It seemed to me in years past that I was the only one in my world who had figured out the church was a scam. I had no one I could talk to about it. The internet came along and I saw that other people were out there, but in my world in the morridor no one was leaving.

Fast forward to the last couple of years. My best friend who was the most TBMish of people and his convert wife called me asking questions about church history. They no longer believe. I could hardly believe my ears. It was wonderful! They told me of others that were leaving in their ward.

Yesterday I was in a restaurant and I over heard two couples talking about their experience in leaving the church and how they had others who had left with them. This is the sort of conversation that would never have happened years ago. It was in southern Idaho.

It seems to me, it is getting close to reaching critical mass. Am I alone? Have others been noticing that there is a hastening going on in leaving the church?

I was in the presence of a bunch of TBM women about a year ago at a social thing and one of them was saying, 'why do we have so many inactives?!' She was saying that about half of their rosters for Young Women's classes were of inactive girls.

I grew up in Southern Idaho (Magic Valley) so this is wonderful news to me!!!

It may not be much, and it might have started so long ago as to be ancient history in terms of this discussion...

When did the missionaries start paying attention to "Less Actives"?

Back in the day, dealing with Less Actives would have been seen as lollygagging, wasting time, cheating those souls waiting to hear The Message out of their salvations! Not to mention that there were no stats that made this activity look useful. Are there now? Are RMs asked, "how many did you baptize and how many did you reactivate?"

I've decided to interpret this Less Actives stuff as an admission that trying to find people interested in the mormon gospel is such a waste of time, and so demoralizing, that tending to the Less Active is now useful if for no other reason than to give the missionaries something in which they can take a bit of pride.

And how many missions baptize a number of converts per year less than the number of missionaries in that mission? What cheer can the church take in a mission with 120 missionaries that baptized 60 or less converts? Which is why baptizing the 9 or 10 year old child of an inactive member is so sought after!!

My second MP REALLY stressed work with inactives. Said it came straight from the top of the totem pole that we needed to continue preaching and trying to convert but equally focusing on less active reactivation and retention. We began keeping stats for less actives at church, less active lessons taught, less active temple recommendations, etc. I returned home in 2015.

Hi EOD. You and I went on missions at about the same time then came home and went to BYU. You’re right, we never had any stats about inactives. The most important thing wa baptisms. Funny you mentioned 9or 10 year olds, that was the only time you’d talk to inactives....when one of them had a kid that they thought should get baptized but hadn’t gone to church so the inactive parent wanted them taught the lessons and get baptized.i was in So. Cal. and did that a number of times. Sometimes inactives would have a girl or boyfriend they were getting serious with and would want them to be taught and dunked before they’d get married....even tho they hadn’t been to church forever. You are right, it shows that the mishies don’t have much to do with new contacts so there’s a new stat group that’s on the reports to give them kudos. I’ll bet it’s a challenge....some inactives are up on their stuff. Maybe they’ll knock on our door. Not me so far.

And we graduated at the same time, August of 1970, from the same department! You're the closest thing I've found to a 'long time friend', in that we shared so many of the same things, within the same time frame.

I've forgotten, if you told me...: Did you avoid the draft, and if you did, how'd you do it? Feel free to email me, if the details are too salacious for polite society!!

Hi EOD. Sorry so slow, been traveling and off for awhile. Yeah, I got lucky with the draft. After 6 yrs of deferments (all legal, 4college, 2mission), I was then in the first lottery and hit #303. Having been registered in an urban draft board in Chicago, they never got even near to that number so I spent 1970 as a 1-A and peacefully served my year of vulnerability. I did have to have a pre-induction physical and take the tests. I received a letter from ASA(army spies) offering me a commission to join, but I passed. I still have my original draft card, a treasured artifact.

Where do you live, if you don’t mind? I’m in SLC.

Even twenty years ago, missionaries sent to the SL Valley really only had inactives to work with.

I went on my mission in 1990. Working with the less-actives was a major part of our work. So I'm not sure it's a sign of the church declining, unless you want to argue the church has been declining since 1990. Which it has to some extent but not as noticeably as it is nowadays.

The 1950s thru 1980s were the heyday of the church, in my opinion. They couldn't keep up the illusion. I think the most telling thing nowadays is how coming home from a mission is no big deal and people seem nicer to inactives because they know so many of them. Also, how many ex-Mormon friends I find - people I haven't spoke to in years but then we bump into each other and they have left the church too. These friends are the best because we really understand each other.

Thanks for the input on the time frame regarding 'working with Less Actives.'

elderolddog Wrote:
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> Thanks for the input on the time frame regarding
> 'working with Less Actives.'

We were told that we were one of the chosen missions that was directed to reactivate less actives. It was over by July 1992 as my MP declared that we were to focus all of our labors into baptizing new converts. Previously, we had been working less-actives two days out of the week (not counting Sundays with the ward mission leader) and providing 12 hours of community service.

We had some 800+ members on the rosters in Laredo at that time. Some 100 were active in the English ward and another 100 active in the Spanish ward. Previous records from missionary binders indicated incredible goals for baptisms. We're talking about monthly goals of baptizing 90-100 people per month. These were "day-baps" that had caused the mission to spiral out of control. It was rumored that only 30-40 missionaries were left when the church cleaned house; the MP was sent home too!

CA girl Wrote:
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> I went on my mission in 1990.

I'm really curious as to whether or not you had to do the throat slashing death oaths...assuming that was the year it changed. Do tell!! :-)

bluebutterfly Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CA girl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I went on my mission in 1990.
>
> I'm really curious as to whether or not you had to
> do the throat slashing death oaths...assuming that
> was the year it changed. Do tell!! :-)

Don't know about her, but I was called on my mission/went to the MTC in the fall of 1990 (I left the MTC after about five weeks or so). I did not have to the throat slashing/death oaths when I went through the temple in August 1990. I believe the changes occurred in April of 1990, so I just missed them.

No, I went thru the temple one month after they changed them. I read a mini article in Newsweek (or one of those news magazines) that Mormons had changed their temple ceremony to make it less violent and scary. Having never been to the temple before, this really frightened me. I was on edge the whole time. I asked my friends who went thru with me about it in the Celestial room but they were very cagey with their answer. I didn't go thru with my parents because my dad wasn't LDS and my mom hadn't been to the temple without him

With born-in-church births & baptisms, I don't think in terms of a melt-down or critical mass...

I also believe that the church is concerned about enough 'qualified' (HA!) PH guys to fill leadership positions.

When you visit with full time missionaries in Utah, they mostly talk about reactivation efforts.
I don't know who picks the targets, but the missionaries I have talked with are usually focused on fairly well-to-do inactives that "should be paying tithing but are not".

I was told recently by a current bishop that the need was 15 high priests to function a ward. His ward had 9

In biology this is known as "Minimum Viable Population" - the threshold below which survival is unlikely, even if any number of individuals still exist.

In social organization I think the same thing exists. Social order is built on networks. Once a few strands of the network are broken, the entire structure is at risk. With the church, the strands are mostly ephemeral to begin with, just links of shared belief.

The musical chairs of ward/branch/stake mergers & dissolves is primarily because the inactives are throwing the numbers out of whack.

I don't see why they need 15... that's pure bureaucracy in action.

The last couple of weeks, 2-3 missionaries have rang my doorbell. However, as I am a woman alone at my home, they can't come in.
So, I go on my porch, and sit and talk to them awhile.

They seemed to know I am 'inactive', but don't get into too much doctrine. Often, they ask "may we leave a message with you"?, or something to that effect.

I don't bother or try to "burst their balloon", but usually offer them an 'energy' bar I keep in the house for myself.

Also, I did ask them if they could pick oranges off my prolific orange tree, but they said their mission Pres. didn't like them to do that any more. And then, I said, "Well, just pick some for yourself", which they did, plus a few for me.

Remember the fall of the Berlin wall? Nobody saw it coming; nobody(?) predicted it would fall at that precise moment in time; most people could only hope it would fall some day.


I'm not short of animus towards the mormon "church" - but I think an outright fall (certainly in my lifetime) is unrealistic. Better to think in terms of stagnation - most especially in the Western democracies. It's certainly debatable, but "the church" may be in the beginning stages of stagnation already.

LDS, Inc will, of course, strive to the very end to project an image of a dynamic, growing, relevant, moral community of God-fearing Constitution-loving patriots who are imbued with the spirit of American Exceptionalism.*


*This rather sounds like a fawning endorsement of Utah's next senator ...

3X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Remember the fall of the Berlin wall? Nobody saw
> it coming; nobody(?) predicted it would fall at
> that precise moment in time; most people could
> only hope it would fall some day.

"Nobody" may be a bit much, but I have read that Erich Honecker proudly, publicly proclaimed it would still be standing "100 years from today" less than 100 DAYS before the people could start tearing it down unopposed. What happened in those three months inbetween is that the money from Moscow dried up.

No idea what this could spell for TSCC, with all the tithe payers now slowly falling away and only the ultra-low net-worth groups hanging on and dragging COB down.

Merkel = Honecker's revenge

Last Monday, I was in a Supermarket line, about to pay for some over-priced toxic items. Two Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appeared behind me with their own choice of fake foods. Because the lady ahead of us was a Welfare cheat, we had several minutes to trade whatnots.

"What would it take to get you back into the church, Brother Laban?"

"Well, purging the Journal of Discourses of Moon Quakers, admission that Mark Hoffman was cleverer than God and a rebating of all funds paid by former members."

Somehow the topic became the weather. I can't remember why, as it was my turn to pay for my trash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y

On my mission we spent a lot of time contacting previously contacted investigators. They liked us, invited us to return, but were completely uninterested in getting the same message again. If it were not for having them to talk with and spend time with we probably would have had all doors slammed in our faces. My only question is why they were not able to reverse my conversion? That would have been a great time in my life to have seen the light.

Today there is so much proof at everyone's finger tips that Mormonism is a scam it must be pure torture to be a missionary and get debunked each and every day. Is there any evidence that missions are actually pushing more RM's out of the church than keeping them in? From what I read at RfM it sure seems that a lot are going home early. What is the next step?

Pooped Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Today there is so much proof at everyone's finger
> tips that Mormonism is a scam it must be pure
> torture to be a missionary and get debunked each
> and every day. Is there any evidence that missions
> are actually pushing more RM's out of the church
> than keeping them in? From what I read at RfM it
> sure seems that a lot are going home early. What
> is the next step?

Perhaps in the future the best idea is to keep all mishies, male and female, locked up inside the MTC for two years to indoctrinate them for life, and expect them to choose a spouse during that time.

They can always explain it by saying that in this way, they are prepared to be missionaries in their local community for the rest of their lives!

Also, separating the chaff and whatnot.

I was a missionary in the Midwest early 60s. Lines of responsibility were well established. All members were the responsibility of the bishop or branch president and the appropriate ward/branch leaders. The role of the full-time missionaries was to preach and convert non-members.

We were directly under the authority of the mission president, but we did work with local wards and branches to find investigators. Part time ward or branch missionaries were under the authority of the Stake or District through their mission leader. Our mission president had no authority over the ward and stake missionaries.

Once we baptized someone, we were to stop teaching him/her and the ward took over that responsibility.

I wonder when and why ghawd changed his mind?

It's leaving skid marks!

M@t

I ran into the missionaries 2 weeks ago during the ward block. The really tall one stopped me when I was walking my dogs and asked if I went to a different ward and I said I had resigned. He didn't bat an eye, just told me they would be happy to do service projects for me and not discuss anything mormon and then said, "PLEASE, we'd like to so some service projects for you."

I've noticed with any missionaries in this area who talk to me, they are BORED! They have nothing to do. They come by the bishop's house (next door) OFTEN. I've never seen this before and many of the recent bishops live next door or 2 houses away.

People are leaving and others maybe not taking the church so serious, but there are still lots and lots of TBMs.

The church also has lots and lots of money to keep itself afloat. I know someone in a high level position in a church owned company, and according to them, there is almost unlimited money in the church coffers.

What I wonder about is how the new tax laws that don't allow charitable contribution deductions will affect tithes and the church bottom line. They have so much money it will take a while, but eventually people may not donate so much if they can't get a tax deduction/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2018 08:52PM by perky.

The problem (for TSCC) in the new tax code is that the standard deduction was raised so that more people than before will just take the standard deduction because their other deductible items will end up being less than the standard deduction. Also I believe some limits were put on how much state and local taxes could be deducted, also reducing the number of people likely to exceed the standard deduction in their itemization.

I selfishly want my close family members to leave. They seem to make it work being active while I struggle to live.

In the last few months my wife and I have encountered the following:
- Neighbor and good friend told my wife that several of her friends have left lately, and one is posting all kinds of things on Facebook, like the story of Bishop Snow castrating the young man in Sanpete county. She said, "I know there is a chance it isn't true, but..." That is actually quite a leap to entertain that it might not be true, so she may be on her way out.
- My best friend, who is an optometrist, had two patients ask him if he had left (they had heard it somehow), and then told him they no longer believed. One man's wife about had nervous breakdown when he approached the subject.
- One of my partners and co-owner of my company asked my why I left, then admitted he no longer believed. He has quit going, but his wife still goes.

Used to be that you could point to someone leaving and having a rough time of it...

But now people are leaving and nothing bad is happening to them! Apparently ghawd has tired, and no longer expends the energy necessary to follow up with the departed in order to dole out their deserved punishments!

Here's how the "true believers" are setting up to re-tool the church in the wake of unbecoming facts:

http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/why-are-people-leaving-the-mormon-church/

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. :(

"We will likely need to accept views of non-historicity of scripture, especially Book of Mormon. We will likely need to repurpose the First Vision as the founding event of the LDS church, which has an important inspired work to do, but back off the claims that this is a restoration of God’s one and only exclusive true church. I call this faith reconstruction."

I call it lying.

Lying is making yourself - and others - believe what is not true.

With a name like '"church" is 'true'', it can't be. That's why it has that domain, and claim. Lame

Preparing for disaster/ truth/ last days/ demise, etc.

Trying to rebuild the church in their own image, or themselves, in the church's image?

M@t

That doesn't sound like a church run by revelation.

J4TKTWhat a blog! So many words strung together! Many many words! And graphs! With color! How could it not be the one true blog?

" ... rebuild the church in their own image . . ." moremany nailed it.

This blog is nothing short of an admission that the church is one hot mess. Then, to add insult to self-inflicted injury the author suggests what the leaders should do to fix this thing up like a flipping a house. Is he so clueless as to not realize he is telling the very prophets, seers, and revolters who commune with Jehovah even, how to do things. Does he not see the blasphemy he has committed? Or is his an admission that he doesn't believe they have Jesus on direct-dial after all?

"It is wrong to criticize the leaders of the church even if the criticism is true." Thus spake the Lord Oaks.

Oh gosh darn its articles like http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/why-are-people-leaving-the-mormon-church that will cause people to leave in droves. They'll think "this Church isn't being honest" and thus begin to have Doubts. If we want to know why people are leaving then we have to look at the facts. That could be hard to do though unless its part of the curriculum. However it seems like the beloved Correlation department is having us focus on the sacred doctrine/law of Obedience a lot right now so no time to focus on research.


What will get people to stay in the Church is when they think "gosh this Church is so honest/transparent about everything, especially the finances, statistics, doctrines, and history; that means its truthful and thus it could be true" and then they ponder/pray and get a confirmation that this super honest/transparent Church is true.

Its also going to be what empties out RfM and other non-TBM places on the Internet as people here become so happy/excited to see how super honest-transparent the Church is being.

Well to prove my point I need to go provide some links to the Church's website where you can see how super honest they are on things. For example, the summary (and by nation & USA State) annual financial statements for 2001-2017 on cash flow, assets/liabilities, and revenue/expenses would be a good start. That way I can establish some credibility :) If I were to fail, but lets not think about that because that would cause Doubts, then my credibility is toast.

Whoever wrote that blog simply cannot bear to give up the dream that is Mormonism. They have got to make it true somehow. We'll just make a few changes here and there...then it all work out again. It will never work out, because you can never run away from the truth of revealed history.

Great, hopeful thread

SLTrib podcast:

"Researcher Jana Riess discusses survey that reveals why LDS young people leave, why they stay and how they differ"


quote from the intro text:

"As in other denominations, the LDS Church is seeing vast numbers of its young people leave the faith."

Jana Riess, Mormon writer and researcher


I thought the use of the phrase "vast numbers" by a member(?) was a bit extraordinary; I was also surprised that no apologists attempted to refute the statement in the reader's comments. As I do not have the patience to listen to mormon-centric podcasts, I do not know what else Ms. Riess had to say on the subject.



Short intro to podcast:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/03/07/mormon-land-researcher-jana-riess-discusses-survey-that-reveals-why-lds-young-people-leave-why-they-stay-and-how-they-differ/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2018 05:17PM by 3X.

Found a reader's comment suggesting that the podcast author is an atypical mormon:


reader Yorgus:

"I've followed Jana Reiss for 3-4 years on Religion News Service, on Twitter, and read her books. She is a very-well educated, somewhat uncharacteristic convert to Mormonism. She has a PhD in religion. Very intelligent, highly readable, and willing to criticize where criticism is warranted, and yes, she is quite progressive. I hope that doesn't put her in the line of fire. Joanna Brooks is another thoughtful, educated LDS writer who does not follow the party line."

It appears from the study of history that every movement of mankind grows, plateaus for a while, and then declines. Mormonism, despite its nauseous propaganda to the contrary, is no exception to this rule. Both empires and religions are so affected. See many Roman legions or Quakers lately? I thought not.

Skybolt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It appears from the study of history that every
> movement of mankind grows, plateaus for a while,
> and then declines. Mormonism, despite its
> nauseous propaganda to the contrary, is no
> exception to this rule. Both empires and
> religions are so affected. See many Roman legions
> or Quakers lately? I thought not.

Also, a lot of religions and empires thrive together and wither together. The catholic church (and therefore, christianity) is atypical in that it has survived the Roman Empire so well. But the religions of ancient Egypt, Mesopatamia, Persia and Greece have not. And buddhism was born in India. Most of India was buddhist before it was conquered by warlords who happened to be hindu.

A lot of faiths have managed to survive by giving up on their original heartland and moving to another fiefdom. Buddhism, christianity... and mormonism itself of course.

I'm just going to throw this out there for what it's worth. When the leaders of TSCC hear "young people" IMO what they hear is "silly teenagers who haven't yet figured out what's really important in life". That is how teenagers were viewed by my parents' peers in the 1960's. They saw teenagers as incredibly silly, whose only interest was playing the dating game and settling down to follow the obviously correct norms that society had laid down. My parent's generation- and that includes much of the top echelon of TSCC- was totally incapable of believing that the teenagers back in the sixties could possibly actually be serious about things like the morality of Viet Nam or racial segregation. Oh, those silly teenagers with their inconsequential sit-ins and protest signs! Let's all get back to Lawrence Welk, shall we?

IMO the top leaders still have not figured that out. They still have not figured out that maybe the old ways were wrong and immoral, and that people with those old ideas needed to change. IMO when the leaders read about "young people" questioning their Mormon traditions, they are 100% convinced that it is just a phase that they will (or need to) grow out of.

Thank you.

Just ran upon an obit for a cousin who was very TBM. All the callings, full tithe, kept sabbath strictly holy, all that stuff.

His service was not held at a mormon ward. It was at a local funeral home. I assume this means both him and his wife are out, because she's still alive and if she were still faithful I'm pretty sure she'd have the mormons do the service whether he wanted it or not. That's how it has worked in the past in my family. There was nary a mention of LDS in his obit.