanding is that the loss of young people from the church is happening in their 20's, post-mission age.  At least that's the message I keep getting.

 

 

I wonder how the numbers shake out when considering returned missionaries vs. those who have never served missions.

 

Years ago, I did a story on Church institutes in the Chicago area. What I was told is that there is an ongoing challenge keeping track of young people in the Church after they hit age 18. Often they seem to disappear. You can't shepherd them if you don't know where they are. Corralling them for missionary service before they have the chance to drift away ought to help to a great degree, I would expect -- unless their missionary experience is not having any appreciable impact on their faithfulness later on.

[rockpond]

Years ago, I did a story on Church institutes in the Chicago area. What I was told is that there is an ongoing challenge keeping track of young people in the Church after they hit age 18. Often they seem to disappear. You can't shepherd them if you don't know where they are. Corralling them for missionary service before they have the chance to drift away ought to help to a great degree, I would expect -- unless their missionary experience is not having any appreciable impact on their faithfulness later on.

 

I will attest to that... we go to great lengths just to keep track of YSA's in our ward/stake.

[rongo]

It's not just in England, rockpond. Most single 18-30 year-olds in heavily-LDS areas go inactive and missing (or get into law of chastity trouble). As I said, my dad was a YSA bishop in a YSA stake for six years, and I knew of the YSAs in my ward and stake when I was a bishop. It's a major, major problem that I think the Church is trying to address through near ubiquitous missions at a younger age. However, by sharply decreasing the rigor of missions, I don't think the missions are having the intended effect. The source of the problem is really the softness of LDS homes and upbringing, in my book.

[Mike Reed]

I suspect that we are still in the wake of the recent age change. In two or three more years it will fall, I suspect, unless another change is made (ie.Internet missions served from home, or a push to expand non-prosteletyzing service missions).

[Paddy]

I think for many young people a mission is a cultural right of passage that has social consequences for non attendance, rather than an expression of a religious desire to proselyte and serve (although there is certainly an element of that as well). I suspect that religious disaffection based on historical issues, etc., would not become apparent until after a mission. Also, in my observation at least, many young people who come from areas with a large LDS population are not challenged in some aspects of their faith until their mission. Many don't have the desire to learn historical and other criticisms of the church until they are on their missions. The problem is they are restricted in what resources they can access to learn and alleviate concerns.

[mfbukowski]

Eleven new missions are being created (a net increase of 10), as reported in my story here.

 

It was foregone that there would be a surge in the missionary force following the announcement two years ago of the lowering in the ages of eligibility and that the number would drop somewhat in the wake of the surge.

 

What is remarkable, according to what Elder Evans told me, is that the number has not lessened nearly as much as was anticipated.

 

If there is to be a large-scale departure of young people from the Church over the issue of gay marriage or what-not, it's not being reflected yet in the response to the call for missionary service.

By my totally subjective measure of own endowments on my temple shift, after the "surge" we went down to nearly 0 own endowments for new missionaries, but now the levels are back almost to the surge levels, but now including a lot of new members as well as outgoing missionaries.

 

By my totally subjective assessment, we have nothing to worry about.  And I live in about the most "secular" city in the country, LA,

[Kenngo1969]

... By my totally subjective assessment, we have nothing to worry about.  And I live in about the most "secular" city in the country, LA,

New York isn't #1?  Boy, it's a good thing you guys aren't in neighboring states and you have a vast buffer zone of "flyover country" between you; otherwise, we might have to worry about New York trying to wipe you off the map after an insult like that!