Over the long term it's the same number of missionaries serving the same length of time. It will create a temporary spike in total number serving.

I doubt anyone will leave H.S. early just because they turn 18, so they won't even get a full year's worth of jump start out of the deal. There's also a flurry of activity around graduation time, so that could delay mission departure a few more months since it will stretch resources to cover it all.

They would need to increase the term of service to get any substantial long term gain.

It could be that a 19 yr. old with a year of college is not as good of a candidate for morgbotdom as someone younger and naiver.

I'll tell you one thing, there's going to be a lot more missionaries that are going miss home and less able to stop jerkin' the gherkin at 18. There is also going to be more problems with missionary romances compounded by younger sister missionaries as well.

Am I missing something? I guess I don't see that there's any big pay-off from this change.

I think there is a gain for the LDS Church to standardize the ages throughout the world. First of all, the US produces more missionaries, as I understand it. Secondly, when they go out younger, they tend to be more pliable and more easily to control, in addition, they tend to be more enthusiastic. Just some of my observations from what I have read recently.

SusieQ#1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First of all, the US produces more missionaries, as I
> understand it.

Of course, because half of all Mormons are in the US.

I disagree. I've heard church leader talk a lot about innactivity spiking at age 18. When kids leave home they tend to go innactive, and this has been a big concern to the church for several years, apparently increasing since the arrival of the internet, though exact causation may be uncertain. The sooner you can turn them into missionaries, the more likely you are to catch them while they're still active.

kimball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I disagree. I've heard church leader talk a lot
> about innactivity spiking at age 18. When kids
> leave home they tend to go innactive, and this has
> been a big concern to the church for several
> years, apparently increasing since the arrival of
> the internet, though exact causation may be
> uncertain. The sooner you can turn them into
> missionaries, the more likely you are to catch
> them while they're still active.


I agree. A TBM friend in California told me that the rate of young men in her ward who go on missions at 19 is 25% because so many have gone inactive by then. Her bishopric DH expects the % to rise to 75%. That may be wishful thinking....but I do expect an increase.

It is silly to think that at 18, suddenly all these youth give up on the church. They leave at 18 because they no longer have to go. A lot of them quit between 14 and 18, but keep going to appease their parents. They are just biding their time until they can no longer be forced to attend.

If a guy stopped believing at 15, he is not going on a mission at 18. He can just tell his parents that he wants to go to college and "think about it first". He will not go to BYU because there are no 18 yo Freshmen there, just a bunch of "old" RMs. He will go to a state school and never look back.

I think the number of guys who stay in the church as a result this change is pretty low.

The bigger impact will probably be the girls. 19 vs 21 is a big difference. I would guess the odds of my 16 year old daughter serving a mission probably just quadrupled.

In the press release they announced that you cannot serve a mission unless you have completed high school. So the net average age is really more like 18 1/2.

There are certainly a number who will be more effectively convinced by their parents to go who have them under tighter control without a year out of high school. There are also a certain percentage who have sex for the first time when 18 who get permanently disqualified from serving missions.

I suspect there will be a small increase in the percentage of male missionaries serving - maybe in the 2-5% range?

According to JustRob's post the committee who initially recommended the change projected a 25% increase in the number of young men serving missions. That seems like a completely unrealistic projection.

Agree. Biggest change will be the number of women serving. Hate to say it but I think the change will be a big bonus for the church.

I think the best decision for the church from their standpoint would have been to change the girls age to 19 and allow them to do 18 month or 2 year missions and leave the boys age at 19.

These would have made things equal which would have been a huge step forward in appearing to have equality between the sexes.

The 18 year old thing for boys is just going to create a lot of confusion with the major influx of applications each May correlating with high school graduation and a reduction of maturity of the average missionary with a minimal increase in the number of males serving missions.

Also the other question is will more missionaries necessarily increase the number of conversions? In poverty stricken areas the answer is probably yes. In other areas - e.g. Europe, Japan, the US, etc. I kind of doubt it.

I have a feeling this change will cause a spike up in the total number of missionaries, maybe even to 75K, then the longterm trend down will take over and it will drop back down to 55-60K. At least, until the next special projects committee is tasked with finding the next revelation.

Today's average high schooler knows a lot more about the world than I ever did at his age (I'm in my 40's). There is nothing the church can do to change the impact the information age is having on children.

Fewer missionaries. They get practice saying no. At 18 they get some pressure to go. They say, I think I'll wait until 19. They see they have a choice.

Plus more missionaries just hurts tscc more. More door knocks. More google searches. More rejection.

thingsithink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Plus more missionaries just hurts tscc more. More
> door knocks. More google searches. More
> rejection.

......More pissed off people of the general public due to harassment by LDS Inc's MORmON missionaries.


The global village has been tracted out, for quite some time now.
The MORmON church has come out of obscurity according porn peddling Bill Marriott. The thing is, SCAMS don't do well in the open light of inspection.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2012 06:59PM by lucky.

the possibility that this age change is to accomodate a coming demographic slump in mission age youth. The church can NOT show decreasing numbers of missionaries so they are mortgaging some numbers for the next year or two to keep the number of missionaries steady or increasing.

I was an 18 monther in the early 80's. I still believe that the reason behind that change was NOT the recession as they claimed but that they had a glut of mission age youth they had to move through the system (it was the last of the baby boom wave). Once that wave moved through they changed it back to 24 months.

Just watch - in 2-3 years the age for the males will be changed back to 19.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2012 06:43PM by jpt.

It's reminiscent of polygamists marrying ever younger and younger girls when they run out of adult women to wed.

It doesn't increase the number of available women in the community, it just delays the problem inherent in the system a little.

initially for sure.

As I recall, the mishies that had a year or two of college seemed a lot better at it.

They'll be getting a lot of 18 year old bodies that are in for the shock of their lives when they hit the internet-savvy, non-sheltered population.

I wonder what the mission presidents think of this. Seems to me, it wouldn't be a good thing.

I agree. The age lowering just proves there is a problem. I think the younger missionaries will be less effective also. I went when I was 20 and was much more mature than right after high school. I think there will be more missionaries leaving and causing probles. All this too me shows there is a real problem keeping youth. Shame on Holland for threatenning those who leave. another sign its crumbling. lastle sorry to see jensen leave he seemed like a realist and brillant

Is LD$ Inc. going to make 18 year olds into elders or what ?

I could be wrong but I would think that they would be able to get more 18 year olds on missions than 19 year olds. The 19 years will have become independent of their families by moving out, going to college, interacting with the real world and it makes it more difficult to decide to go on mission, whereas if they are still living at home and under the thumb of their parents and pressure of their home ward they will be more likely to go on a mission. They might not be as good of missionaries but there will be more of them.

Many of the young guys who move out, are a part of different ward boundaries and go inactive. They will feel less pressure to go on a mission.

The long-term changes I see:

Conversions.
Fewer conversions by Elders. 18 yr olds aren't going to be any better at talking folks into joining an organization with a complex, questionable history.

More conversions by sisters. They'll certainly have more sister missionaries out there, and the sisters look less nerdy, are more mature for their age, and probably make a better sell of it. I can see it becoming "normal" for all girls to plan on missions. This would be a huge increase in their numbers.

But, how many conversions are there made by cold contacts by missionaries anyway? Not a whole lot.

Retention.
Better retention in many ways. Parents and youth leaders can push boys into putting in their mission papers when they're in the middle of their senior year of high school. They're less able to Say No to authority at this age.

But will more of these boys have issues with the mission? They'll be less prepared emotionally, psychologically, both individually and as a group. If the whole lot of them has just barely gotten out of HS, rather than has had six months or a year as a somewhat independent adult.

Reproduction.
Big winner for LDS, Inc. here.

Boys will be able to get married sooner, maybe 8 mos sooner on average. Start pumping out those babies sooner, and be locked into 30 yrs of parenting in the cult. Girls will be able to get married 18 mos earlier, pump out babies sooner.

This average of "marriage and babies 1 yr younger" if its achieved will result in a reduced generation span of maybe 6 mos for the cult, and an increase in total living, active members by 2%. After a 50 yr span. 2% is a good number, if they can pull this off without harming the retention numbers along the way.

RG

I think one of the big changes we will see is a significant increase in guys from the ages of 15-30 joining the church. Attention from 2 women is going to be enough to get quite a few to join.

Is there any doubt they have statistical models showing correlations between RM's, life long activity and temple recommend holders/marriages, and therefore tithe payers?

If that's true, and if it is also true that more might sign up for missions with a lowered age requirement, or even if that is their intent, therein lies their logic.

I would also guess there's one thing commonly agreed: they don't do this kind of stuff for no reason...and the reason would most likely have to do with furthering their own "corporate" goals (e.g growth and revenue generation).

I was thinking about this new change-thinking the same as everyone--COrp church wants to keep the youth in line for missionary service so they send them out sooner at 18 instead of 19.
Then with Mitt Romney running for president and his plan for going to war asap taking office--romney took advantage of a mission to keep himself out of Vietnam & also keeping his sons out of all military service. Maybe the corpLDS decided to get all young men who serve a mission deferred with early missions.
It was just a thought-hope it is not viewed as political-