Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses Are Converting More Than The LDS

[Navidad]

5 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The good news is that many people are willing to see for themselves. In that regard, we members are the best of all missionary 'tools'.

I've always thought, and once gave a sacrament talk on the concept that the members of a church, by their lived lives are the best testimony of the truth of a church.

[Kenngo1969]

11 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

Honestly, given the level of hostility and criticism some fair and some unfair towards the church, it’s a miracle anyone converts to the church anymore. 

 

6 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

This is anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth ... or not.  Trust me, or not.  I don't care either way.  A few years ago I was perusing some titles written by the infamous Ed Decker at Amazon, reading the reviews.  A lot of 'em were the typical, predictable, "Atta boy, Ed!  Thanks fer tellin' the truth about them thar Mormons!"  But, mixed in with those, perhaps one every tenth or twentieth fawning review, there was a review that said, in essence, "I read one of your books and wondered if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members possibly could be as bad as you say they are.  I decided to find out for myself.  I started meeting with the missionaries and I'm getting baptized next week ..."

Of course, anyone can post anything on the Internet.  It's almost as if "www" doesn't stand for "world wide Web," but, rather, for "wacky, wild Web" or something.  Nonetheless, if even some of those accounts are true, I've often wondered how Mr. Decker feels to know that his work backfired.

 

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The good news is that many people are willing to see for themselves. In that regard, we members are the best of all missionary 'tools'.

 

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

A family in one of the wards I served in had had a similar experience. Devout Evangelicals, they were devastated when they got news that her favourite aunt was about to be baptised into the Church, so they boarded an aeroplane to California to save her from this dreadful decision. They were well versed already in the usual criticisms, but the wife thought maybe she should actually look at the Book of Mormon to be prepared to convince the aunt of its falsity.

She read for the entire flight. When they landed in California, she said to her husband, 'I think we've been misled'. They started missionary lessons at the aunt's house, attended her baptism, and then completed the process once back on the Atlantic coast.

 

2 hours ago, Navidad said:

I've always thought, and once gave a sacrament talk on the concept that the members of a church, by their lived lives are the best testimony of the truth of a church.

Indeed.

Also, consider this, also from President Hinckley:

Quote

 

Mine has been the opportunity to meet many wonderful men and women in various parts of the world. A few of them have left an indelible impression upon me. I share with you a story I spoke of some years ago. I met a naval officer from a distant nation, a brilliant young man who had been brought to the United States for advanced training. Some of his associates in the United States Navy, whose behavior had attracted him, shared with him at his request their religious beliefs. He was not a Christian, but he was interested. They told him of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, who gave his life for all mankind. They told him of the appearance of God, the Eternal Father, and the resurrected Lord to the boy Joseph Smith. They spoke of modern prophets. They taught him the gospel of the Master. The Spirit touched his heart, and he was baptized.

He was introduced to me just before he was to return to his native land. We spoke of these things, and then I said: “Your people are not Christians. What will happen when you return home a Christian, and, more particularly, a Mormon Christian?”

His face clouded, and he replied, “My family will be disappointed. They may cast me out and regard me as dead. As for my future and my career, all opportunity may be foreclosed against me.”

I asked, “Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?”

His dark eyes, moistened by tears, shone from his handsome brown face as he answered, “It’s true, isn’t it?”

Ashamed at having asked the question, I responded, “Yes, it’s true.”

To which he replied, “Then what else matters?”

 

 

President Gordon B. Hinckley (July 1993) "It's True, Isn't It?" Ensign, accessed on line at the following address on December 8, 2022: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1993/07/its-true-isnt-it?lang=eng.  I will note that the young man in that story would have faced much the same situation and many of the same sacrifices had he converted to some other Christian denomination.

[Kenngo1969]

18 hours ago, Ambrosia said:

 

@Ambrosia

Hadn't heard that song in quite awhile.  Thanks for the trip down memory lane! 

Warm Regards and Best Wishes,

-Ken

[Craig Speechly]

I've just finished reading the entire paper.  I found it to be a damning indictment of the current missionary program and exposes all of its inherent shortfalls and yet also provides extremely insightful and helpful information should church leadership ever intend to turn the "Good Ship Zion" around.

Some times we can all benefit from some helpful critical examination of our behavior and I feel this paper does all of that and more.  I guess time will tell if anyone on South Temple is willing to take a look in the mirror for personal examination of the missionary programs failures and make the necessary changes to the missionary program that will focus on retaining converts, engaging local members in the missionary program and strengthening missionaries.  It seem like such a waist of missionary currency to put all of that effort into the baptisms and yet lose the converts to inactivity within a month or two of their baptism.

And yet the missionary program is only one of many difficulties the church is facing in bringing it's message to the world.  The trend towards secularism, the drop in world wide birth rates, government restrictions on traditional missionary work and other inherent weaknesses in church decision making processes do not bode well for future church growth. 

If false high demand religious organizations, who do not teach the truth, can find success in retaining it's converts, why can't the one true high demand religion on the face of the earth do the same?  Makes one scratch your head.

Failure to make the necessary changes does seem to spell out the same results for the church in the future, which foreshadows continued decline in membership and a failure to fulfill our intended destiny to fill the earth. 

Edit to add:  If the missionary program is designed to build testimonies in young missionaries then nothing needs to change but if in fact it is to build Zion through strong wards and stakes then massive changes need to take place in the missionary program to return the church to a growth trajectory.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Craig Speechly

[gav]

19 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

I've just finished reading the entire paper.  I found it to be a damning indictment of the current missionary program and exposes all of its inherent shortfalls and yet also provides extremely insightful and helpful information should church leadership ever intend to turn the "Good Ship Zion" around.

Some times we can all benefit from some helpful critical examination of our behavior and I feel this paper does all of that and more.  I guess time will tell if anyone on South Temple is willing to take a look in the mirror for personal examination of the missionary programs failures and make the necessary changes to the missionary program that will focus on retaining converts, engaging local members in the missionary program and strengthening missionaries.  It seem like such a waist of missionary currency to put all of that effort into the baptisms and yet lose the converts to inactivity within a month or two of their baptism.

If false high demand religious organizations, who do not teach the truth, can find success in retaining it's converts, why can't the one true high demand religion on the face of the earth do the same?  Makes one scratch your head.

Failure to make the necessary changes does seem to spell out the same results for the church in the future, which foreshadows continued decline in membership and a failure to fulfill our intended destiny to fill the earth. 

Would any of these comments be out of place if the Lord had his pinkie occasionally and ever so lightly on the wheel of "Good Shop Zion"?

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Craig Speechly said:

I've just finished reading the entire paper.  I found it to be a damning indictment of the current missionary program and exposes all of its inherent shortfalls and yet also provides extremely insightful and helpful information should church leadership ever intend to turn the "Good Ship Zion" around.

Some times we can all benefit from some helpful critical examination of our behavior and I feel this paper does all of that and more.  I guess time will tell if anyone on South Temple is willing to take a look in the mirror for personal examination of the missionary programs failures and make the necessary changes to the missionary program that will focus on retaining converts, engaging local members in the missionary program and strengthening missionaries.  It seem like such a waist of missionary currency to put all of that effort into the baptisms and yet lose the converts to inactivity within a month or two of their baptism.

If false high demand religious organizations, who do not teach the truth, can find success in retaining it's converts, why can't the one true high demand religion on the face of the earth do the same?  Makes one scratch your head.

Failure to make the necessary changes does seem to spell out the same results for the church in the future, which foreshadows continued decline in membership and a failure to fulfill our intended destiny to fill the earth. 

I've always had high regard to my religion (LDS) members, but sad that it sort of went away once I became in-active. They left me on the floor and forgot about me. For years I was in auxiliaries that looked out for the in-actives. And once I became one, it was crickets.  

[Stargazer]

On 12/7/2022 at 1:03 AM, Hamba Tuhan said:

We are surrounded by voices telling us that the Church is in 'terminal decline'. Those voices are designed to discourage and/or distract us, thereby creating the desired decline.

There's a lot of that going around, including some voices on this board.

I was serving in the temple yesterday, and during a break I got out my mini-BoM and had a read-through of Mormon 8 -- because it contains one of my favorite verses. These are words recorded by Moroni, as he said, finishing the work of his father Mormon (Mormon 8:21-22):

And he that shall breathe out wrath and strifes against the work of the Lord, and against the covenant people of the Lord who are the house of Israel, and shall say: We will destroy the work of the Lord, and the Lord will not remember his covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel—the same is in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire; For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled.

I would have thought that, if they be cautious, shouldn't they take a Pascal's Wager sense of the matter, and if they are not believers, just in case it be true anyway, at least leave it alone and don't fight against it! To avoid being "in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire," I mean.

Of course the Pascal's Wager bit might not apply to someone who genuinely feels that it is righteousness in God to fight the Church, in favor of a belief that he or she believes is true. I mean, even Saul of Tarsus, in fighting the Church of Christ was doing it in good faith. But if someone just doesn't believe anything or any church is true, and the existence of any god at all is in doubt, then the Wager would seem to be a wise thing to take account of, in at least the passive sense. Because presumably, even if one doesn't believe, any reasonable god or goddess would count it more positively if one did not fight him or her.

[Stargazer]

On 12/7/2022 at 3:40 AM, InCognitus said:

Yeah (what Hamba Tuhan said), did any other group restore the "lost offices" of apostles and prophets, the original organization of Christ's church?  

Well, what @Navidad said, I guess, and to include a specific example, there is the New Apostolic Church, founded in Germany in 1863 as a schism from the Catholic Apostolic Church, which was a schism from the Church of Scotland around 1831. The Church of Scotland being a Protestant denomination along the Calvinist Presbyterian model which grew out of a Reformation in Scotland from the Catholic Church in around 1560. 

The NAC has apostles, and a Chief Apostle. When I was serving in my mission in Germany in 1973 my companion and I attended one of their worship services, out of curiosity. I don't remember much of anything about the service (other than it was very boring), except that at the beginning of the meeting, the pastor as part of the general announcements called out a greeting from the Chief Apostle. At mention of the Chief Apostle, everyone in the congregation suddenly stood up and then sat back down. Took us completely by surprise. 

Anyway, they don't consider themselves to be either Catholic or Protestant, but consider themselves to be the re-established continuation of the Early Church and that its leaders are the successors of the twelve apostles. This resembles Restorationism in some aspects. But they are still Trinitarian and subscribe to the Apostles Creed. They do have apostles, but don't limit themselves to 12. I believe the current number is 337. They used to have prophets, but the office of Prophet was officially absorbed into the office of Chief Apostle some time after 1938, if a source I found is correct. Apparently the prophets and apostles used to get up to warm disputes about things, so the Chief Apostle stopped ordaining new prophets.

The NAC has set several dates for the Second Coming, but so far Christ has delayed His coming. One of the Chief Apostles prophesied that it had been revealed to him that he would live to the second coming. He died in 1960. No official reason for this prophetical failure has been revealed. While during that apostle's life he excommunicated anyone who disagreed with this doctrine, today the church is very laissez-faire about it. As they probably should be. As for that same apostle's prophecy that Germany would win WW2, no official explanation exists for this, either. A previous prophecy that Germany would win WW1 also has no official explanation.

The NAC no longer issues dates predictive for Christ's coming.

While these past shenanigans seem to have disillusioned a lot of NAC members, they nevertheless still have around 9 million members today. Interestingly, about 86% of NAC members live in Africa. The current Chief Apostle is a Frenchman.

I knew a bit about them before, but decided to dig a bit deeper today in order to see what's up with them. Very interesting! Their official website is: https://nak.org/en <- for English speakers 

[Stargazer]

On 12/7/2022 at 8:36 PM, boblloyd91 said:

I've read quite a bit about the New Apostolic movement around 2012. They are definitely interesting. As a Latter Day Saint, I was disturbed to read about their views on my faith, claiming it was demonic. However in real practice things are a bit more murky as some high profile leaders of this movement are close friends of Glenn Beck (Lance Wallnau is one that comes to mind). They also were supportive of Mitt Romney's campaign. I know that many of them prophesied that Trump would win in 2020, which obviously never happened. I think you bring up a fair point that we need to look beyond what's going on beyond our denominational community and see what else is going on.

Well, yes, and there's a lot of confusion going on.

[Navidad]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Well, what @Navidad said, I guess, and to include a specific example, there is the New Apostolic Church, founded in Germany in 1863 as a schism from the Catholic Apostolic Church, which was a schism from the Church of Scotland around 1831. The Church of Scotland being a Protestant denomination along the Calvinist Presbyterian model which grew out of a Reformation in Scotland from the Catholic Church in around 1560. 

The NAC has apostles, and a Chief Apostle. When I was serving in my mission in Germany in 1973 my companion and I attended one of their worship services, out of curiosity. I don't remember much of anything about the service (other than it was very boring), except that at the beginning of the meeting, the pastor as part of the general announcements called out a greeting from the Chief Apostle. At mention of the Chief Apostle, everyone in the congregation suddenly stood up and then sat back down. Took us completely by surprise. 

Anyway, they don't consider themselves to be either Catholic or Protestant, but consider themselves to be the re-established continuation of the Early Church and that its leaders are the successors of the twelve apostles. This resembles Restorationism in some aspects. But they are still Trinitarian and subscribe to the Apostles Creed. They do have apostles, but don't limit themselves to 12. I believe the current number is 337. They used to have prophets, but the office of Prophet was officially absorbed into the office of Chief Apostle some time after 1938, if a source I found is correct. Apparently the prophets and apostles used to get up to warm disputes about things, so the Chief Apostle stopped ordaining new prophets.

The NAC has set several dates for the Second Coming, but so far Christ has delayed His coming. One of the Chief Apostles prophesied that it had been revealed to him that he would live to the second coming. He died in 1960. No official reason for this prophetical failure has been revealed. While during that apostle's life he excommunicated anyone who disagreed with this doctrine, today the church is very laissez-faire about it. As they probably should be. As for that same apostle's prophecy that Germany would win WW2, no official explanation exists for this, either. A previous prophecy that Germany would win WW1 also has no official explanation.

The NAC no longer issues dates predictive for Christ's coming.

While these past shenanigans seem to have disillusioned a lot of NAC members, they nevertheless still have around 9 million members today. Interestingly, about 86% of NAC members live in Africa. The current Chief Apostle is a Frenchman.

I knew a bit about them before, but decided to dig a bit deeper today in order to see what's up with them. Very interesting! Their official website is: https://nak.org/en <- for English speakers 

I may be wrong, but I think you are describing the group that has/had a branch in Canada. Around 1912, their Canadian leader decided to buy land in Chihuahua for many of the same reasons as did the Canadian Mennonites who came some years later. They bought something like 40,000 acres, but due to the revolution things didn't pan out as they had planned. I have a book about their Mexican adventure. It was a fascinating Apostolic/French/Scot/Canadian sort of Anglican group. Abraham Gonzalez, the governor of Chihuahua at the time (a Notre Dame grad) was not a fan of more Anglos settling in so close to the border. He took their land by some type of eminent domain and things just didn't work out for them. It was terrible land northwest of Ojinaga. Their leader had a French name on which I am blanking. Take care and thanks for the comment!

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

I may be wrong, but I think you are describing the group that has/had a branch in Canada. Around 1912, their Canadian leader decided to buy land in Chihuahua for many of the same reasons as did the Canadian Mennonites who came some years later. They bought something like 40,000 acres, but due to the revolution things didn't pan out as they had planned. I have a book about their Mexican adventure. It was a fascinating Apostolic/French/Scot/Canadian sort of Anglican group. Abraham Gonzalez, the governor of Chihuahua at the time (a Notre Dame grad) was not a fan of more Anglos settling in so close to the border. He took their land by some type of eminent domain and things just didn't work out for them. It was terrible land northwest of Ojinaga. Their leader had a French name on which I am blanking. Take care and thanks for the comment!

The NAC has branches in 200 countries, apparently. 

There are plenty of groups with similar names/backgrounds, but the NAC is the largest of those which descended from the original Catholic Apostolic Church.

[Craig Speechly]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

There's a lot of that going around, including some voices on this board.

I was serving in the temple yesterday, and during a break I got out my mini-BoM and had a read-through of Mormon 8 -- because it contains one of my favorite verses. These are words recorded by Moroni, as he said, finishing the work of his father Mormon (Mormon 8:21-22):

And he that shall breathe out wrath and strifes against the work of the Lord, and against the covenant people of the Lord who are the house of Israel, and shall say: We will destroy the work of the Lord, and the Lord will not remember his covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel—the same is in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire; For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled.

I would have thought that, if they be cautious, shouldn't they take a Pascal's Wager sense of the matter, and if they are not believers, just in case it be true anyway, at least leave it alone and don't fight against it! To avoid being "in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire," I mean.

Of course the Pascal's Wager bit might not apply to someone who genuinely feels that it is righteousness in God to fight the Church, in favor of a belief that he or she believes is true. I mean, even Saul of Tarsus, in fighting the Church of Christ was doing it in good faith. But if someone just doesn't believe anything or any church is true, and the existence of any god at all is in doubt, then the Wager would seem to be a wise thing to take account of, in at least the passive sense. Because presumably, even if one doesn't believe, any reasonable god or goddess would count it more positively if one did not fight him or her.

"Faith without works is dead"  If the church just sits back and makes no change to its missionary program it can expect the same lackluster results in its missionary program and rate of growth, currently at less than 1%. 

Remember what happened to the buggy whip manufacturing industry?  They didn't feel like they had to change a thing or do anything differently either.  Remind me again how that turned out for them....

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

"Faith without works is dead"  If the church just sits back and makes no change to its missionary program it can expect the same lackluster results in its missionary program and rate of growth, currently at less than 1%. 

Remember what happened to the buggy whip manufacturing industry?  They didn't feel like they had to change a thing or do anything differently either.  Remind me again how that turned out for them....

Yes, and maybe not. Buggy whips and missionary work are not comparable. I'm sure you know that, but I get what you're saying.

I got the impression that the church has been experimenting with other-than-in-person seed-casting. One of my ward's returned missionaries reported that a large portion of her mission involved social-media contacting. That's an innovation, if you're counting. Don't know how successful it was.

Are you thinking of making baptism conditional on things like requiring goals being met pre-baptism? Like a certain number of Sacrament meetings attended, requiring tithing to be paid regularly for a certain period of time, and such like? 

I'm of the opinion that doing what we're already supposed to be doing more consistently would pay dividends. Even back in the 1960s, when I was baptized as a new convert, the ward seventies were supposed to have been fellowshipping and giving the new member discussions, but I never heard from them. Sometimes I've heard of the full-time missionaries doing it. 

What ideas do you have?

[Craig Speechly]

36 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Yes, and maybe not. Buggy whips and missionary work are not comparable. I'm sure you know that, but I get what you're saying.

I got the impression that the church has been experimenting with other-than-in-person seed-casting. One of my ward's returned missionaries reported that a large portion of her mission involved social-media contacting. That's an innovation, if you're counting. Don't know how successful it was.

Are you thinking of making baptism conditional on things like requiring goals being met pre-baptism? Like a certain number of Sacrament meetings attended, requiring tithing to be paid regularly for a certain period of time, and such like? 

I'm of the opinion that doing what we're already supposed to be doing more consistently would pay dividends. Even back in the 1960s, when I was baptized as a new convert, the ward seventies were supposed to have been fellowshipping and giving the new member discussions, but I never heard from them. Sometimes I've heard of the full-time missionaries doing it. 

What ideas do you have?

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here....but its obvious that we could learn something from the JW and Adventist communities in how they covert and retain their members...why not start there.

 

PS: I highly suggest you read the paper.  It makes a great case for needed change to the missionary system and actual lays out a path forward should they make those changes and also predicts continued decline should they make none.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Craig Speechly

[The Nehor]

19 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

Honestly, given the level of hostility and criticism some fair and some unfair towards the church, it’s a miracle anyone converts to the church anymore. 

The level is not as high as we sometimes imagine. Most people don't notice it.

[Stargazer]

12 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here....but its obvious that we could learn something from the JW and Adventist communities in how they covert and retain their members...why not start there.

I suppose they may have some policies that could work. But I don't know if those policies would get the Lord's approval. Not that I think we're doing everything the way they should be being done, but it would surprise me if the methods employed by the JW and Adventist communities have not already been examined and considered by the Q12 and FP. 

12 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

 

PS: I highly suggest you read the paper.  It makes a great case for needed change to the missionary system and actual lays out a path forward should they make those changes and also predicts continued decline should they make none.

If the current system reflects how the Lord wants things to be done, then I don't think significant changes would or should be made. 

It's the Lord's church after all. Not mine or yours. I don't happen to think that I have sufficient insight to suggest changes. If you do, then you should make those suggestions you feel are warranted. Maybe talk to the Lord about it, and suggest that He ought to pass along your ideas to the proper authorities. 

[Stargazer]

On 12/4/2022 at 6:43 PM, Peppermint Patty said:

“Trends point to continued underperformance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compared to its competitors..."

When I read this, the first thing that occurred to me was this: we're not in a race.

Another thing that occurred to me is that if we are in a race, our actual competition is the things of this world.

Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Neither the Jehovah's Witnesses nor the 7th Day Adventists are mentioned in this verse, nor can they be described with those words. If a person joins the JWs or the 7DA instead of us, then at least a small victory is gained against the things of darkness. For even if the JW or 7DA hold no actual priesthood power or authority, neither are they mired in the world that seems to be creeping up on Western civilization.

[The Nehor]

35 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here....but its obvious that we could learn something from the JW and Adventist communities in how they covert and retain their members...why not start there.

 

PS: I highly suggest you read the paper.  It makes a great case for needed change to the missionary system and actual lays out a path forward should they make those changes and also predicts continued decline should they make none.

Convincing some members will change nothing. You have to convince Seventies and Apostles.

22 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I suppose they may have some policies that could work. But I don't know if those policies would get the Lord's approval. Not that I think we're doing everything the way they should be being done, but it would surprise me if the methods employed by the JW and Adventist communities have not already been examined and considered by the Q12 and FP. 

If the current system reflects how the Lord wants things to be done, then I don't think significant changes would or should be made. 

It's the Lord's church after all. Not mine or yours. I don't happen to think that I have sufficient insight to suggest changes. If you do, then you should make those suggestions you feel are warranted. Maybe talk to the Lord about it, and suggest that He ought to pass along your ideas to the proper authorities. 

I suspect we have too much institutional inertia. I remember sitting in a meeting with the Bishopric, the Elder's Quorum Presidency, and the Relief Society Presidency talking about how to encourage more ministering. Someone suggested some new tracking mechanisms and everyone went to work and then they turned to me and asked if the tools on our website would track what they wanted. To prove I am not just sardonic here me response as close as I remember it was: "It used to be able to back when we had Home and Visiting teaching" Then myself and one other participant explained that we had just recreated the Home and Visiting Teaching tracking system.

I agree with the paper about missionary work in the field. Far too much of everything was about baptisms when I was in the field. I was in the field when President Hinckley admonished the Saints and changed some directives to emphasize retention. My Mission President was much more sedate about baptismal numbers than most Mission Presidents of the day and I could still tell there was pressure. The Saints where I served often had a huge burden trying to fellowship the mass baptisms of about a decade ago. One member talked about the time when we got so many baptized: "And with all due respect they were a load of nutters." Having gone to visit many of them I couldn't dispute the point. Many barely remembered the missionaries. One pointed a shotgun at me.

The problem is that all the pressure on the Mission Presidents was to deliver baptismal numbers. Show us success. The problem is that the Mission President and the missionaries don't have a big stake in retention. They obviously want to retain members but there is a sense that it is the ward's problem and that is true to an extent but when you deliver new members with no testimonies onto local leaders you are setting them up to fail so they tend to just hunker down and try to preserve what they can and let the rest go due to limited resources.

We also have fairly limited numbers of members dedicated to missionary work when they aren't "in the field". A lot of members treat the gospel as if they are afraid they are going to break it if they try to share it.

All this being said the Church is head and shoulders over how a lot of the evangelical church's equivalent to "member missionary" work goes. I am convinced the people behind those tracts haven't spoken to anyone outside their faith since at least the 80s.

Then again maybe it is all part of the Last Days. I am impressed with a lot of the kids right now. Really impressed. Unfortunately a lot of them are also hampered with rampant mental and emotional problems. I don't know if it is the microplastics or the plagues of the Last Days or if God is crippling those who should be His greatest warriors out of a sense of fair play but it will be rough going.

[The Nehor]

40 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Neither the Jehovah's Witnesses nor the 7th Day Adventists are mentioned in this verse, nor can they be described with those words. If a person joins the JWs or the 7DA instead of us, then at least a small victory is gained against the things of darkness. For even if the JW or 7DA hold no actual priesthood power or authority, neither are they mired in the world that seems to be creeping up on Western civilization.

And we continue to fight the boogeyman of previous generations.

“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers.  We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic.  The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.  Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of mere ‘understanding.’  Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism.” - Screwtape Letters

Edited December 9, 2022 by The Nehor

[Stargazer]

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Convincing some members will change nothing. You have to convince Seventies and Apostles.

I suspect we have too much institutional inertia. I remember sitting in a meeting with the Bishopric, the Elder's Quorum Presidency, and the Relief Society Presidency talking about how to encourage more ministering. Someone suggested some new tracking mechanisms and everyone went to work and then they turned to me and asked if the tools on our website would track what they wanted. To prove I am not just sardonic here me response as close as I remember it was: "It used to be able to back when we had Home and Visiting teaching" Then myself and one other participant explained that we had just recreated the Home and Visiting Teaching tracking system.

I'm still skeptical that the new ministering system works any better than home and visiting teaching used to.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I agree with the paper about missionary work in the field. Far too much of everything was about baptisms when I was in the field. I was in the field when President Hinckley admonished the Saints and changed some directives to emphasize retention. My Mission President was much more sedate about baptismal numbers than most Mission Presidents of the day and I could still tell there was pressure. The Saints where I served often had a huge burden trying to fellowship the mass baptisms of about a decade ago. One member talked about the time when we got so many baptized: "And with all due respect they were a load of nutters." Having gone to visit many of them I couldn't dispute the point. Many barely remembered the missionaries.

When I lived in England back at the turn of the 60/70s I heard some interesting stories about that. Apparently there was a mission president sometime in the 50s who got a lot of young men in southern England interested in attending a basketball program he started in the mission area, and after things were up and running, made baptism a condition of continued participation. I don't know if he required being taught the gospel an additional condition. But anyway, the legacy of this was having a large number of people who were on the records being basically nulls. Finally, someone carried through a project involving find all those basketball baptisms to determine if any had ever actually been believers. Most barely remembered being baptized and had no interest in the Church. And their names were quietly dropped from the records. I don't know if this actually removed the names from the records of the church, but at least the branches didn't have to try to fellowship them any longer.

During the time of my mission in Germany, from 1972-74, we were at a low ebb in terms of baptisms. In fact, the lowest on record. It was better both before and after I was there -- I don't think I personally jinxed it, but who knows? But based on what I learned later, a good portion of the few converts during that time later turned out to be a good corps of future leaders. I believe that was because we were teaching and baptizing people who were actual converts to the gospel as opposed to converts to the missionaries.

Anyway, in connection with pressure, our mission president required us to report our activity, and judged it according to a number of metrics, including how many lessons were taught, how many copies of the Book of Mormon were being distributed (I once took a few copies and reverse-shoplifted them into a book store, marked "Kostenlos" ("Free")), how many door approaches were made, and how many were spoken to at street meetings. He did not push baptisms. Now, some might think that's why were there were relatively few, but without changing techniques in his third year, baptisms bounced back. Also, it didn't help that in his second year the Church radically changed the proselyting lessons from the old-timey "Six Discussions" (that I was taught as an investigator) to a totally new system. Learning the new system with its color-coded lessons was, in my personal opinion, a disaster. We worked on them for weeks, and it really cut into our contacting time. And I don't recall ever teaching a single investigator using them, either. I was in the last nine months of my mission in any case. The thing is, it actually seemed like literally no-one was interested. Members had no referrals, every single door contact was "Not interested," and while there were a couple of SLC visitor center self-referrals, those didn't pan out, either. 

That third year "bounce back" might have been due to a couple of factors. The first being that a member of the Q12 visited our mission and as one of my former companions reported to me, basically re-dedicated the mission for the preaching of the Gospel. The second was probably a new crop of missionaries who had been taught the new investigator lessons from the ground up, and were more prepared to teach than we had been. Or, it might have been because the people themselves had become more ready due to world and national events. 

We were only working in the larger towns (and not all of those, either), and there were smaller towns and villages that we never did any contacting in. I have since wondered if we had expanded our reach maybe we might have found some real "stars" out there? But we would have needed about three or four times the missionaries to have done that.

That's the thing, you know? One-by-one contacting has its limitations. And members, even if willing to talk to those in their own circles, are still limited by the size of their circles. 

I myself was a convert due to a member being willing to "open his mouth" and bring up the church to someone he had just met. It was entirely in context and unforced. And it worked, probably because I was ready.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

One pointed a shotgun at me.

I'll bet that had an invigorating effect!

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The problem is that all the pressure on the Mission Presidents was to deliver baptismal numbers. Show us success. The problem is that the Mission President and the missionaries don't have a big stake in retention. They obviously want to retain members but there is a sense that it is the ward's problem and that is true to an extent but when you deliver new members with no testimonies onto local leaders you are setting them up to fail so they tend to just hunker down and try to preserve what they can and let the rest go due to limited resources.

At least in my ward, we are not getting a lot of testimony-free new converts -- largely because we're not getting a lot of converts. But even so, those with testimonies are not necessarily "valiant", if you know what I mean. We have one young man who was baptized in the past year who has just received the Melchizedek priesthood. And another who, along with his wife, hasn't been attending enough to even receive the Aaronic priesthood -- these two are relatives of strong members from another stake, and are clearly believing but not enough to continue strong.

In my observation, England is not a hotbed of new converts, or even of testimony-free "social baptisms". But my old ward in Washington state wasn't either.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

We also have fairly limited numbers of members dedicated to missionary work when they aren't "in the field". A lot of members treat the gospel as if they are afraid they are going to break it if they try to share it.

All this being said the Church is head and shoulders over how a lot of the evangelical church's equivalent to "member missionary" work goes. I am convinced the people behind those tracts haven't spoken to anyone outside their faith since at least the 80s.

Are you thinking of those "Chick tracts"? I had seen a few of those in the distant past. 

Here's a link to one I found on their "official" website: https://chick.com/products/tract?stk=22&ue=d

I guess it's intended for Christians, to encourage them to talk to non-Christians about Christ. It portrays a situation where a man is scheduled to die of a coronary in a couple of weeks, and how a squad of angels and a squad of devils are trying to organize things in order to, respectively, get him to accept Christ before he dies, and prevent him from doing so. It's kind of entertaining, in a way. And maybe it does encourage someone to share Christ with others. I don't know.

But Chick is going by the premise that a man is "saved" if only he makes a verbal commitment to Christ, baptism being completely optional. And, spoiler alert, while he was finally talked to by someone about "converting", he puts it off to the next day, and he dies in the night. So, off to Hell he goes, I guess. Chick never checked 1 Cor 15:29, I guess.

11 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Then again maybe it is all part of the Last Days. I am impressed with a lot of the kids right now. Really impressed. Unfortunately a lot of them are also hampered with rampant mental and emotional problems. I don't know if it is the microplastics or the plagues of the Last Days or if God is crippling those who should be His greatest warriors out of a sense of fair play but it will be rough going.

Here in England we get a lot of missionaries from many more countries than we see in the US. We get a lot of missionaries from the UK, too, which when I was living here in 1969-71 was very unusual. But in our ward over the past few years, we've gotten missionaries from as far away as Papua New Guinea! In fact, both the missionaries in the companionship were from PNG. As a matter of trivia, PNG is nearly as far away from England as it's possible to get, being very close to England's antipode. A couple of days ago when I was serving as an ordinance worker in the temple, we had a couple of new full-time missionaries from being trained as temporary ordinance workers who were from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa!

It hasn't seemed to me that any of our recent full-time missionaries were hampered in any way, but perhaps some were but I just hadn't noticed.

I think the new service missionary calling is intended to allow those with mental or emotional problems to serve, so that it might accommodate those who can't quite hack full-time service. It might also be good alternative for folks like my wife and I who aren't mentally or emotionally hampered, but whose physical conditions aren't conducive to sending us out to the far reaches of the world.

Well, at least I'm claiming to not be hampered emotionally or mentally. Only Morningstar and Bernard Gui have met me in real life, and I've sworn them to secrecy.  

[Stargazer]

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

And we continue to fight the boogeyman of previous generations.

“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers.  We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic.  The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.  Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of mere ‘understanding.’  Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism.” - Screwtape Letters

Are the legions of Lucifer really as well-organized as all that? The world wonders. Sounds like a Chick tract.

I will confess to not being entirely certain what you mean by this.

[Hamba Tuhan]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

We also have fairly limited numbers of members dedicated to missionary work when they aren't "in the field". A lot of members treat the gospel as if they are afraid they are going to break it if they try to share it..

Yep. And then do it unnaturally when they try. My housemate and I have set up three missionary lessons in our home so far this week, with a fourth set for Sunday evening. All friends of ours. Nothing broken.

Quote

 Unfortunately a lot of them are also hampered with rampant mental and emotional problems.

It's cultural. These issues simply aren't 'rampant' outside wealthy, 'developed' nations.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Yep. And then do it unnaturally when they try. My housemate and I have set up three missionary lessons in our home so far this week, with a fourth set for Sunday evening. All friends of ours. Nothing broken.

It's cultural. These issues simply aren't 'rampant' outside wealthy, 'developed' nations.

Poor undeveloped nations generally wouldn’t diagnose these issues if they were there.

[gav]

23 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I've always had high regard to my religion (LDS) members, but sad that it sort of went away once I became in-active. They left me on the floor and forgot about me. For years I was in auxiliaries that looked out for the in-actives. And once I became one, it was crickets.  

Sorry to hear that.

[MiserereNobis]

3 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Yep. And then do it unnaturally when they try. My housemate and I have set up three missionary lessons in our home so far this week, with a fourth set for Sunday evening. All friends of ours. Nothing broken.

It's cultural. These issues simply aren't 'rampant' outside wealthy, 'developed' nations.

I just saw in the news that Indonesia is passing some restrictive legislation, including criminalizing "apostasy" from Islam. How do you think this is going to affect your missionary work? Which religion do the majority of conversions come from?