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I’m split on this. In the early days of the church, missionaries would happily baptise a whole congregation after one sermon. How’s that for peer pressure. Many of these instant converts went on to walk (and die) on their trek west. On the other hand, there was an era of needing to be active for months (maybe even a year??) before baptism. Regarding retention. I doubt the 70% figure is made up, but it’s a very soft figure. New converts are ‘tracked’ on the MLS system for 2 years. In each quarterly report the clerk and bishopric member have to answer a few questions. One is whether the convert has attended church once in the last month or quarter (I can’t remember which). But it only needs to be once.
I don’t know where he’s taking his 70% from, but it may first quarter, first year, second year etc.
Often new converts who don’t stay long-term active will hang around for at least a while and can often be persuaded back to church from time to time. While some fall off the face of the earth immediately after their baptism, most don’t go into full inactivity until later. As such I can believe that 70% retention and 30% total genuine activity estimates are both technically correct, but I don’t think the retention metric is particularly meaningful. Nor is it a measure of improved performance.
Quote:I can agree or disagree with specific practices, but I do believe the top leadership is motivated by genuine concern for people – and, again, Preach My Gospel is explicit in its definition of “success” in non-numerical terms.
I’m not so sure what the motivation is at the top leadership regarding baptisms. I have included the link to the article on baseball baptisms –
http://mormonstories.org/baseballbaptisms.html . I would like to believe the top leadership has pure motives as well, however, all the sales tactics, misguided incentives and goals for baptisms such as a goal of over 1,000 baptisms to celebrate Pres McKay’s birthday seem not in line with the gospel at all. That period might be considered really out of wack but your hear from time to time some pretty crazy stories still to this day on baptisim goals in various missions. It would seem to me that someone in the leadership, if not Pres McKay himself would have put a stop to it. After the huge mess he leadership tried to undo the damage done by sending Mark E. Peterson (I believe) to try and help undo some of the damage.This emphasis on baptisms still is part of the culture. To the extent that leadership is aware of abuses (and it seems like abuses depend on your point of view) that they just ignore it. I will say that on my mission our MP made it a point to tell us that his goal was to be the top baptizing mission in the state. The leadership in the mission was (AP’s, Zone leaders, etc) when interviewing missionaries were instructed to ask missionaries about their baptisms. The number of lessons taught, BOM’s placed and contacts made were all about meeting that goal. Our MP later became a member of the Seventy. I don’t want to say that it was always all about baptisms every day, but it was clear from the start of my mission that baptisms equated to success.
It was painful then and it is still painful to this day how much it bothered me and how much I started to equate baptisms with being a worthy successful missionary. What was wrong with me? Was I not fasting enough? Was I not working enough? Should we give up our p-day and work (which many missionaries were encouraged to do) in the hope of success. When I read the story of the baseball baptisms it brings back bad memories.
There is no way in 3-5 weeks a person can have even a basic idea of what they are getting into. When we take this approach we are basically saying we are right and best you get on board before the train leaves. And by the way if you fall off, well to bad that is not our concern. So I disagree that there is any person on the planet who had little foreknowledge of the church that should join in as little as three weeks.
If you want to be a Jehovah’s Witness you have to study for a year to get in. They seem to grow without the quicky baptisms. Not that I think they have any more truth just a more healthy approach to converts.
From a doctrinal perspective I think one could argue that the “requirements” for baptism are few. I think of the New Testament and the Book of Mormon and get the impression that baptisms were done quickly in some cases. From a practical perspective, quick baptisms are a good way for missionaries to earn the distrust of local ward members. There’s simply no way the 70% retention rate is accurate, at least by any reasonable standard of retention.
+1 CADENCE RCs teach for two years.
Both JWs & RCs largely rely on locals or locally based people to go out and teach. So Muscovites for Moscow, Londoners for London, Portenos for Buenos Aires etc They have sent out foreign missionaries, but now they tend to be LOCALS or people who live in a single area for years not months.
The ideal converts from an LDS POV are families or couples.
The real figures surely must lie in TRs, endowments and Melchizedek priesthood. If they get that (as adults), they’re real converts.
Strong spiritual confirmation / revelation / inspiration / whatever for those who are inclined to have those experiences can be the foundation of a lifetime of faithful participation, and I can’t fault anyone for following such a feeling. Cadence, by that criteria, almost none of the earliest converts would have joined the Church when they did – and neither would have one of the most amazing members I know personally. That also could be said about lots of people who join any organization without having anywhere near all the facts – especially start-up, entrepreneurial endeavors. Many of the greatest successes in the history of the world were initiated as much, if not more, by relatively uniformed, emotional actions as by completely informed, intellectual actions.
There’s a lot to be said for careful, intellectual analysis and slow, thoughtful decisions, but there also is a lot to be said for quick, emotional actions and fast, uninformed decisions – depending on the situation and the people involved. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak.
Old-Timer wrote:Strong spiritual confirmation / revelation / inspiration / whatever for those who are inclined to have those experiences can be the foundation of a lifetime of faithful participation, and I can’t fault anyone for following such a feeling.
Cadence, by that criteria, almost none of the earliest converts would have joined the Church when they did – and neither would have one of the most amazing members I know personally. That also could be said about lots of people who join any organization without having anywhere near all the facts – especially start-up, entrepreneurial endeavors. Many of the greatest successes in the history of the world were initiated as much, if not more, by relatively uniformed, emotional actions as by completely informed, intellectual actions.
There’s a lot to be said for careful, intellectual analysis and slow, thoughtful decisions, but there also is a lot to be said for quick, emotional actions and fast, uninformed decisions – depending on the situation and the people involved. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak.
All I can say is we will have to disagree as usual. The church today has little relevance to the church of yesteryear. I see no way to compare converts. Different time different place.Yesterday’s missionaries were more independent and less homogenized. All I’m saying is that many early converts joined the church in less than 3-5 weeks, and I can’t criticize them for it. They did what they thought God wanted them to do, and, at the heart of it all, I try to do the same – even if I see some things differently than they do and probably wouldn’t have had their experiences. We probably all know people who got engaged or even married in a matter of weeks. Sometimes it works great, but usually it is not the best idea. Initial flurry of excitement over someone new can cloud the judgement. I think “marrying” a religion too quickly is the same way. It might work out, but it probably won’t. On my mission I had 8 baptisms. This was about 1/3 of normal in my mission. I only had one that was baptized in 3 weeks. He’s just as strong today as the lady I baptised that had investigated off and on for 6 years. So it can happen. But what I take pride in with my mission is that all but 1 of my 8 are still active today. And that 1 I never really taught. I just got transferred into a baptism. My mission had a monthly baptism goal of 100 (I’ve been home about 2 1/2 years). We hit it once. But the strange thing is that we probably baptized say…1500 people as a mission over the course of my 2 years and I don’t remember a ward splitting or boundaries being redrawn even once. That should say enough… We were taught to try and commit for baptism in the first lesson or even use it in door contacting. My first mission president wasn’t super into the numbers but he had pressure from his boss. His assistants more than made up for it though. My second mission president I don’t really like talking about….
I always got a kick out of those monthly reports because it was 50/50 that someone baptized on the first sunday of the month would still be around on the 4th. Ward directories were madness too. 1000+ people on the list and ~100 at sacrament meeting each week. 10% attendance is not good.
I remember in one town I was in–a town of 15,000–there were 1500 names on the ward list and 80-90 attending. So apparently 1/10 of this town was Mormon. Funny I never knocked into any. We tried to do roster clean-up and discovered that about 100 of those people lived in a KOA campground. Hmmm…… We could have easily purged 1/4 the roster based on non-existent addresses alone. The others…well…. one of the two times I had a gun pulled on me on my mission was by a disgruntled “less-active”. Thankfully they didn’t all have guns… But they were all equally uninterested in returning.
I figure on my mission I met 15-20 people that got baptized (I usually got transferred away before getting to see the fruits of my labors) but I met hundreds that wanted their names off the records.
When I hear membership statistics in GC I can’t help but roll my eyes,
🙄 laugh,:lolno: and then whatever this face is:
Also, I thought this needed a separate post. Even 2005 and more recent my mission had a problem with missionaries going swimming with kids, late night baptisms, completely falsified baptisms, etc. There was also a big emphasis for a few years before I got there on preaching welfare (i.e. “if you get baptized the church will help pay your electric bill”).
Also almost every missionary I met faked numbers. Every single number. I did for a while then I decided to see what would happen if I was honest. I got a talking to. My district leader tried to help me come up with “creative ways to count lessons”. I didn’t care. I just had “low” (read: realistic) numbers for the rest of my mission. Drove everyone around me nuts.
My perception of missionaries will never be the same… fortunately the incoming missionaries were too self-righteous to donate plasma twice a week to buy games for their x-box… or go to strip clubs… Or hide a box of porn up in the fireplace and leave it there after transferring and cause me to smoke out my apartment when I tried to light a fire that one time…
:problem: The mission greatly improved over the 2 years I was there though. I have so many more stories but I don’t want to destroy anyone’s opinions of missionaries any further hehe. There really were great ones. And the bad ones learned a lot. And a lot of good was (probably) accomplished.And I’m sure today the numbers are higher than ever!
😈 Quote:And I’m sure today the numbers are higher than ever!
Fwiw, they aren’t – and I’m happy about that.
Quote:My perception of missionaries will never be the same… fortunately the incoming missionaries were too self-righteous to donate plasma twice a week to buy games for their x-box… or go to strip clubs… Or hide a box of porn up in the fireplace and leave it there after transferring and cause me to smoke out my apartment when I tried to light a fire that one time…
:problem: The mission greatly improved over the 2 years I was there though. I have so many more stories but I don’t want to destroy anyone’s opinions of missionaries any further hehe. There really were great ones. And the bad ones learned a lot. And a lot of good was (probably) accomplished.It IS easy to become cynical about missionaries once you’ve been a missionary. I think all former missionaries have their stories to tell (I know I do!) There were (and are) far too many doofuses out on missions. That said, there are also a large group of very dedicated, earnest (if flawed) young men and women who are trying to do their best to do what is right.
As for quick baptisms, it is certainly a problem from time to time. The “baseball baptisms” article was certainly eyebrow-raising but not really surprising to me. It’s easy to see how the mission culture and its emphasis on numbers could be toppled over into the extremes seen in the early 60s in the UK. But I would like to note that even when you do everything “right”, retention is still a tough process. New members have to adjust to a totally new culture and demands that simply don’t come up during the discussions. Often the local wards and branches are so small they can’t provide the necessary support. I think even if our missionary approach were a bit more “convert-oriented” rather than “baptism-oriented” we still might have some issues with retention. Let’s face it, being a “good” Mormon requires a lot from you in terms of time and resources.
I’ve done some research in the past about activity rates among various Christian denominations (in response to some questions in a similar thread at another forum a few years ago), and it’s interesting that the rates are fairly consistent – with the LDS Church actually being near the top of the list. Part of the refocus of a couple of decades ago and the whole idea of “raising the bar” was in response to the baseball baptism fiasco and others like it, and the Church has gone much slower in some areas that lack infrastructure than it could have – Africa being a good example.
Also, it’s interesting to note that the world-wide membership figures published in the past (perhaps still, but I haven’t looked at recent reports) for some Protestant churches reflect people who attended some kind of mass gathering (like a revival) and “accepted Christ” at that gathering. The “activity rates” in those situations are abysmal, since the primary purpose wasn’t continued activity but only one-time salvation.
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