I’ve yet to meet anyone this proactive vis-a-vis their membership records–they’ve moved on, right?–and as a result, there’s more deadwood on the church rolls than a whole passel of bishops, ward mission leaders, and missionaries can shake a stick at.

This is a bit off topic perhaps but – the church seems to be interested in working on this. Recently we had a missionary couple in our stake who were sent here specifically to get rid of dead weight on the rolls.

They visited every single address/name in our Stake (unless they were obviously active – Bishops were asked to mark the list beforehand indicating those who are participating and fully active) – when they came across those who were less active they asked if they would like home teachers to come visit them or they invited them to church – if the response was “no thanks” they asked them if they considered themselves to still be members of the church (not sure how they worded it – probably better than I am here) – if they indicated that they did not still consider themselves to be members or if they were antagonistic in any way, they handed them a letter that was already typed up for them requesting removal from the records, told them all they needed to do was sign it and put in an the envelope that they provided for them, which was already stamped.

I don’t know if we are doing this church-wide or if there’s a realization that we had a problem locally (in our ward we were able to completely eliminate 60 names who had either moved, or no longer identified themselves as mormon).

Anyway, I do love the fact that we have people on BCC who are willing to argue against the scientific method. It’s fun!

I don’t buy it.

~

Individual experience is justified when it’s the only thing we’ve got. Systematic information, whether quantitative or qualitative, is always better because it’s less prone to self-deception of various kinds.

I think the strength and direction of this discussion proves amply enough the importance of individual experiences in understanding the meta-view the stats provide.

Cicero,

Your thoughts on the Bible echos the edge of my own thinking and help focus those thoughts. Thanks!

~

People often feel the Spirit when taught correct doctrine, or when reading the BofM and the four gospels. If we encourage people to read the Bible, they will associate the Spirit that they feel while reading with the Church.

This helps retain converts as it focuses the convert on doctrine and scripture as the primary source of spiritual strength. Converts whose main connection to the Spirit is through friends and social activities at church are more vulnerable to a lack of retention in my opinion.

I found one of the biggest indicators of retention was whether people started reading the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants in addition to the Book of Mormon.

Of course, a lot of converts hardly ever read the BofM. I tell you, that was the hardest thing to get people to do. Far harder than committing people to be baptized.

If I were to list the in order things that were hardest to get people to do it would be:

1: Read the BofM (or the Bible even!)

2: Come to Church

3: Stop Smoking

4: Commit to be Baptized

I served my mission in a southern state, so I full understand what you are saying. A focus on the Book of Mormon is the best way to approach those who have already accepted Christ and are suffering from the false doctrines of the creeds.

My point is that I discovered that even in the South, lots of people claim to read the Bible, but large numbers do not. They have a Bible, but they never read it. They are like Jack Mormons who have never read the Book of Mormon.

Because of this teaching them is difficult- not because they have false ideas from the creeds, but because they have no idea about biblical Christianity at all. Just some vague understanding that Jesus died on the Cross so that they can be saved.

We as Mormons are more Biblically literate than most Protestants. We make assumptions about what people already know. I’d guess about 30% of the people I taught in the heart of the Bible belt had no idea how to pray. Not that they have false ideas, but they just never thought about prayer before. It’s much worse in other parts of the country, as evangelicals tend to be pretty biblically literate. (Any surprise they are the main source of converts in the US).

So I’m just making the point that I think we need to reconsider our current model of:

Mormon missionary bringing the message of the restoration to a Bible reading Christian following the creedal doctrines of the Protestants/Catholics.

Instead a better model would be:

Mormon missionary bringing the message of Christ’s Atonement to people who have heard about Christ, but don’t really know much about him.

Use of the Bible, particularly the four Gospels is vital for preaching in the second model. While in the first model it’s just assumed that people already know all this stuff.

I’m not suggesting that the Bible supplant the Book of Mormon as the center of the gospel message. I’m just saying we need to get people to start reading the Bible in addition to the BofM if we want them to understand what we are teaching them.