Is the Church doing more to retain active converts? And to reactivate the less-active?

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

From Handbook 2:

From Pres. Eyring:

From the section on lds.org concerning hastening the work of salvation:

I also recommend all of chapter 13 from Preach My Gospel, paying particular attention to each time it says that the 'priesthood executive committee and ward council' should be doing something.

I'm not talking about who holds the keys to authorise a convert baptism, but the absolute easiest way to lose new members is to let missionary work be a specialty that belongs to the full-time missionaries. In our ward, the missionaries don't 'baptise' anyone; the whole ward does. We don't go on splits with our missionaries; they come on splits with us. Literally. Tonight we went on six-way splits with our Elders and Sisters, and in each case the member had arranged the teaching appointment.

We've averaged one convert baptism (all adults) every three weeks so far this year. They're all active and growing in faith and happiness.

I am not sure who you are arguing with here.

[The Nehor]

11 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Already did.

Have you tried surgically implanting explosives?

[Ham Clam]

I'll be borrowing the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversation from a school library (once it gets here from a bigger University). I know it has a section on Mormonism. If there's anything interesting,  I may add to this thread. 

[Thinking]

My wife's parents were just called on a mission to the eastern part of the U.S. Their assignment is to reactivate the inactives.

[salgare]

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Nope. The Missionaries operate under the keys of Missionary work. The wards help but it belongs to the missionaries.

Used to be the 70's quorum that was in every ward.

[salgare]

5 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Already did.

I heard that can cause blindness

[The Nehor]

16 minutes ago, salgare said:

Used to be the 70's quorum that was in every ward.

True, and some congregations without missionaries have authority delegated to do missionary work through people who have keys but in most of the world that power comes from the missionaries and not the ward. The ward can and should be a huge help.

[flameburns623]

Good article on topic at hand:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1975/10/inactivity-helping-starts-with-knowing-why?lang=eng

Brief excerpt:

Inactivity: Helping Starts with Knowing Why

By D. Michael Stewart

What Latter-day Saint has not thrilled to the deeply moving story of someone’s baptisminto the Church, or felt the dynamism and strength each new convert brings? Yet there are hundreds of thousands who, though baptized, are not converted—who over the years have removed themselves from the gospel’s exalting power.

They may have been blessed, baptized, confirmed, ordained, and even endowed; but they constitute a group that wanders forty years in the wilderness and falls short of the promised land. These people never feel the saving strengths of the Church because they missed the way or, for any number of other reasons, exercised their agency in another direction.

We have an obligation to these wanderers. The Savior gave us the example of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the lost sheep, and, in this dispensation, admonishes: “Let every man esteem his brother as himself.” (D&C 38:24.) The challenge is clear and lies heavily upon us.

We should talk about an inactive member of the Church as if he were in the next room—because that is precisely where he is. Who among us does not painfully wish that someone would touch the heart and life of a loved one who has withdrawn from Church activity?

That healing touch is actually a process—both external and internal. I would like to focus on the power and responsibility of the priesthood home teacher and the Relief Society visiting teacher in this process. This does not mean that the family’s role is less important, but sometimes the family is simply too close; and an outside influence can be vital if the home or visiting teacher has built a relationship of trust and confidence for those times when personal crises may precipitate change.

We must dispel the idea that the home or visiting teacher is a message bringer, or even a skilled teacher. In reality they are home guardians. It is this person who, with patient concern, creates the climate where he can ask the crucial question: Why is this person inactive? He may need the spirit of discernment to distinguish between the alleged and the real cause of inactivity; he will need the Lord’s help as he instills hope and helps his brother set a course of return . . . .

[mfbukowski]

23 hours ago, flameburns623 said:

You can start by making sure Missionaries know what addiction really is: tobacco, regular significant alcohol use, most other recreational drugs, and probably compulsive overeating all effect brain and body.

Those changes are largely permanent. They create a perceived dependency that will stay with an addict. Sometimes medications can help with addictions, sometimes not. Sometimes counseling helps. Sometimes underlying causes which steered someone towards addiction need to be identified.

The vast majority of folks who have become addicted will struggle with impulses to return to their addiction for life: your convert should have been told this, and resources for recovery referenced. 

And in view of what addiction is, a balance needs to be arrived at between the need to uphold standards and the struggles a member will have to live up to such standards.

Most fat people are at least partly "to blame" for their obesity: they're gluttons. An element of their condition is willful, or was willful at some point in their lives. But now that they have crossed a line: their agency has become to some degree circumscribed.

They are no longer as fully in control of their behavior as God intended they should be. And it will take them a long time to regain even a measure of that agency back.

Well-publicised research came out in the past few years showing that most people who lose 5% of their weight will regain that weight in 12 months. 98% of dieters will be heavier in five years than they are at the start of a nonsurgical diet program. It takes incredible concentration and willpower for that 2% of successful losers to stay trim

And yet I doubt that many gluttonous LDS converts go inactive because they've started after the chocolate-chip cookies again. In fact, it's probably been awhile since most wards and branches have assigned a talk on gluttony. But I guarantee most Mormons have heard talks eschewing coffee, tea, alcohol based on D&C 89.

The Word of Wisdom is a good distinctive of the LDS Gospel, and it's standards shouldn't be watered down or compromised.

But how it is taught and communicated may need to be tweaked, if you are losing members to inactivity because they feel judged unloved if they cannot always live up to the standard.

I do agree with you that people will come and go and this can't always be helped.

But I am suggesting that 70% to 90% inactivity rates within five years of joining (I think those are the kinds of numbers bandied about in some of the articles I saw before opening this thread) are way too high.  

I was part of those statistics, twice. I'm glad to hear that the General Authorities and the Church are taking some steps to rein those numbers back.

 

 

Sorry, but this has a very negative tone when in fact individuals kick addictions all the time, especially in the church.

I have.  I don't want to list them.  It is amazing that I am still alive.

I knew well a brother who had been a street junkie sleeping in doorways and ended up in a high and responsible position in church  Miracles happen all the time.

If you tell people it is inevitable that they will return to their old ways, it gives them an excuse to do so.  The key is no excuses.

Yes we all mess up and try again.  That is called "repentance".  I am an expert at repentance because I have had so much practice.  Little steps lead to big results with constant determination guided by the spirit.

Ever sin is essentially an "addiction".  You can be "addicted" to anger- at it's bottom it is all pride- "I want to do what I want to do so leave me alone"

The key is having a strong enough belief in God that you want to do what he wants instead of what your carnal self wants.

Edited March 18, 2016 by mfbukowski

[flameburns623]

People DO NOT "kick addictions all thr time". They OFTEN DO overcome them, and religion or spirituality can be a key element in providing motivation and support to do so. 

But smokers, heroin addicts, and alcoholics in particular are statistically likely to have to make seven to ten attempts to overcome their problem before they are able to be "clean" for five or longer.

This does not factor in other psychosocial factors: pronounced nental illness, traumatc childhood abuse, PTSD due to military or other horrific experiences, and increasingly, we are beginning to see how traumatic brain injury can play a part.

If an addiction occurs in tandem with these other elements, the challenges are almost insurmountable for many people.

I'm thinking of Bill, now clinically diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Bill is a Jewish acquaintance who has been dried out for ten years now, but who may hold some kind of record for all the religious conversions he underwent trying to get off the sauce. Bunches of 'em, and it often helped him short-term, to clean up. But it never lasted for him and he'd move on to something else. 

I guarantee he's had contact with Mormon missionaries more than once: I know he has commented on the Book of Mormon.

He'd get off the sauce awhile, but he could never stay off. Doing that took years of therapy, institutionalization, and a clear recognition of his underlying mental health issues.

I'm thinking of a woman friend named Beckie,whose story was not too disimilar: she had some Mormon roots (I don't know the details). She also alluded to seeing her Mom beaten,  to childhood sexual assault.  Beckie similarly bounced around among faiths quite a bit: her experiences left her feeling condemned and rejected, and by the time she basically drank herself dead, she had nothing kind to say about religion.

I'm thinking of Chad, a guy I home taught, whose conversion had brought him some temporary release from the bottle: but who I later realised was almost certainly clinically depressed. He talked about killing himself during one visit and was blown off by my cimpanion and by the bishop for trying to draw attention to himself. (The bishop was no Iron Rod Sour Onery Bishop: he brought Chad boxes and boxes of food: first time I had ever heard of the Deseret Food label).

When Chad went back to drinking, he was threatened with disciplinary court, and he basically walked away from the Church. Last I heard, he was homeless, many many years ago. He'd be my age if he's still alive.

I'm not being defeatist here. I'm suggesting that true Christian compassion will recognise the complexity of the problem and that the apparent "lack of will", the seeming "breakdown of personal morals" are symptoms of the problem, not the source.

Calling for people to just decide to "do what God wants instead of what you want" is the sort of myopia, the sort of fundamentalist short sightedness which makes me happy to enbrace a religious tradition which has a gentler and more nuanced apprehension of human frailty.

My hope would be that the LDS Church would mature into a similar understanding. For the sake of the weakest and wounded amongst you.

EDIT: I am not just talking out of  my backside. Just a sampling of the research out there.

http://www.addictionrecoveryguide.org/articles/

http://www.dirkhanson.org/neuroaddiction.html

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/health/biological-changes-thwart-weight-loss-efforts-study-finds.html?referer=&_r=0

Edited March 18, 2016 by flameburns623
Added some links fixed spelling

[mnn727]

On 3/16/2016 at 10:18 PM, Dgal said:

 Personally, I think the church should spend more time teaching investigators prior to baptism so that they get the meat and the milk, thus nothing becoming a surprise.

 

Yes, I think a full year as an investigator attending Church at least 80% of the time would go a long way towards retaining vonverts.

[stemelbow]

36 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

Yes, I think a full year as an investigator attending Church at least 80% of the time would go a long way towards retaining vonverts.

It'd also go along way in reducing converts, which coincidentally seems to be exactly what the purpose is these days--seeing the steep decline in converts over the course of the past few years. 

[Atheist Mormon]

 

"Is the Church doing more to retain active converts? "

I do not envy their job. This is an endeavor that "futility" is written all over it. Our Fundamentalist Christian Brothers trying to make it sound like it is a Mormon problem but they know the reality of the malaise....

In these age of skepticism people like me aren't seeing the glass half full.....

[flameburns623]

6 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It'd also go along way in reducing converts, which coincidentally seems to be exactly what the purpose is these days--seeing the steep decline in converts over the course of the past few years. 

Conversion rate would decline somewhat. The Church would grow at a more modest pace with a more stable retention.

At present you have high conversions coupled to an equally high defection of those converts.

The church also has notably high inactivity levels among members who are second-generation or longer LDS

The LDS also grow at a significant rate due to a hugher birthrate. Couple what would still be an above average growth by conversions to above average fecundity among a larger pool of active members and growth would stll be very notable indeed.

These are not my projections but those of people presumably friendly to the LDS Church. I'll see if I can find the article again when I have more time.

[flameburns623]

59 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

Yes, I think a full year as an investigator attending Church at least 80% of the time would go a long way towards retaining vonverts.

If this was intended as sarcasm, you haven't read the whole thread.

Eastern Orthodox have been experiencing a good deal of growth in all jurisdictions since the 1980's: and most of those jurisdictions set a high bar for receiving catachumens: essentially to live out the Orthodox life for a full year or more including fairhful church attendance and participation in a class for converts.

The RCC requires adult  converts to participate in an RCIA program for ten months or more. I went thru that program while I regularized my marriage. Btw, the RCC also has an enormous defection rate, mainly among its birthright membership. Mormons are not the only ones who have problems.

There are distinctives to the LDS Church: you have a Sunday School program which is top notch. Classea for women and men (Priesthood Meeting and Relief Society). Proselytes get a broader exposure to LDS doctrine than the Missionary discussions alone would suggest.

But the process of enculturation and of discipleship is longer and more entailed than mere education.

Hence the thread.

[salgare]

I think the old standard year wait before possible temple attendance is wise.  Shell shocking a 3 month convert with the Temple content is going to backfire for most.

[stemelbow]

28 minutes ago, flameburns623 said:

Conversion rate would decline somewhat. The Church would grow at a more modest pace with a more stable retention.

At present you have high conversions coupled to an equally high defection of those converts.

At present, or at least at last reported, our growth rate is the lowest it's been in 70 years. 

1997	3.73%	0.171911%
1998	2.82%	0.174454%
1999	3.85%	0.178856%
2000	2.94%	0.181797%
2001	2.94%	0.184819%
2002	2.87%	0.187785%
2003	2.25%	0.189682%
2004	2.42%	0.191939%
2005	2.32%	0.194049%
2006	2.45%	0.196429%
2007	2.53%	0.199007%
2008	2.38%	0.201348%
2009	2.34%	0.203660%
2010	2.22%	0.205808%
2011	2.19%	0.207967%
2012	2.36%	0.210506%
2013	2.03%	0.212392%
2014	1.92%	0.214137%

In '99 the growth rate was twice what it is today.  What changed?  More missionaries?  Internet?  maybe the message loses it's appeal?  But, as it turns out the third column shows the percent of LDS compared to world population.  That percentage continues to increase showing we are still gowing--at least in sheer numbers.  the problem remains, of course, is retention.  Our retention rates could still be equivalent between 1997 and 2014.  If that is true, we are losing. 

This is the number of people we are losing each year from death, excommunication and name removals:

Year	DENr	DENr % of Membership
1997	17,064	0.17%
1998	92,246	0.89%
1999	-8,456	-0.08%
2000	39,548	0.36%
2001	36,473	0.32%
2002	37,244	0.32%
2003	78,674	0.66%
2004	49,541	0.40%
2005	51,211	0.41%
2006	59,114	0.46%
2007	47,523	0.36%
2008	74,585	0.55%
2009	83,483	0.60%
2010	86,729	0.61%
2011	91,350	0.63%
2012	53,476	0.36%
2013	98,876	0.66%
2014	122,903	0.80%

The last reported year shows, by far, the largest number of people lost than any previous year, not only that, but the largest by percentage of membership on records.   

28 minutes ago, flameburns623 said:

The church also has notably high inactivity levels among members who are second-generation or longer LDS

The LDS also grow at a significant rate due to a hugher birthrate. Couple what would still be an above average growth by conversions to above average fecundity among a larger pool of active members and growth would stll be very notable indeed.

These are not my projections but those of people presumably friendly to the LDS Church. I'll see if I can find the article again when I have more time.

I'm not so sure on this.  It seems like we could very well be losing if retention rates continue to get worse.  Latin America lands tend to show a large number of members, at least from the Church's reporting as per members on record.  But other forms of gathering the number of LDS in some of these places shows a disctinct gap.  So large that it shows that as many as 80-90 percent of members on record are not self-reporting as LDS, but as something else.  meaning our great growth there has spawned enormous amounts of members who no longer consider themselves members.  It could be as we continue to grow our retention continues to get worse, so much so that we really aren't growing but shrinking. 

[Gray]

I would guess that part of the reason that growth has slowed is that we've put the brakes on some of the more ridiculous practices in missions (rounding up kids for sports and then baptizing afterwards). It may be that much of the growth we thought we had in previous years was artificially inflated, and that things haven't actually changed that much as far as real growth goes.

[stemelbow]

4 minutes ago, Gray said:

I would guess that part of the reason that growth has slowed is that we've put the brakes on some of the more ridiculous practices in missions (rounding up kids for sports and then baptizing afterwards). It may be that much of the growth we thought we had in previous years was artificially inflated, and that things haven't actually changed that much as far as real growth goes.

I think that's fair.  I don't think missionaries do this type of thing anymore.  But how would we know?  It'd really be bad, though, in spite of these past practices to inflate the numbers is if our retention rate remains the same.  I don't know that it's changed.  It might be better, but I don't know and haven't heard we've made any significant strides in retention--it remains a problem. 

[salgare]

What will be interesting is to see how the multi-generational Mormon millennials weather their 30 somethings (my children), as well as the generation following them (my grandchildren).

It is the retention of these that will be the telling story.

With some percentage (presumed significant) of my hard core generation dropping out, it does not look good.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2016 by salgare

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, salgare said:

What will be interesting is to see how the multi-generational Mormon millennials weather their 30 somethings (my children), as well as the generation following them (my grandchildren).

It is the retention of these that will be the telling story.

 

I think you're on to something.  it feels like, and as the numbers demonstrate, people are leaving (or I guess it could be dying) at a faster rate than ever before.  I do think the Church is going to have to learn to change and adapt from what it is in order to remain relevant to many in the near future, the many of those you describe.  But I also think the Church will change and adapt.  It might so change in such a way we would never expect--which is my hope. 

[cdowis]

6 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I think you're on to something.  it feels like, and as the numbers demonstrate, people are leaving (or I guess it could be dying) at a faster rate than ever before.  I do think the Church is going to have to learn to change and adapt from what it is in order to remain relevant to many in the near future, the many of those you describe.  But I also think the Church will change and adapt.  It might so change in such a way we would never expect--which is my hope. 

And how is that working out for those religions which are "changing and adapting"?  Have you looked at the Pew Research for the retention in Christian religions.  Perhaps we could start adapting Islam, since they seem to doing well.  Their "missionaries" have an interesting technique and it seems to be working.

[Gray]

25 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I think that's fair.  I don't think missionaries do this type of thing anymore.  But how would we know?  It'd really be bad, though, in spite of these past practices to inflate the numbers is if our retention rate remains the same.  I don't know that it's changed.  It might be better, but I don't know and haven't heard we've made any significant strides in retention--it remains a problem. 

Hard to say how we're doing on retention. I'll just say that baptisms in my ward continue to be a revolving door of new faces who are gone within a few months, with a few exceptions. 

[flameburns623]

16 minutes ago, cdowis said:

And how is that working out for those religions which are "changing and adapting"?  Have you looked at the Pew Research for the retention in Christian religions.  Perhaps we could start adapting Islam, since they seem to doing well.  Their "missionaries" have an interesting technique and it seems to be working.

Islam does pretty well even wihout the implied threat. In Democratic nations the simplicity and directness of the faith plays well sometimes.

But their inactivity rates in Western countries are pretty high as well. From what little I know of Islam.

[cdowis]

We do have some who become inactive, but there are others who are faithful and have become an important part of the ward.  One of them was living in a tent when he was found by the missionaries, and now his entire life has changed.