The Continued Decline of Young Men Willing to Serve a Mission

[Fair Dinkum]

Salt Lake, We have a Problem.

In 2015 Elder Jeffery Holland famously predicted Here that the church would have a 100,000 missionaries serving worldwide by 2019.  Sadly, since his prediction, the very opposite has taken place.   Each and every year since this prediction, the number of young men who have chosen to serve a mission has declined. Here we see that as of today, instead of that foretold 100,000 missionary force, the church only has 54,539 missionaries in the field, a near 50% shortfall of Hollands prediction. And as seen in the churches own graph, that decline is in free fall.

Some anecdotal data suggests that only 1 in 4 actively attending church young men along the Wasatch front, the bread basket of church mission service, are choosing to go on missions and one informant has revealed that in one Alpine, Utah ward, of the dozens of eligible young men available to serve, not a single young man has chosen to do so.

More anecdotal information, of my 3 grandson's eligible to serve, only one is choosing to do so.  We love and support the decisions of each of these wonderful young men.

Perhaps due to this drop in young men choosing to serve, the church held a special lesson on the 5th Sunday of July, encouraging missionary service. In this lesson, parents were instructed to teach their young men of missionary age that mission service is a priesthood obligation, a requirement for worthy missionary age young men, that these young men do not have a choice in this decision. It was a call to arms.

The consequences of this meeting and its aftermath have been the final straw for one of my grandsons.  He's a believer, attends church regularly with his family, but just like the members of the First Presidency who chose NOT to serve missions, he too has exercised his agency and has chosen not to go on a mission. But since this meeting he is receiving the full court press from those assigned to apply pressure.  He has received calls or visits from his ward priest leader, his bishop and even a call from his stake president.  He told me this week, that he is feeling so much pressure to serve a mission that he is now questioning how he can even attend church for fear of constant shaming & harassment.  The church is literally driving this wonderful young man away.

I understand the church desperately needs to recruit more young men to serve missions, but from where I stand their efforts are backfiring and will only drive their missionary numbers lower.

* For what its worth, I LOVED my mission and had a wonderful experience and have always expressed my experience in positive tones.

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Fair Dinkum

[Rain]

6 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Salt Lake, We have a Problem.

In 2015 Elder Jeffery Holland famously predicted Here that the church would have a 100,000 missionaries serving worldwide by 2019.  Sadly, since his prediction, the very opposite has taken place.   Each and every year since this prediction, the number of young men who have chosen to serve a mission has declined. Here we see that as of today, instead of that foretold 100,000 missionary force, the church only has 54,539 missionaries in the field, a near 50% shortfall of Hollands prediction. And as seen in the churches own graph, that decline is in free fall.

Some anecdotal data suggests that only 1 in 4 young men along the Wasatch front, the bread basket of church mission service, are choosing to go on missions and one informant has revealed that in one Alpine, Utah ward, of the dozens of eligible young men available to serve, not a single young man has chosen to do so.

More anecdotal information, of my 3 grandson's eligible to serve, only one is choosing to do so.  We love and support the decisions of each of these wonderful young men.

On the 5th Sunday, this past July, the church held a special lesson encouraging Missionary service, instructing parents to teach their young men of missionary age that Missions service is a priesthood obligation, a requirement for missionary age young men, that these young men do not have a choice in this decision. 

The consequences of this meeting and its aftermath have been the final straw for one of my grandsons.  He's a believer, attends church regularly with his family, but just like the members of the First Presidency who chose NOT to serve missions, he too has exercised his agency and has chosen not to go on a mission. But since this meeting is receiving the full court press from those assigned to apply pressure.  He has received calls or visits from his ward priest leader, his bishop and even a call from his stake president.  He told me this week, that he is feeling so much pressure to serve a mission that he is now questioning how he can even attend church for fear of constant shamming & harassment.  The church is literally driving this wonderful young man away.

I understand the church desperately needs to recruit more young men to serve missions, but from where I stand their efforts are backfiring and will only drive their missionary numbers lower.

* For what its worth, I LOVED my mission and had a wonderful experience and have always expressed my experience in positive tones.

 

This was a problem for my oldest.  He turned 18 the year that missionary age changed to 18.  He had tons of people bothering him to go.  I pleaded in RS for people to stop, but people just made excuses of why they were going to keep bothering him.  He wasn't even halfway through his senior year of high school when they started getting after him and a lot of these people were people that had no more than a "Hello" "Goodbye" acquaintance relationship with him!

And yep, he didn't go. 

That was obviously his choice not to go so I don't want anyone telling me it's his fault because it was his choice.  Obviously it was his choice.  But there is so much that people can say or do to help change lives.  

So here is something that might be helpful for those out there.  If you have never had an intimate conversation with the young man you are not the right one to tell him he should go unless he comes to you first asking about it.  If you haven't seen him in a couple of years you are not the right one to tell him he should go unless he comes to you first.  That won't take care of all the problems, but for my son I would guess it could take care of 50% of them. 

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Rain said:

This was a problem for my oldest.  He turned 18 the year that missionary age changed to 18.  He had tons of people bothering him to go.  I pleaded in RS for people to stop, but people just made excuses of why they were going to keep bothering him.  He wasn't even halfway through his senior year of high school when they started getting after him and a lot of these people were people that had no more than a "Hello" "Goodbye" acquaintance relationship with him!

And yep, he didn't go. 

That was obviously his choice not to go so I don't want anyone telling me it's his fault because it was his choice.  Obviously it was his choice.  But there is so much that people can say or do to help change lives.  

So here is something that might be helpful for those out there.  If you have never had an intimate conversation with the young man you are not the right one to tell him he should go unless he comes to you first asking about it.  If you haven't seen him in a couple of years you are not the right one to tell him he should go unless he comes to you first.  That won't take care of all the problems, but for my son I would guess it could take care of 50% of them. 

My husband was a convert and had barely been a member for 2 years when his bishop started really putting pressure on him to go.  He almost decided not to go because it was so off putting. 

Supporting someone's agency and their personal communication with God is so much better than pressuring them to do what you think they should when you think they should do it.

[jkwilliams]

I wonder what the reason for the decline is. Putting more pressure on is probably not a great idea. One of my sons went through a "rebellious" phase when he said he was going to serve a mission. He stopped talking about it once he realized I really didn't have a problem with it. 

[rodheadlee]

It's a shame. We were so grateful for the missionaries that came to our door. The first time they came I was 19, newly married and not ready. 9 years later they came and the timing was perfect. Second Chances are wonderful. 

[bluebell]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I wonder what the reason for the decline is. Putting more pressure on is probably not a great idea. One of my sons went through a "rebellious" phase when he said he was going to serve a mission. He stopped talking about it once he realized I really didn't have a problem with it. 

I think covid was probably one factor, with all the mess that that created with missions and travel.  

[jkwilliams]

Just now, bluebell said:

I think covid was probably one factor, with all the mess that that created with missions and travel.  

I expected there to be a rebound after Covid. Maybe it's just not "over" with enough for a rebound. Who knows?

[Rain]

14 minutes ago, bluebell said:

My husband was a convert and had barely been a member for 2 years when his bishop started really putting pressure on him to go.  He almost decided not to go because it was so off putting. 

Supporting someone's agency and their personal communication with God is so much better than pressuring them to do what you think they should when you think they should do it.

I remember one time someone telling me that agency was a great thing till she became a parent!  

I grew up in a pretty controlling household.  Unfortunately a lot of what I learned there I used on my my children, but the longer I parented the better I got with supporting agency and their communication with God and it shows in both my relationship with my different kids and their abilities to make good choices.  Of course they have their own personalities too that make a difference too, but if I could do it over again I would so much more work on the agency thing and trust God that He was my child's parent first.

[Rain]

 

5 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think covid was probably one factor, with all the mess that that created with missions and travel.  

Having been on the Missionary Mommas board I can definitely say this is part of it.  Not only did we have missionaries put off going, but we had so many that had missions cut short.  I think that also stopped the sister missionary pressure as well a little bit.  When they changed ages my daughter was also pressured to go.  Church said she had a choice, but SO many people acted like she was not very spiritual if she didn't go - ironic because she is one of the most spiritual people I know.  Anyway, with the slow down I think that more young women thought more about it and found they really didn't need to go and were not pressured to go like the women were in the years before.

[JAHS]

38 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

but just like the members of the First Presidency who chose NOT to serve missions,

It's not that they didn't  "choose" to serve a mission. Times and circumstances were different when they were younger than they are now.
Pres. Oaks Due to his membership in the Utah National Guard and with the possibility of being called up to serve in the Korean War was unable to serve a mission.
Pres. Nelson  was in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War and later served a mission on temple square from 1955 to 1965.
Pres. Eyring was also involved in the military (Airforce) but during that time  served as a district missionary in Albuquerque NM.

[bluebell]

19 minutes ago, Rain said:

I remember one time someone telling me that agency was a great thing till she became a parent!  

 

There is a quote from Michael McLean's "The Ark" (the good version, not the dumb broadway flop version) where Mrs. Noah is going a bit batty being trapped in the ark for so long listening to the rain, and she tries to force some birds to sing.  Noah tells her that he believes the birds should be free to choose to sing or not, to which Mrs. Noah replies:

"You forget, I'm a mother.  I know all about freedom, and how to enforce it."  It made me laugh before I had kids and now that I have them it makes me laugh more.  It really is a thin line and it's hard to walk most of the time.

[bluebell]

28 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I expected there to be a rebound after Covid. Maybe it's just not "over" with enough for a rebound. Who knows?

I think the rebound will probably come but it's still early.

I still know of missionaries that are currently serving who haven't been able to get into the missions they were called to yet.  My son was in the Mexico MTC in April and was required by the Mexican government to be masked at all times until a week before he let.  Covid is starting to feel like a long time ago but it's only been months for some places that restrictions have been lifted, and in some countries covid is still impacting international visas. 

Plus a lot of kids put off even sending in their papers, wanting to wait until all covid restrictions were completely over.  Some of those kids probably haven't decided to do it yet.  

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think the rebound will probably come but it's still early.

I still know of missionaries that are currently serving who haven't been able to get into the missions they were called to yet.  My son was in the Mexico MTC in April and was required by the Mexican government to be masked at all times until a week before he let.  Covid is starting to feel like a long time ago but it's only been months for some places that restrictions have been lifted, and in some countries covid is still impacting international visas. 

Plus a lot of kids put off even sending in their papers, wanting to wait until all covid restrictions were completely over.  Some of those kids probably haven't decided to do it yet.  

On the Air Force base where I work, we are back to an elevated health emergency level because cases are on the rise in the surrounding counties. We are not supposed to go on base unless we absolutely have to, and masks are mandatory indoors on base. Doesn't seem like there's an end in sight to me. 

[Senator]

44 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I wonder what the reason for the decline is. 

I think there is a wave of discontent, disinterest, disaffection sweeping the church right now; especially among the youth. "There are so many people leaving the church", are the words of my currently attending BYU daughter.

[Chum]

None of my 5 sons (aged 20-31) served a mission. That wasn't the original plan. From my baptism (~30y ago) we were on a path that they would serve. They all graduated seminary; they all received the priesthood. But decades of always increasing difficulties (in the home), led to one something-has-to-give after another. Eventually we landed in survival mode and staying housed took priority over everything (eg:food).

Even with all that, I think there was a potential path to them going on missions - thru a functional YM program.  I was beyond willing to help my ward achieve that; I was usually in positions to do so (various scounting and YM callings). But it wasn't something the ward ever wanted - as in parents were so suspicious of change they'd do whatever it took to stifle progress (for decades).

Ultimately I conceded to reality. We gradually withdrew from Church to preserve our well being.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Chum

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Senator said:

I think there is a wave of discontent, disinterest, disaffection sweeping the church right now; especially among the youth. "There are so many people leaving the church", are the words of my currently attending BYU daughter.

I cannot speak to that at all. When they lowered the age of missionary service to 18, I assumed it was because too many kids were taking that "gap year" and then not going on missions. If that was the reason, it doesn't seem to have worked. 

[webbles]

Those graphs on the church's website are really bad.  Way too small and they don't really give any details.  I went to http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/search/label/Statistical Report and tracked down the actual numbers since 2009.  Reason I went to ldschurchgrowth was because I couldn't figure out an easy to obtain the data from the church's website.

Year    Missionaries  Service Missionaries
2009	51736	
2010	52225	
2011	55410	      22299
2012	58990	      22961
2013	83035	      24032
2014	85147	      30404
2015	74079	      31779
2016	70946	      33965
2017	67049	      36172
2018	65137	      37963
2019	67021	      31333
2020	51819	      30527
2021	54539	      36639

So, some interesting things:

* The service missionaries has almost continuously gone up.  Only 2019 and 2020 show a decrease (one theory proposed for the decrease in 2018 was a definition change between service missionary and service "volunteer")

* The number of full-time missionaries started to climb again in 2019.  2020 dropped it but that's from Covid 19.  It went up again in 2021.  So it isn't a free fall.  Looks like it has finally settled after both the double cohort and covid 19.

* If you add the service missionaries with the full-time missionaries in 2018, you have over 100k missionaries.  If you add them in 2019, you get really close to 100k missionaries.  Not sure if Elder Holland was talking about just full-time missionaries or was thinking of both of them.  The statistics of service missionaries had been provided for several years by the time Elder Holland gave his prediction.

[Fair Dinkum]

29 minutes ago, JAHS said:

It's not that they didn't  "choose" to serve a mission. Times and circumstances were different when they were younger than they are now.
Pres. Oaks Due to his membership in the Utah National Guard and with the possibility of being called up to serve in the Korean War was unable to serve a mission.
Pres. Nelson  was in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War and later served a mission on temple square from 1955 to 1965.
Pres. Eyring was also involved in the military (Airforce) but during that time  served as a district missionary in Albuquerque NM.

Come on, give me a break, not one of them was drafted into military service...they "Chose" military service instead of choosing to serve a mission.  I totally respect their individual choices to serve country over church by NOT serving a mission.  My only hope is that they too will respect the young men who choose NOT to serve a mission as well.

[Senator]

3 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I cannot speak to that at all. When they lowered the age of missionary service to 18, I assumed it was because too many kids were taking that "gap year" and then not going on missions. If that was the reason, it doesn't seem to have worked. 

I'm speaking strictly anecdotally. i have no data to back it up.  But seeing what is happening in my own and extended family as well as friends,  I can't help but see a sizable shift has taken place.  Is it temporary?  I don't know.

[jkwilliams]

5 minutes ago, Senator said:

I'm speaking strictly anecdotally. i have no data to back it up.  But seeing what is happening in my own and extended family as well as friends,  I can't help but see a sizable shift has taken place.  Is it temporary?  I don't know.

I feel pretty disconnected from all of that. Of the 6 potential missionaries in my extended family (my boys and my sister's boys), one served a mission. I have no idea if that's representative. 

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I think covid was probably one factor, with all the mess that that created with missions and travel.  

Also it has been tough on mental health and wellness. I imagine that it can be harder to feel ready to serve if your loved ones are unwell.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Meadowchik

[Fether]

1 hour ago, Fair Dinkum said:

but just like the members of the First Presidency who chose NOT to serve missions

The standards were different for them, let’s stop pretending they were the same. this is the same reason we dont point to the Bible to justify drinking alcohol.

ill also add that a leader’s failure does not justify our failure (and yes, choosing not to serve a mission when you are able is a failure)

Edited August 9, 2022 by Fether

[Stormin' Mormon]

14 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Come on, give me a break, not one of them was drafted into military service...they "Chose" military service instead of choosing to serve a mission.  I totally respect their individual choices to serve country over church by NOT serving a mission.  My only hope is that they too will respect the young men who choose NOT to serve a mission as well.

From Elder Cook's recent conference address: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/04/29cook?lang=eng

Quote

In the United States, because of the Korean conflict, very few were allowed to serve. Only one could be called from each ward per year. It was a surprise when our bishop asked [my brother] Joe to explore this possibility with our father.

I'm not sure it would be fair to characterize the choice as one between military service and missionary service.  It sounds like missionary service was not really something a young men could choose to do, but rather something they were invited to do by their local leaders. 

[Chum]

19 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Come on, give me a break, not one of them was drafted into military service...they "Chose" military service instead of choosing to serve a mission.

To add some nuance, enlisting during a draft is often about embracing the inevitable and getting more choice in where and how you serve. Outside of a draft, it's fully a choice of joining or not.

[ksfisher]

25 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Come on, give me a break, not one of them was drafted into military service...they "Chose" military service instead of choosing to serve a mission.  I totally respect their individual choices to serve country over church by NOT serving a mission.  My only hope is that they too will respect the young men who choose NOT to serve a mission as well.

At the beginning of the Korean War, young men who wanted to serve missions applied for IV-D classification but with varying degrees of success.  In some cases, the deferment was granted and in others, not.  Church leaders considered using the courts to enforce provisions allowing for the deferment but feared an adverse decision might exclude the deferment for missionaries entirely.  As the war progressed, Gordon B. Hinckley was assigned to work with General Lewis Hershey, the head of the Selective Service, to find a solution that accommodated the young men wishing to serve missions and the needs of the military.  Hershey was not religious but was of Mennonite ancestry and understood deep religious devotion. (Krehbiel, Nicholas A. “Protector of Conscience, Proponent of Service: General Lewis B. Hershey and Alternative Service during World War II,” Dissertation, Kansas State University, 2009).  Few men would have treated the Church as fairly as did Hershey.  Hinckley and Hershey established a quota that allowed each ward to set apart one missionary per year.  Sheri Dew describes the establishment of the quota system in “Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley.”

Between February 1951 and July 1953, the Church refrained from extending mission calls to young men who were eligible for military service.  By that time, the Church’s missionary force had plunged from 4,849 in 1951 to 2,189 in 1953; only 872 missionaries were set apart in 1952.  New measures were called for.  With General Hershey’s support, and after winning a number of federal appeals, Gordon worked with the Selective Service to achieve what appeared to be a reasonable compromise: a quota that allowed a restricted number of missionaries to serve at any given time.  Beginning in July 1953, each ward and branch in the United States could call one young man to serve a mission that year and perhaps two the following year. 

https://economicbluprinciples.blogspot.com/2013/04/many-were-drafted-but-few-were-called.html