Another Look at the Missionary Numbers

[SeekingUnderstanding]

49 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Because the figures now that the surge are over are higher than the 2002-2012 figures it is possible that requirements have been relaxed. It's also possible that leaving on a mission prior to doing a year of college simply mean fewer young people are being kept from missions.

As noted in the OP, the increase is almost completely due to the increased ability of Sisters to go on missions at a younger age.

[clarkgoble]

23 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

As noted in the OP, the increase is almost completely due to the increased ability of Sisters to go on missions at a younger age.

Only two years were given and appear to be estimates rather than hard number. It looks like the figures were extrapolated from this article although I confess I couldn't quite see the methodology to get 27%. It says 30% there (which I take as a round number estimate - so maybe Cinepro was just being cautious. If you take out his figure of 11,000 more sisters compared to 2012 then you do get a missionary/population figure about on par with the figures from before the surge. So I suspect you're right, although I was just conceding the possibility that requirements were relaxed somewhat. I don't think there's strong evidence for that. The increase in young women going being the obvious reason to think otherwise.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Only two years were given and appear to be estimates rather than hard number. It looks like the figures were extrapolated from this article although I confess I couldn't quite see the methodology to get 27%. It says 30% there (which I take as a round number estimate - so maybe Cinepro was just being cautious. If you take out his figure of 11,000 more sisters compared to 2012 then you do get a missionary/population figure about on par with the figures from before the surge. So I suspect you're right, although I was just conceding the possibility that requirements were relaxed somewhat. I don't think there's strong evidence for that. The increase in young women going being the obvious reason to think otherwise.

Makes sense. The 27% BTW comes from the article's 20,000 sister missionaries vs 75,000 total missionaries.

[rongo]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Without discrimination everyone is going, huh?  I wonder what would happen if he applied the Spirit to the blessing process? 

I've noticed that patriarchs have their own focuses/emphases that color what they say. My patriarch in Oakbrook, IL was wealthy, and "your barn will fill to overflowing" figured prominently in his blessings Our patriarch is very missionary-oriented, and this colors his blessings. I don't think this means he doesn't apply the Spirit --- in fact, I believe he is filled with the Spirit in his calling. I think that these personal leanings are actually a part of the calling and office of patriarch, and are factored in by God in the choice of patriarch.

At any rate, our stake's rate of young women serving missions skyrocketed since he started his service.  

Perhaps.  or the age change brought on a greater excitement for young women then men.  the problem it seems to be that young men are opting out at an increasing rate, and young men are leaving early at an increasing rate.  I think the tendency is the blame the young men, but it might be wise to wonder if the program is failing us.

Anecdotally, we have an increase in our stake in early returns (depression, anxiety, other health issues, etc.), and this is my sense for overall. I think some of these could be averted by not striving to get every single youth on a mission, and by reverting back to old-fashioned missionary "work" in lieu of the "keep 'em puttering around at the church on iPads." 

I'd still say a huge revamp is in order.  If we changed to more service oriented, less time would be dedicated to finding but more finding would be achieved, I'd guess.

I know that some people feel this way, but I don't understand why they do. The sentiment seems to be that people would see them serving, appreciate that they aren't talking to them about the Church, and then ask them questions about the Church because they see them doing humanitarian / community service stuff. I don't think an uptick in self-referrals is at all a given under a "serve only" model. I know when the mission we live in piloted "serve only," it was short-lived.

Less missionaries doesn't work.

The Germany Hamburg mission started with 160 missionaries in 1994, and had drawn down to 98 when I went home in 1996. We actually had more baptisms with the 98 than we did with the 160. Anecdotal, I know, but I think there is a lot of power in the "Gideon's Army" principle. 

Remember the raising the bar campaign?  It came, brought less but more "valiant" missionaries and our growth rate dropped, our conversions dropped (almost fell to as low as we are now, just after that move). 

I know that people have said that the raw numbers dipped when "raise the bar" was announced, but I think this was only temporary. In our stake, we continued to send out "repent-and-go" missionaries during this time (I was a counselor in two different wards and a bishop in two other ones within this stake). All anecdotal, I know.

[rongo]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't know enough of changes to program with the shift to comment there. I'm skeptical had they demanded the same things that 18 year olds could do it. My guess is that the changes are due to the limits of 18 year olds rather than vice versa.

I disagree that 18 year-olds are inherently less mature than 19 year-olds --- with the exception of job and school experience (which are admittedly huge, so maybe you're right).

My parents returned from Poland Warsaw in March, and were the mission presidents' right-hand couple. They said it's a night-and-day difference between the older missionaries with school and work experience and those fresh out of high school. But the 18 vs. 19 year-olds I know are basically the same between 18 and 19.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I disagree that 18 year-olds are inherently less mature than 19 year-olds --- with the exception of job and school experience (which are admittedly huge, so maybe you're right).

My parents returned from Poland Warsaw in March, and were the mission presidents' right-hand couple. They said it's a night-and-day difference between the older missionaries with school and work experience and those fresh out of high school. But the 18 vs. 19 year-olds I know are basically the same between 18 and 19.

Experience is part of it, but I'm not saying they're inherently less mature. I'm saying many people mature at different rates developmentally. So some significant share will be. But because of the way missions work this will affect more than just their own efforts.

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Makes sense. The 27% BTW comes from the article's 20,000 sister missionaries vs 75,000 total missionaries.

Ah, that makes sense. I was thrown off because when he quoted the 20,000 figure he said 30%.

[stemelbow]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Could you clarify this? Part of the problem is of course we don't know demographic numbers. While a very imperfect number, looking at the ratio of missionaries to population can give a very rough estimate. Up until 2002 it was roughly slightly more than .5%. (There were some variance in the 80's but I think part of that was due to the large number of baptisms in the mid 80s) Most of the time the figures were 0.54% - 0.55%. In 2002-3 you have a significant drop to around .4%. During the "surge" due to the 18 year old change the figure when back up to 0.55% and has since dropped but to a level between the old figures and the figure in the naughts at around .45-.47%. So if anything the number of missionaries has increased not decreased.

The drop in the naughts that persisted until the surge was due to Hinkley's "raising the bar" that started in 2002. Because the figures now that the surge are over are higher than the 2002-2012 figures it is possible that requirements have been relaxed. It's also possible that leaving on a mission prior to doing a year of college simply mean fewer young people are being kept from missions.

I'm not sure what more to clarify.  It is already clarified.  Sure the total # of missionaries per member is up from 2012, even if down from the 90s and before.  But what the OP suggests and what I was addressing was that young men are going at a lower rate.  Young women are going more often, which is great.  But at the same time, less young men, as a percentage are going.  Or so it seems.  THe problem we have is the Church doesn't give us a break down of age group and gender, so we have to do some reasonable analysis to estimate and project.  The links in the OP explain this well. 

THanks.

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I've noticed that patriarchs have their own focuses/emphases that color what they say. My patriarch in Oakbrook, IL was wealthy, and "your barn will fill to overflowing" figured prominently in his blessings Our patriarch is very missionary-oriented, and this colors his blessings. I don't think this means he doesn't apply the Spirit --- in fact, I believe he is filled with the Spirit in his calling. I think that these personal leanings are actually a part of the calling and office of patriarch, and are factored in by God in the choice of patriarch.

At any rate, our stake's rate of young women serving missions skyrocketed since he started his service.  

so has everyone's

1 hour ago, rongo said:

 

 

Anecdotally, we have an increase in our stake in early returns (depression, anxiety, other health issues, etc.), and this is my sense for overall. I think some of these could be averted by not striving to get every single youth on a mission, and by reverting back to old-fashioned missionary "work" in lieu of the "keep 'em puttering around at the church on iPads." 

the policy to give missionaries iPads was the culprit for early returns?  hm....

1 hour ago, rongo said:

 

 

I know that some people feel this way, but I don't understand why they do. The sentiment seems to be that people would see them serving, appreciate that they aren't talking to them about the Church, and then ask them questions about the Church because they see them doing humanitarian / community service stuff. I don't think an uptick in self-referrals is at all a given under a "serve only" model. I know when the mission we live in piloted "serve only," it was short-lived.

Certainly I'd think a ton of other things must change with the Church in conjunction with serving. 

1 hour ago, rongo said:

 

 

The Germany Hamburg mission started with 160 missionaries in 1994, and had drawn down to 98 when I went home in 1996. We actually had more baptisms with the 98 than we did with the 160. Anecdotal, I know, but I think there is a lot of power in the "Gideon's Army" principle. 

But, as the decrease due to the raising the bar happened, overall more baptisms diidn't happen.  Indeed growth has been on a decline since the raising the bar.  I wouldn't doubt every once in a while a decrease in missionaries means more success but I doubt that model will be sustainable or repeatable. 

1 hour ago, rongo said:

 

 

I know that people have said that the raw numbers dipped when "raise the bar" was announced, but I think this was only temporary. In our stake, we continued to send out "repent-and-go" missionaries during this time (I was a counselor in two different wards and a bishop in two other ones within this stake). All anecdotal, I know.

there was no recovery from the decrease of raising the bar until the age change was announced.  That was well over a decade.  Let me put it this way,  the rate of decrease from raising the bar was more significant than the increase we've seen since the age change.  THe dip was the # of missionaries dropped a good 10,000 and in the next decade never got back up.  There were more missionaries for the Church when the raising the bar campaign got under way than there were 10 years later just as the age change was announced.  And yet, there were, as per the Church's growth, 3,000,000 more members. 

[stemelbow]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

Are you talking about the raising the bar initiative?  If so, why do you say that it failed miserably?  I've never heard that before.

The post just before the one you quoted explains that. 

[stemelbow]

4 hours ago, rongo said:

I don't think it failed miserably, but I also didn't see an actual bar having been raised. There was talk of raising the bar, but it remained talk. "The days of the repent-and-go missionary are over," but missionaries continued to . . .repent and go. I am aware of very few missionaries who wanted to go who were prevented from going because of LoC violations. 

And, of course, with more missionaries than ever in the last several years, the bar has actually been lowered. 

I'm not sure how you missed it. Rongo.  The decline from raising the bar was hugely significant.  THousands less missionaries went, which decreased for a couple years.  As it bottomed out the decrease was more significant then the increase has been since 2012.  I might have already said that in a previous response to you, but that's what happened.  Sadly, as that took effect, convert baptisms reached lower and lower rates.  But they started to recover a little in that regard just as the name change was announced.  Then as that has settled, we've seen historic lows in conversion rates year after year, for four straight. 

[rongo]

14 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

the policy to give missionaries iPads was the culprit for early returns?  hm....

Not in isolation, no. But it's a contributing factor. It isn't just that they were given iPads, but with the de-emphasis --- sometimes outright banning --- of tracting, and expecting missionaries to spend enormous amounts of time doing nothing but iPad-related "planning" (I think the social media missionary work experiment is largely over). All of these things combined are a recipe for depression, boredom, and second thoughts. 

I think electronics saturation (and diet and exercise) is a contributing factor to the explosion of teenage/young adult depression in Western society at large, not just LDS. 

Certainly I'd think a ton of other things must change with the Church in conjunction with serving.

Such as what? I'm genuinely interested in details like this for proposed alternatives. How else are referrals and baptisms going to increase if missionaries completely disengage from finding? 

But, as the decrease due to the raising the bar happened, overall more baptisms didn't happen.

Personally, I think a lot of societal change has impacted this, too. It is harder to find people to baptize, and often those who agree to be baptized are not committed to the Church, the gospel, or the Restoration. 

I think we're commenting on a major society change happening, an ebb-and-flow similar to that in the Book of Mormon. In other words, I think a decrease would have happened regardless of the program (i.e., I don't think it's program-related). 

[mrmarklin]

On ‎4‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 1:33 PM, Duncan said:

I know though that a lot of RM's blow off the Church once they are done with the mission. I've had this conversation with another brother in the ward and in his day and my day when people went on missions, that was more or less an indication (not always) that you were active and would stay active and so if you weren't active you would have gone inactive prior to a mission. That  to me is generally true, from my own experiences. Now however it seems that you grow up in the Church, do the stuff, serve a mission and then go inactive. The plan for your life ends at a mission so what do you need the Church for anymore? This is generally speaking of course. In our ward since 2013 we've had like 7 or 8 missionaries go inactive. I talked with one the other day and his plan now is to become a marijuana grower in BC and he came home at the end of 2014.

I don't think much has changed in regard to inactivity.  Fifty years ago when I was in the mission home, we were told that 60% would go inactive after our missions.  I remember looking around and wondering who would be inactive, because it certainly wouldn't be me!

[california boy]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

Such as what? I'm genuinely interested in details like this for proposed alternatives. How else are referrals and baptisms going to increase if missionaries completely disengage from finding? 

What happened to relying on members to give referrals?  We had a solid program to work with members to both cultivate and provide contacts for the missionaries so that missionaries spent almost all of our time teaching rather than finding.  Are members less interested in giving referrals today than in the past?  Has something changed on that front?  Are their friends less willing to want anything to do with Mormon beliefs?  I am just asking because I have no idea how people are reacting to asking if they want to hear about the church.  Heaven knows the church has given them plenty of reasons to not be interested in hearing the message of Mormonism.

[Duncan]

Just now, mrmarklin said:

I don't think much has changed in regard to inactivity.  Fifty years ago when I was in the mission home, we were told that 60% would go inactive after our missions.  I remember looking around and wondering who would be inactive, because it certainly wouldn't be me!

60%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%?????????????????? what?! that's a lot!!! Where did you serve?

[rongo]

11 minutes ago, california boy said:

What happened to relying on members to give referrals?  We had a solid program to work with members to both cultivate and provide contacts for the missionaries so that missionaries spent almost all of our time teaching rather than finding.  Are members less interested in giving referrals today than in the past?  Has something changed on that front?  Are their friends less willing to want anything to do with Mormon beliefs?  I am just asking because I have no idea how people are reacting to asking if they want to hear about the church.  Heaven knows the church has given them plenty of reasons to not be interested in hearing the message of Mormonism.

I don't think it's that. It's that when member referrals are the sole finding method, you will have gaps where you need to do your own finding, too. In Europe, these gaps are longer and more frequent (and, I don't criticize the members. They did a good job of being member missionaries in Germany when I was there, but  member referrals can be a pretty shallow well when active membership numbers are small). 

The problem becomes, like in many missions in the U.S., when mission policies are that the missionaries are to do no tracting, even when they have down time (no appointments). The intent with this is to force members to "do their duty," but in practice this results in the missionaries not having anything to do. When the mission we live in piloted this as well (no tracting, members pressured and expected to keep them busy round the clock), our ward's missionaries who did tract (despite mission policy) found some great people who are still active today (and have been through the temple). Door-to-door and talking to people in the street. And they wouldn't have been found through social media or waiting for them to come into the church building. 

I know that you want to tie this into cognitive dissonance on the part of members (shame about church policies and doctrines that makes them not want to talk to their friends about the Church) and disdain from non-members because of church policies and doctrines, but this is a miniscule part of it, IMO. We have always had the bulk of our members shy and apprehensive about "opening their mouth," since the Church began. It's out of people's comfort zone, and always has been. 

[california boy]

52 minutes ago, rongo said:

I don't think it's that. It's that when member referrals are the sole finding method, you will have gaps where you need to do your own finding, too. In Europe, these gaps are longer and more frequent (and, I don't criticize the members. They did a good job of being member missionaries in Germany when I was there, but  member referrals can be a pretty shallow well when active membership numbers are small). 

The problem becomes, like in many missions in the U.S., when mission policies are that the missionaries are to do no tracting, even when they have down time (no appointments). The intent with this is to force members to "do their duty," but in practice this results in the missionaries not having anything to do. When the mission we live in piloted this as well (no tracting, members pressured and expected to keep them busy round the clock), our ward's missionaries who did tract (despite mission policy) found some great people who are still active today (and have been through the temple). Door-to-door and talking to people in the street. And they wouldn't have been found through social media or waiting for them to come into the church building. 

I know that you want to tie this into cognitive dissonance on the part of members (shame about church policies and doctrines that makes them not want to talk to their friends about the Church) and disdain from non-members because of church policies and doctrines, but this is a miniscule part of it, IMO. We have always had the bulk of our members shy and apprehensive about "opening their mouth," since the Church began. It's out of people's comfort zone, and always has been. 

Without going into a lot of detail, I found that missionaries lacked a lot of imagination and were more than willing to do just what was expected of them and what was easy.  I asked the mission president if I could try an experiment in my zone (I was the zone leader at the time) First I asked him to not be concerned about the statistics  such as how many hours spent tracking, how many Book of Mormons given out etc.  I felt like statistics really didn't mean doing effective missionary work.  We were suppose to give out 5 Book of Mormons a week. To prove my point, I passed out 50 Book of Mormons the following week.  In the end the mission president allowed me to try my idea.  Tracting went down from an average of 20 hours a week to less than 3.  And baptisms ended up more than doubling.  The program essentially was a way to help members introduce their friends to church activities and teach them the discussions without pounding them with the "It is your responsibility" guilt.  And part of the program was to not accept any referrals from the members.  We gave the members the responsibility in choosing families to work with.  Missionaries only followed up on the course of action the members had chosen to do.

Members are always shy or reluctant to "Open their mouths".  It is the missionaries job to figure out how to make that easier and more willing for them.  Believe me, that doesn't happen by relying on guilt  In the end, the whole mission adopted the program.  

So I just asked, what has changed? Why can't missionaries figure out a way to motivate members to WANT to share the gospel, rather than to guilt them into it.  Is it more difficult now days to invite friends to church activities or even to the movies?  The principle remains the same.  There are millions of members and only a small number of missionaries.  It isn't hard to figure out how missionaries can be more productive in teaching investigators.  It certainly doesn't come from an iPad.

Edited April 19, 2017 by california boy

[carbon dioxide]

6 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

As noted in the OP, the increase is almost completely due to the increased ability of Sisters to go on missions at a younger age.

Of course.  It is not like lowing the age of the guys one year would bring in a new pool of prospective missionaries.  The same missionaries going at 18 where going to go at 19.  Lowering the age for the gals was going to bring a new pool in.  Age 21 simply if a bad age for the majority to go on a mission.  They are deep into school and ready to move on to a career or ready to get married.   

Edited April 19, 2017 by carbon dioxide

[carbon dioxide]

22 minutes ago, california boy said:

So I just asked, what has changed? Why can't missionaries figure out a way to motivate members to WANT to share the gospel, rather than to guilt them into it.  Is it more difficult now days to invite friends to church activities or even to the movies?  The principle remains the same.  There are millions of members and only a small number of missionaries.  It isn't hard to figure out how missionaries can be more productive in teaching investigators.  It certainly doesn't come from an iPad.

For me its very simple.  I have a very small circle of friends and almost all of them are LDS.  Most of the non-LDS I know are at work and that is not really the best place to share anything.  Living in Utah almost all of them know about the Church anyway. 

[california boy]

4 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

For me its very simple.  I have a very small circle of friends and almost all of them are LDS.  Most of the non-LDS I know are   at work and that is not really the best place to share anything.  Living in Utah almost all of them know about the Church anyway. 

Your situation is very typical of most Mormons.  And it is the first thing every member said.  The very first part of the program we did was have members write down a list of all of their neighbors, family, friends and people they worked with. It was a list they only kept themselves.  So they could trust that the missionaries would not visit them.  In fact that was the point of the program.  

Anyway, the point is, if you really believe the church statistics that when a member introduces a person to the gospel, there are not only much higher odds that the person will join the church, but also that the person will remain active. We believed that it was not the missionaries job to find people to baptize.  Their job was to teach those that sought to know more about the church.  It is a different mindset.

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I'm not sure what more to clarify.  It is already clarified.  Sure the total # of missionaries per member is up from 2012, even if down from the 90s and before.  But what the OP suggests and what I was addressing was that young men are going at a lower rate.  Young women are going more often, which is great.  But at the same time, less young men, as a percentage are going.  Or so it seems.  THe problem we have is the Church doesn't give us a break down of age group and gender, so we have to do some reasonable analysis to estimate and project.  The links in the OP explain this well. 

My apologies. I was somewhat confused due to there only being two dates. As I mentioned in an earlier comment I figured it out and noted that if we remove the increase in sisters we get a missionaries/population roughly akin to what was present before the surge. I don't see a significant drop in young men though. Although I do wish we had actual numbers on the breakdown of missionaries by age and gender. 

5 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

For me its very simple.  I have a very small circle of friends and almost all of them are LDS.  Most of the non-LDS I know are at work and that is not really the best place to share anything.  Living in Utah almost all of them know about the Church anyway. 

One thing I've learned is that even in Mormon strongholds like Provo there's a surprising number of non-members and far fewer know much about Mormons than you might expect. There's a reason Utah baptizes so many people. While I'll be the first to confess I've not been as good at this as I should, there are a lot of opportunities for missionary work outside of just ones immediate friends.

6 hours ago, california boy said:

Without going into a lot of detail, I found that missionaries lacked a lot of imagination and were more than willing to do just what was expected of them and what was easy.  I asked the mission president if I could try an experiment in my zone (I was the zone leader at the time) First I asked him to not be concerned about the statistics  such as how many hours spent tracking, how many Book of Mormons given out etc.  I felt like statistics really didn't mean doing effective missionary work.  We were suppose to give out 5 Book of Mormons a week. To prove my point, I passed out 50 Book of Mormons the following week.  In the end the mission president allowed me to try my idea.  Tracting went down from an average of 20 hours a week to less than 3.  And baptisms ended up more than doubling.  The program essentially was a way to help members introduce their friends to church activities and teach them the discussions without pounding them with the "It is your responsibility" guilt.  And part of the program was to not accept any referrals from the members.  We gave the members the responsibility in choosing families to work with.  Missionaries only followed up on the course of action the members had chosen to do.

We had pretty similar experiences in our mission. I had been out a year without a single baptism while my MTC companion at his year mark was already the top baptizer in mission history. I remember the point where after giving it my all it seemed like nothing matter. I just stopped doing all the stats and just went out and taught. Suddenly I was baptizing a lot. And nearly all of them thankfully remained active to this day. One thing I found extremely helpful was just praying about where to find a person - pretty sincere prayer - then breaking out the map or the old 3x5 card records. I was shocked how often it worked and turned into a good contact. Oh, we also started staying out later as no one was home during the day and so the prime contacting time was 7-10. Technically against the rules but it worked.

 

[stemelbow]

17 hours ago, rongo said:

Not in isolation, no. But it's a contributing factor. It isn't just that they were given iPads, but with the de-emphasis --- sometimes outright banning --- of tracting, and expecting missionaries to spend enormous amounts of time doing nothing but iPad-related "planning" (I think the social media missionary work experiment is largely over). All of these things combined are a recipe for depression, boredom, and second thoughts. 

I think electronics saturation (and diet and exercise) is a contributing factor to the explosion of teenage/young adult depression in Western society at large, not just LDS. 

Alright. 

17 hours ago, rongo said:

 

 

Such as what? I'm genuinely interested in details like this for proposed alternatives. How else are referrals and baptisms going to increase if missionaries completely disengage from finding? 

Oh man...I have done very little it feels like but offered alternatives in my posts on this forum.  Ok, well...that's an exaggeration.  But I've said tons. 

I'd love to see the Church be more inclusive.  To me the Church is very insular and exclusive.  I'd love the Church to drop the pharisaic mindset of exclusivity and legalism, also the very "we're better than others" theme that pokes out in every ward I've ever seen.  Drop dogmatic conclusions about things that we don't know and realize we have a long ways to go.  That's the general theme, broken down and it'd take pages upon pages to list. 

17 hours ago, rongo said:

 

 

Personally, I think a lot of societal change has impacted this, too. It is harder to find people to baptize, and often those who agree to be baptized are not committed to the Church, the gospel, or the Restoration. 

I dont' think it's any different then 30 or 40 years ago, really in this sense.  The problem in this area is of course, missionaries run into someone, who does a quick google search, and that someone in 5 minutes knows more than the missionaries in some ways.  Missionaries lose all types of credibility at this point, when the history and doctrine and past doctrine discredit them. 

17 hours ago, rongo said:

I think we're commenting on a major society change happening, an ebb-and-flow similar to that in the Book of Mormon. In other words, I think a decrease would have happened regardless of the program (i.e., I don't think it's program-related). 

Cute enough idea.  I don't mean that mockingly, but on this we'd never know.  And we'd never know if many of my ideas are true or applicable or not either. 

[clarkgoble]

17 hours ago, rongo said:

I know that you want to tie this into cognitive dissonance on the part of members (shame about church policies and doctrines that makes them not want to talk to their friends about the Church) and disdain from non-members because of church policies and doctrines, but this is a miniscule part of it, IMO. We have always had the bulk of our members shy and apprehensive about "opening their mouth," since the Church began. It's out of people's comfort zone, and always has been. 

I'm not sure that's a good description. I think people are largely proud of their beliefs but recognize that talking either religion or politics frequently leads to conflict. 

[clarkgoble]

17 hours ago, Duncan said:

60%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%?????????????????? what?! that's a lot!!! Where did you serve?

In the 80's there was a study that of active members 40% had been inactive at one point in their lives. So the above seems about on par with that - although not the claim they'd go inactive upon going home. But when I came home at the end of the 80's this was brought up by the mission president. So they must have been having a push on the subject then.

[stemelbow]

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

In the 80's there was a study that of active members 40% had been inactive at one point in their lives. So the above seems about on par with that - although not the claim they'd go inactive upon going home. But when I came home at the end of the 80's this was brought up by the mission president. So they must have been having a push on the subject then.

That's fair.  often times, though, I notice many LDS will have once considered themselves inactive for a time, when in the Church's eyes they are really active (attending once a month).  my old bishop used to tell stories about he was so inactive as a youth for a time--trying to reach the kids in the ward,  But when I asked him more about it, I don't think he was really inactive.  he went once or twice a month, he said.  So you never know, I guess.  He just as an active Bishop saw occasional attendance as inactive. 

[clarkgoble]

46 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

That's fair.  often times, though, I notice many LDS will have once considered themselves inactive for a time, when in the Church's eyes they are really active (attending once a month).  my old bishop used to tell stories about he was so inactive as a youth for a time--trying to reach the kids in the ward,  But when I asked him more about it, I don't think he was really inactive.  he went once or twice a month, he said.  So you never know, I guess.  He just as an active Bishop saw occasional attendance as inactive. 

I'm sure that's the case but without doing a search for the study (it's referenced in an old sociology of Mormonism text from BYU in the 90's that's available online) I suspect they accounted for that. But I think serious inactivity is pretty common. My Stake President and Bishop when I was a kid had been inactive for several years. A few years after returning to activity they ended up in leadership. My Mission President had been inactive most of his life which led to some problems due to unfamiliarity with some things I think. 

But you're right that in a certain sense activity is an ambiguous category. 

Back when I was coming off my mission though they did warn that you were so used to working by the spirit that focusing in on secular things like college can lead to a kind of emptiness. (Which admittedly it did - although one can quickly adjust) Also you're so used to being immersed with things that in certain ways you're ironically not prepared for temptations. I suspect for some having no rules leads people to go a bit extreme too that can lead them to doing things they shouldn't. A friend of mine was an AP on his mission, came home and played football and ended up doing a lot of things he shouldn't have. The adjustment was hard. An AP from my mission was in a band and when he got home he hooked back up in the band and ended up inactive after not that long again due to the environment.

Edited April 20, 2017 by clarkgoble