Remember when the church sought out "inactive" members, so they could drop their names from the church's records?

My husband and I were assigned to take a marked ward list, and visit the non-attenders to see if they wanted to be dropped off the wards lists (as they were considered "deadwood" by the church, which didn't want to have to keep tract of such persons).

My since-his-pre-teens "inactive" brother was furious over this program, irrationally arguing we me that "they had no right" to do this to him.

We use to do this back when we were collecting fast offerings (as a teenager) but never had any directive to do it. When they'd not give any money my comp would say "so can we take you off the records of the church", Thinking back at it now, we were rather brazen to ask such questions to strangers.

Not going means the person isn't interested.

Anyone who wants to join or quit a church is also free to do that.

The mormon church is foolish to think they have a right to try to dominate people who are exercising their rights to participate in a church or belong to one or not. Mormons don't control exmormons or inactives. They might think they do but they are dead wrong.

...of the church. Some were married to non-Mormons and some were outright alcoholics/drug addicts, etc... It wasn't that they "left" so much as they felt unwelcomed or unworthy to attend church. It was odd because you could go to any of the Arizona pioneer towns and find these guys in bars or out at lakes/forests hunting, drinking, etc... Yet, if you said one anti-Mormon thing or joke they quickly would stand up and prepare to fight you.

Now though many "ex-Mormons" are just members on record who have never taken the time or effort to resign. I do sort of agree with their argument that to resign is to acknowledge that the church has some sort of power or pressure on them to follow their rules, rather than just saying "I quit"! My understanding that this is mostly true in South American and African countries where the baptism rate is through the roof; but most of the new converts never come back to church after baptism.

Also I served in England in the early 80's so we had quite a few "baseball baptisms" that still needed to be cleared up. So when we would find one of these converts (who actually thought they weren't on any sort of membership record) we would have to ask them if they wanted their membership records removed.

I once attended the annual congregational meeting of a local
Presbyterian church. There was a handout for anyone who came
through the door (meeting was open to all). It contained, in
addition to a financial summary, the number of names that had
been dropped from membership in the congregation because they'd
not attended for a year.

This is how the Presbyterian Church counts its members. Each
congregation keeps track of their members. If they stop coming
they are dropped from the rolls. The total of all the
congregation numbers is the total number of Presbyterians.

What would the total membership number for Mormons be if they
counted their members this way?

Tracking folks for jeebus...then without that super speshul secret name your hooped anyway...gonna be a blast when peter hollers that super secret name and 480000 believers all holler...HERE!!...$&@&& nonsense