Church leaders’ view of why members leave versus reality.

[Anonymous]

Since I’m not in love with my current ward, we could eliminate all 3 hours, and that would be cool. In my last ward, I’d have been OK with 4 hours so long as the last hour was food and mingling. It’s all relative.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad some people picked up on the dullness/boredom thing. I have been to some dreary talks in my time and priesthood can be painful in sone places.

If I was going to stay home, I think being bored out of my wits would be an even bigger repellent than JS treasure hunting or even sexism (sorry ladies, I’m not unsympathetic).

I know I’m not alone in this. One new member, in three weeks or so, walked out during SM and she has never been seen since – it was during a particularly tedious talk.

The worst are often when someone is asked to read out a general conference talk. Any charm the original had vanishes.

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Since I’m not in love with my current ward, we could eliminate all 3 hours, and that would be cool. In my last ward, I’d have been OK with 4 hours so long as the last hour was food and mingling. It’s all relative.

This is a good point. I could spend ten times longer in my home ward than some of the others I’ve visited. Our ward has problems like any other and is far from perfect but it is also one of the closest to how I’d like the church to be. I also have friends here which helps.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think reducing church would heighten commitment. For me, more respect for hardworking volunteers would do it. When they act in ways that imply taking-for-grantedness, that hurts my commitment.

I think a better Sunday experience would heighten commitment. Hard to be committed when you are sliding down a razorblade and landing in a vat of vinegar every Sunday. If the lessons truly helped you live your life better, I think that would help as well. they are not practical. I tried to get the Teachers Council’s thinking liberated enough to draw on practical sources.

There were times I wished Priesthood was just a business meeting. Do all the transacting of business there for the people who want to be part of it (planning, meetings, etcetera). Priesthood meeting opening exercises turns into that now and then anyway.

I would welcome 2 hours on Sunday but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I wish people still remembered John Dehlin’s study about why Mormons leave. I think he had a really big sample size, and it highlighted faith issues as the major reason people leave — not reasons that make the person leaving out to be an apostate sinner...Here is an overview of what he found: Key takeaway:

Quote:

Respondents of the study cited 15 “major factors” and 13 “minor factors” as reason for losing belief in the church. Among the major issues were a loss of faith in the Book of Mormon, problems with church history, loss of faith in Joseph Smith and conflicting theological issues…Factors more significant to men who were surveyed included losing faith in God/Jesus, science, anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and problems with the Book of Abraham. Issues more significant to women were the church’s stance on women, women and the priesthood, the church’s stance on homosexuals, polygamy/polyandry and abuse.

Overall “minor factors” that scored low in the study included the desire to sin or having been offended by a fellow church member.

One reason I wouldn’t read too much into the results of John Dehlin’s survey is that this depends entirely on who even knew about the survey and also cared enough about it to respond. Because of that it almost certainly over-represents a specific group that are by and large disaffected members and ex-Mormons that were once heavily invested in the Church, often married to another active member, that studied their way out of a traditional LDS testimony by reading uncorrelated information on the internet and that like to talk about it on DAMU and ex-Mormon websites. That is all fine and good for that specific segment but Church leaders are apparently concerned about all members that fall away or lose commitment regardless of the primary reasons why.

My guess is that the single largest group of inactive members (literally millions) are like SamBee described, basically people raised in the Church or converts that never really got into the Church that much to begin with and often didn’t go on missions or marry another active member. For this group I think pre-marital sex, the WoW, porn, and even simply feeling like they have better things to do on Sunday are major reasons why they fell away but I think this is not so much because they were sinners that “lost the spirit” the way Church leaders like to assume as much as simply that their non-LDS lifestyle only made it that much less likely for them to go on missions or marry an active Mormon. Basically at this stage, before getting married, for many young adults it is simply easier and much less painful to “sin” by the Church’s standards than it is to avoid “sin.” But after getting married to an active member in many cases it would actually be harder to “sin” than just forget about the idea of it if it is something their spouse will notice and disapprove of. So it looks like marriage to another active member is one of the single biggest factors at play here, with full-time missions being another major factor.

There are people raised in the Church that go through a temporary rebellious phase that eventually settle down but it seems like very few of them ever return to full activity in the Church compared to the ones that followed the typical LDS life script from cradle-to-grave. In the leaked video about single adults they were saying only 30% of LDS single adults are active in North America and 20% internationally and that most of these became inactive by age 20. And I think that’s precisely why Church leaders lowered the mission age limits and want young adults to hurry and get married. And now we are hearing reports that about 50% of returned missionaries are falling away shortly after their missions. What Church leaders should be asking in my opinion is why don’t more of these single adults want to stay in the Church? What do they really get out of the Church? In my case, after I returned from my mission the main thing I got at that point was guilt-trips, stress, less free-time, etc. And I still believed in the Church and didn’t hate the Church at all but there just wasn’t enough there to make me want to go back so I remained completely inactive for several years and ended up marrying another inactive Mormon as a direct result.

[Anonymous]

Sabbath:

Shortly after Sabbath Day Observance became the new theme our ward dedicated a 5th Sunday lesson to the topic. The lesson was billed as a discussion about how to better observe the Sabbath day but unless you were preselected to speak there was no opportunity to give any input (another issue that I see as a contributor to why people leave, we’re not very autonomous in owning our religion, as strange as that sounds in a church with a lay clergy).

The local leadership got the ball rolling, they cited Nelson’s (IIRC) comment about Sabbath observance not being a checklist of dos and don’ts, then turned the time over to the panel of preselected people to talk about the things they did and didn’t do on the Sabbath. I think the intent may have been to show that different families do different things to honor the Sabbath but I think the end result was each family presenting a subset of the whole of things we should and shouldn’t be doing on the Sabbath. Yes, wearing Sunday best all day (might as well, the people making those comments are at church 8+ hours per Sunday anyway) and not watching TV made an appearance. I guess they won the cookie.

It’s a shame they didn’t ask a regular schlub to be a part of the panel… or open things up to group discussion. Saturdays are my true Sabbath. More often than not it’s a day off work and it’s a day were I don’t feel oppressed by rules or the desire to keep up appearances. Plus with no church, less stuff to do. Meh.

Secular:

I think this is church code speak for secular humanism (or maybe even atheism). I hear specific, pointed attacks on secular humanists very often in our area and I find it a little odd. The enemy of my enemy (sin) is my friend? Or if we broke things down to a “there are save two churches only” level, where would secular humanism fall in the grand scheme of things? I guess it comes down to it being viewed as being too arm of the flesh. The thing about fleshy arms, it’s easier to see how others are relying on them and so hard to see how we rely on them. It’s really just a matter of whose arm of the flesh you give more credence to.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Sabbath:

The local leadership got the ball rolling, they cited Nelson’s (IIRC) comment about Sabbath observance not being a checklist of dos and don’ts, then turned the time over to the panel of preselected people to talk about the things they did and didn’t do on the Sabbath. I think the intent may have been to show that different families do different things to honor the Sabbath but I think the end result was each family presenting a subset of the whole of things we should and shouldn’t be doing on the Sabbath. Yes, wearing Sunday best all day (might as well, the people making those comments are at church 8+ hours per Sunday anyway) and not watching TV made an appearance. I guess they won the cookie.

There’s a technique in humorism called “foreign perspective”. It’s where you take something the average person would find rephrehensible, and then find someone who thinks it’s a great idea because of their unique perspective no one had ever considered. Case in point. Years ago I was on a weight loss program where they would make me come into a clinic three days a week and get a shot in my butt. I had to pull down my pant, bend over and take a needle in the buttocks. I commented how no one in their right mind would want that aspect of a weight loss program. One guy looked offended, and with wide eyes, said “”I’ d love the opportunity!”. The guy had previously confessed he was a nudist and went to a nudist colony once a year.

Anyway, in this case of the Sabbath Day oriented fifth Sunday, what stood out for me is the fact they held a panel discussion to make it interesting. At least they just didn’t go for lecture and discussion, which is 95% of the learning experience in our church. That’s my foreign perspective as a Teachers Council facilitator.

Also, consider what it would sound like if they put me on the panel?

“Why do you think it’s important to observe the Sabbath???”

My answer — I think the main purpose is to make sure people come to church on Sunday. The other stuff — what you do in your spare time, the need to be spiritual, is just there as window dressing and spiritual justification for keeping people’s schedules free so we can come to church, do callings, pay tithing and grow the church.

“What specific practices do you observe on Sunday???”

Basically, if I have something better to do than go to church, I do that. Once a month I run a community event and play music with a band of mine for free. We blast our music through an entire section of town. For the last 6 years I’ve been spending about 6 hours a Sunday doing online course work. I could probably do it on Saturday if I wanted, but that day is just too much fun to give up for online course work, and this sit around doing nothing on Sunday.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Here is another thought/question I was hoping people could give me thoughts on this subject…

Could focus be given to help commitment by eliminating 3rd hour of church?

I don’t think so.

My guess is that if there was an announcement during conference that church would be moving to a two hour schedule there would be more happy people than people who lamented the loss of a 3rd hour. In my ward we take turns reading from conference talks during the 3rd hour. The Teachings manuals are really just conference talks, 1st and 4th Sundays really are reading directly from conference talks. I watch conference. I wouldn’t miss the 3rd hour.

1) Just like moving from separate meetings to a block of meetings, some would be happy, others would reminisce about the good old days of meetings spread out.

2) Just like moving from separate meetings to a block of meetings, people would be happy for a while… then start complaining about the burden of the 2 hour block.

3) As mentioned in other comments, 3 hours would zip by if the meetings were relevant, inspiring, entertaining, or interesting. As a convert and for several years after joining I found the meetings extremely interesting, everything was new. As the years wore on I found out just how finite the infinite can be. I don’t know what could be done to alleviate the boredom, there are only so many ways to say “be good.”

I’ve found that a good teacher goes a long way. I also think we could stand to have a refresh of the stories we tell to inspire people to follow Christ. I’d also love to hear stories that are happening outside of Mormonism. We have the whole of human history at our disposal, the richness of the full human experience to draw from… and we throttle it down to just what people in the LDS church are doing or have done, often straining to make our experiences tell the story. Branch out.

4) One hour less at church? One hour more on the sofa. Thing is… you gotta make church such that opting for the sofa isn’t trading up. I’m being dead serious.

5) Top brass may feel that reducing the block to two hours would diminish how the priesthood is perceived. PH has its own, hour long meeting. That’s how you know it’s important.

Side note: I no longer understand why we do the 3rd hour the way we do it. Once upon a time PH had their manual and RS had their manual. They were different. The missionaries told me, and as a missionary I told other people, that it was so the women could discuss things to make them better mothers and the men could discuss things to make them better fathers. Perhaps there’s still a lot of truth in that but we cover the exact same material every Sunday. It’s essentially Sunday school part 2 with the sexes divided up. Is there still value to that approach? Every ward is different, from what I gather RS has a discussion… and in PH we read straight from the manual until we run out the clock. On that front I support having the sexes separated, at least the women are getting something out of the 3rd hour.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

There are people raised in the Church that go through a temporary rebellious phase that eventually settle down but it seems like very few of them ever return to full activity in the Church compared to the ones that followed the typical LDS life script from cradle-to-grave. In the leaked video about single adults they were saying only 30% of LDS single adults are active in North America and 20% internationally and that most of these became inactive by age 20. And I think that’s precisely why Church leaders lowered the mission age limits and want young adults to hurry and get married. And now we are hearing reports that about 50% of returned missionaries are falling away shortly after their missions. What Church leaders should be asking in my opinion is why don’t more of these single adults want to stay in the Church? What do they really get out of the Church? In my case, after I returned from my mission the main thing I got at that point was guilt-trips, stress, less free-time, etc. And I still believed in the Church and didn’t hate the Church at all but there just wasn’t enough there to make me want to go back so I remained completely inactive for several years and ended up marrying another inactive Mormon as a direct result.

Yes. I think sometimes leadership mistakes the symptoms as the cause.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

Anyway, in this case of the Sabbath Day oriented fifth Sunday, what stood out for me is the fact they held a panel discussion to make it interesting. At least they just didn’t go for lecture and discussion, which is 95% of the learning experience in our church. That’s my foreign perspective as a Teachers Council facilitator.

Also, consider what it would sound like if they put me on the panel?

“Why do you think it’s important to observe the Sabbath???”

SD, for me that was a part of it. The 5th Sunday was talked up as a group discussion where I thought all in attendance would get the opportunity to answer the question or at least participate. It turned out to be another one way lecture, except from 5 people instead of one person.

Also, it’s one thing to have a panel made up of a bishop, an investigator, a recently returned inactive, a sweatpants and t-shirt member, and a nudist. It’s another thing to have a panel of the bishop, the guy who used to be bishop that’s now the YMP, the RSP, the guy that’s always virtue signaling the stuff they do and don’t do on the Sabbath, and an early 20s executive secretary where the number of years it’s been since they got home from their mission is the same as the number of years they have been married and the same as the number of children they have… minus one because you have to prime the pump with 9 months. It isn’t a panel of five people, it’s a panel of five versions of the same person.

I came looking forward to giving some input. I left feeling frustrated that it was another meeting where I didn’t get to give any input.

The church isn’t set up to empower people via allowing them to be autonomous (which is increasingly being seen as something to help motivate workers in the business world I might add) it’s a place where we repeat things that were said by the scant few that do operate autonomously in the church. Once I hear it from one guy all the repetition gets annoying. Did you see the memo about the TPS reports?

Autonomy isn’t going to fly at church, I get it, but at the same time I think autonomy does help people feel like they have a stake/ownership in the church. Despite the lay clergy thing I really don’t feel that at church. It’s not my church, it’s not the body of Christ’s church, it’s the church of a few dozen people. Again, I get it. Doctrinal purity. Blah, blah, blah. Continue to bore me. Continue to tell me what my church experience should be instead of basking in the light of the church people could show you.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

There are people raised in the Church that go through a temporary rebellious phase that eventually settle down but it seems like very few of them ever return to full activity in the Church compared to the ones that followed the typical LDS life script from cradle-to-grave. In the leaked video about single adults they were saying only 30% of LDS single adults are active in North America and 20% internationally and that most of these became inactive by age 20. And I think that’s precisely why Church leaders lowered the mission age limits and want young adults to hurry and get married. And now we are hearing reports that about 50% of returned missionaries are falling away shortly after their missions. What Church leaders should be asking in my opinion is why don’t more of these single adults want to stay in the Church? What do they really get out of the Church? In my case, after I returned from my mission the main thing I got at that point was guilt-trips, stress, less free-time, etc. And I still believed in the Church and didn’t hate the Church at all but there just wasn’t enough there to make me want to go back so I remained completely inactive for several years and ended up marrying another inactive Mormon as a direct result.

Yes. I think sometimes leadership mistakes the symptoms as the cause.

Not only that, but even if they actually do recognize some legitimate causes of inactivity such as the dramatic difference between being married and single in the Church it looks like they typically don’t drill down and analyze this data further; instead we generally hear things like Ballard, Hales, etc. telling single men to just get to work seriously dating and get married already. Well if “the gospel” according to the LDS Church was really as great and wonderful as they claim then it seems like the Church shouldn’t have to depend so much on people being married to another active member and a general sense of obligation due to believing in the claims about exclusive truth, authority, etc. in the fist place; in theory single members should already want to stick around because they should be able to tell the positive difference the Church is supposed to make and get undeniable happiness and satisfaction from supposedly doing the right thing (John 7:17; 1 Thess. 5:21). Instead the current reality for many single members is that if they take the Church’s teachings seriously it is basically a monk-like life of sexual deprivation or condemnation and guilt-trips of being repeatedly told they are unworthy simply for being human; or perhaps worst of all an emotional roller-coaster ride back and forth between these literally painful states which was my own personal experience as a single adult until I finally gave up on the idea of “repenting” until after I was married at minimum.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

nibbler wrote:

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

There are people raised in the Church that go through a temporary rebellious phase that eventually settle down but it seems like very few of them ever return to full activity in the Church compared to the ones that followed the typical LDS life script from cradle-to-grave. In the leaked video about single adults they were saying only 30% of LDS single adults are active in North America and 20% internationally and that most of these became inactive by age 20. And I think that’s precisely why Church leaders lowered the mission age limits and want young adults to hurry and get married. And now we are hearing reports that about 50% of returned missionaries are falling away shortly after their missions. What Church leaders should be asking in my opinion is why don’t more of these single adults want to stay in the Church? What do they really get out of the Church? In my case, after I returned from my mission the main thing I got at that point was guilt-trips, stress, less free-time, etc. And I still believed in the Church and didn’t hate the Church at all but there just wasn’t enough there to make me want to go back so I remained completely inactive for several years and ended up marrying another inactive Mormon as a direct result.

Yes. I think sometimes leadership mistakes the symptoms as the cause.

Not only that, but even if they actually do recognize some legitimate causes of inactivity such as the dramatic difference between being married and single in the Church it looks like they typically don’t drill down and analyze this data further; instead we generally hear things like Ballard, Hales, etc. telling single men to just get to work seriously dating and get married already. Well if “the gospel” according to the LDS Church was really as great and wonderful as they claim then it seems like the Church shouldn’t have to depend so much on people being married to another active member and a general sense of obligation due to believing in the claims about exclusive truth, authority, etc. in the fist place; in theory single members should already want to stick around because they should be able to tell the positive difference the Church is supposed to make and get undeniable happiness and satisfaction from supposedly doing the right thing (John 7:17; 1 Thess. 5:21). Instead the current reality for many single members is that if they take the Church’s teachings seriously it is basically a monk-like life of sexual deprivation or condemnation and guilt-trips of being repeatedly told they are unworthy simply for being human; or perhaps worst of all an emotional roller-coaster ride back and forth between these literally painful states which was my own personal experience as a single adult until I finally gave up on the idea of “repenting” until after I was married at minimum.

You do have a point and there’s no doubt in my mind the main reason for changing the missionary age was to “hook” the members a little bit earlier – especially sisters. The problem is the problem – even though these young Millennials have served missions, and in some cases are married, they’re still leaving. It would be great to see some stats on who is leaving at what age and their missionary/marriage status, and it is still true that most young people seem to leave during their “youth” (YM/YW) days (that ought to be a clue right there). Given the recent new program in our area aimed at endowed/RM males, at least one apostle sees there is an issue with even the “best” leaving. (Side note, I have heard no reports on how our program is going, and it’s looking like I won’t at this point). The Q15 probably do have some sort of stats related to who leaves when, although it’s not something they can easily glean from quarterly reports so I’m not sure where it comes from and perhaps it is just anecdotal (SPs telling them about people leaving and why).

Just some observations about my own children. My daughter never intended to serve a mission and is inactive. She is not a believer in the classic LDS sense, although she does believe in God. I would call her a humanist and I don’t think that would offend her.

Older son served a mission and is at BYU in an “over 19” YSA ward. He has been back a little over a year and does not have a serious girlfriend, nor does he really date all that much. He has many questions, mostly seeds sown from all that study time on missions. He is also not what I would call a TBM (besides the fact that might be offensive) in that he doesn’t believe the BoM is an ancient history, he doesn’t believe in polygamy, he recognizes leader fallibility, he disagrees with the gay policy and other policies, etc. He avoids his bishop, but says every time he has met with him whether for a TR, calling, or whatever, the guy asks him about marriage. Every stake conference is also about marriage. I see him making his own middle way, but I also see him struggling. Fortunately he has someone he knows he can talk to.

Son #2 is currently a missionary in a foreign land. He has come to recognize the difference in the church and the gospel and recognizes that the church does not do a very good job of focusing on the gospel sometimes. He’s currently working with a recent convert that probably is going to leave over that issue because his former church did focus on Christ and the gospel and he misses it. This son also has many other questions, and has decided to remove “I know” from his testimony (as noted in another thread). He has serious doubt about some of the church’s “one true church” claims and specifically doesn’t believe we are the only ones who will be saved.

Son #3 is also at BYU in an “under 19” ward. He has only recently started to talk about the possibility of a mission, but also has some unanswered questions about the church and its policies, with the gay policy again being an issue. He also believes Christ invited all to come to him and that we shouldn’t keep converts from being baptized because of things like WoW. He seems to have a fairly strong testimony that Christ forgives. His bishop asks him about a mission every week, even though he says he needs to work and earn some money (absolutely true) and plans to do that this summer and put in his papers from home (where he has known his bishop his whole life, etc.). Every stake conference – even the one where they split the stake – is about preparing for a mission.

What I’m trying to say is I think what others are saying here. Maybe the church (Q15) are focusing on the wrong things. Rather than focusing on indoctrinating, maybe we should be focusing on Christ and real active participatory community service.

[Anonymous]

About the block: I remember as a new convert and having been somewhat active in the Catholic church prior to my baptism thinking “3 hours is a long time.” It was then, and 35 years later it still is. And I know what it’s like to stay home on Sunday, I did it for 10 years. It’s really not all that bad. I really appreciate Music and the Spoken Word and quite frankly other than the sacrament it would be enough worship for me (it was for most of those years).

In those early days I didn’t mind three hours as much because it was new and I was in the YMP so missed those great lessons on how to be a better father/husband as a single guy (I got plenty of them post mission and we even had one a couple weeks ago). I agree with Nibbler, most priesthood lessons are just rehashes of GC talks because that’s all the lesson manuals are. We do have some teacher roulette in our ward so some lessons really rely little on the talk itself and are more of a discussion of the principles, while others are like fourth grade and reading around the room with little or no discussion. Our new HPGL has implemented first Sunday lesson as reviewing the HT message from the Ensign, so it’s now just more of the same. The GD lessons are the same lessons I taught when I was GD teacher in the late 90s, and they were the same as the ones before that. I skip SS and of late I have skipped PH (sometimes leaving mid-lesson) more often. I’d just leave after SM if it wasn’t for DW.

When our stake started its Sabbath (never mind that I know the difference in the Sabbath and the Lord’s day) emphasis last year I immediately thought they were barking up the wrong tree. My state did separate “in church” and “outside” church Sabbath. I see little difference in church (perhaps slightly more Christ emphasis in some wards, including my own) but no difference otherwise. My SP constantly talks about how he has eliminated all electronics on Sunday (outside church) and that it has made a great difference. Electronics are part of my Sunday, including watching Music and the Spoken Word and doing family history (and I also admit to watching other TV, surfing the net, etc.). I think it’s great he feels giving up electronics has worked for him and his family. It doesn’t work for me. Why can’t we just follow the 11th Article of Faith in this regard?

And our ward does have monthly linger longer. My wife likes it, I hate it. Three hours is lingering long enough, as stated above. It’s not that I don’t have friends in my ward and it’s not that I don’t visit with them (what do you think I do during SS?). I actually like other ward activities (like the Christmas party and upcoming RS birthday celebration dinner) better. Seriously, I just want to go home on Sunday. I get that some people want more socialization and for some people church is all social and they don’t care abut the “spiritual” aspect. That’s not me. I think the church can accommodate both as long as there is no pressure to attend social activities (and in my ward there never has been) or to participate in the other part if you don’t want to (less likely to happen).

[Anonymous]

Beware Mega Post Below

There is a political theory among some conservatives that liberals don’t actually care about Feminism, LGBT, Race – but just use them as leverage points for elections, etc.( they have some salient points on the matter, but that’s another topic). In the same vein maybe the top brass here really doesn’t care about why people leave. Here are my points

John Dehlin & Similars John had the ear of President Holland, and others, yet it appears they didn’t really want to hear his side. All of his podcasts were made public, so if a person really wanted to hear they had access. The landslide losses he was apart of were very public. So did anyone really care?

OW Disclaimer – I am not an OW supporter, however the top leadership had a prime moment handed to them to connect with OW and learn from them. Inviting those sisters over to the JS building to watch Priesthood, then having a linger longer where OW could talk with top leadership may have gone a long way in building a bridge. Even if both sides didn’t get exactly what they wanted, but we will never know, because they sent a dump truck instead.

LGBT – Oakland California Stake sent an open invitation to the top leadership to come and listen to their pain. The church sent it’s token democrat Marlin K. Jensen. He was compassionate, tearful, and sincere. Following his obligatory release the amazing November Surprise was released.

Support Beams Gregory Prince, Carol Lynn Pearson, Dialogue Magazine (which Elder Oaks was once head editor of), Terryl & Fiona Givens, Richard & Claudia Bushman and a host of others exist who could help carve out some understanding on these matters, yet….somehow they are still baffled.

The above list address a certain segment of people – Mostly those of the Rescue Generation.

But what of others. We aren’t the first with “Inactives” and “Leavers”

In my life time I have known lots of people who leave (the previous posts above support what I’ve seen), but one area we really don’t acknowledge is The Church Just Doesn’t Fit Everyone. Get Over It.

I grew up with a Grandfather and Grandmother with direct pioneer heritage. I never heard one inkling of our pioneer connection (And we were connected to all the biggies, Joseph, Hyrum, Brigham, Parley, John Taylor – I mean big, but I never heard it). Moreover my Grandfather was an attending Jack Mormon. He went because his wife made him. He even served 2 missions with her and was a Bishop for most of my teen years. But when she passed away, he never went back. He didn’t bad mouth it. I don’t even think he had an issue with it. He had kids married in the temple, on missions. He even came to my wedding. When he could get out of it, he did. He loved family, the outdoors, camping, fishing, exploring. Church was not one of them.

Doctrine & Covenants states it is God’s work and glory to bring to pass the immortality of man. Let’s leave it to him. Let’s stop having lectures, meetings, and even references about them the leavers. Let’s trust in God. Spend our time learning to appreciate (I am not even going to say love) all people, and maybe, just maybe those bad leavers will find a place to return to because it fits them. And if not, we still appreciate them anyway.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

My guess is that the single largest group of inactive members (literally millions) are like SamBee described, basically people raised in the Church or converts that never really got into the Church that much to begin with and often didn’t go on missions or marry another active member. For this group I think pre-marital sex, the WoW, porn, and even simply feeling like they have better things to do on Sunday are major reasons why they fell away but I think this is not so much because they were sinners that “lost the spirit” the way Church leaders like to assume as much as simply that their non-LDS lifestyle only made it that much less likely for them to go on missions or marry an active Mormon. Basically at this stage, before getting married, for many young adults it is simply easier and much less painful to “sin” by the Church’s standards than it is to avoid “sin.” But after getting married to an active member in many cases it would actually be harder to “sin” than just forget about the idea of it if it is something their spouse will notice and disapprove of. So it looks like marriage to another active member is one of the single biggest factors at play here, with full-time missions being another major factor.

nibbler wrote:

Secular: I think this is church code speak for secular humanism (or maybe even atheism). I hear specific, pointed attacks on secular humanists very often in our area and I find it a little odd. The enemy of my enemy (sin) is my friend? Or if we broke things down to a “there are save two churches only” level, where would secular humanism fall in the grand scheme of things? I guess it comes down to it being viewed as being too arm of the flesh. The thing about fleshy arms, it’s easier to see how others are relying on them and so hard to see how we rely on them. It’s really just a matter of whose arm of the flesh you give more credence to.

I think several of us have all sort of independently arrived at the same conclusion. Namely, that the middle group may refer mostly to millennials and unmarried people growing up in the church. They leave (as a group) not so much because they want TSM to receive revelations as in times of old – nor because they want women to have the priesthood. They leave because they live in a secular world where things like porn, pre-marital sex, “lack of righteousness and commitment” are just the new cultural norms that they navigate in their daily lives, I believe that many of them are just not finding the church very relevant.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I think several of us have all sort of independently arrived at the same conclusion. Namely, that the middle group may refer mostly to millennials and unmarried people growing up in the church. They leave (as a group) not so much because they want TSM to receive revelations as in times of old – nor because they want women to have the priesthood. They leave because they live in a secular world where things like porn, pre-marital sex, “lack of righteousness and commitment” are just the new cultural norms that they navigate in their daily lives, I believe that many of them are just not finding the church very relevant.

I agree, and I think the last line doesn’t just apply to Millennials, it applies to other generations as well. We who live outside the Corridor are very cognizant of our neighbors being just as happy and at least as “blessed” as any member we know. Despite the assertion that some of the Q15 make that they don’t live in a bubble, they do live in a bubble. Maybe next time one visits our stake they should let me choose the members they go visit.

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