When I was young, I was used to seeing convert baptisms. At my own baptism (in Lake Texoma) a convert family was baptised before I was as member baptisms always went last.
On my mission (to the New York Rochester mission) in my first area I had someone come up to me and ask to be baptized (and they were in a few weeks — though they had been attending church for some time). Before I was transferred I and elder Hoefling got up one prep day morning and instead of doing laundry and buying groceries felt inspired to go north, about a mile, and start tracting. At the first door we met someone whose only day home was the standard prep day and who had a Book of Mormon and had been wanting to join the church, with growing desire, for about two years.
I’d say I met someone like that on an average of about every six months on my mission.
When I returned I met people who were returning to God or the Church on about the same frequency. 
Situations like the David and Jacob story from conference (and I met them when the one was still in the Dallas area) were a recurring theme in my life. It is why I wrote the essay about how the Church needs more of its (returning) apostates. The presence of those who have returned provides a path for return, an example, and a testimony of the power of return.
I still see some of those who leave and who return — but they no longer seem a fixture in every ward. I’m also seeing fewer of those who were specifically led to the Church in what seems, more or less, a miraculous fashion (I’ll spare you more mission stories and post mission stories, but for a time it was so common it seemed to normal).
I’m wondering, where have they gone? Is it just my current ward or do we have fewer returning apostates and fewer converts over all?
- What is your experience?
- What do you think the reason for the change?
- Am I just in a different place or has there been a change?
- What stories do you have of people who have returned (like the story in from this conference) or who have come to the church against all odds?
Wheat & Tares 
I think a lot of it varies from ward to ward. I had one ward on my mission that had 25 convert baptisms in one year (in Germany, and the vast majority of these converts were Europeans) and others that would be lucky to get one or two. And of course, whether or not the converts stay or not varies a lot from ward to ward too.
In the last 10 years in our ward the only 2 baptisms that have “stuck” more than just a few months have been 2 80+ year old women. I can see for them the church is GREAT in every way. They are really nice old ladies, as sweet as they come and everyone loves them. The young kids all give them hugs and they have tons of folks jump to their assistance if they need anything. I think they get a demanding calling like VT coordinator. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of them and love serving them. But all the other converts don’t stay even when tons of attention and love are poured out to them. And we don’t even get almost any other investigators to even come. I guess I can think of one other that was a part-member family where the husband joined after being married for 15 years to a semi-active wife. I too remember growing up that there were always a few members that were on fire and had been members for just a few years. So I don’t think
I don’t claim to know the reason why. One reason I think I see it in the ward I am in is that it is a rather comfortable suburban ward where most people are young professionals with families. Life is going good for them. Most of them honestly tell me they are really happy and many already have a stable church – and we have plenty of them (2 mega churches within a 5 minute drive and 5 others within less distance than that. Many of these churches preach about Mormons regularly. In fact I ran across someone that left the LDS church and after a while after they had left the church one of their friends asked why they left the LDS faith. She described at a high level many of the often touted issues, JS polygamy / polyandry, treasure hunting, Adam God, etc. They went on to say how much of a shock it was when they found out these things were true. The friend actually said, “Oh yeah. Everyone in our congregation knows all about all of that. I just didn’t bring it up out of respect and you seemed like a nice person and it always puzzled me why you would believe all those things. So if everyone has a good dose of negative church history (and I would assume it is not framed in a way most members would like), then I can see where it can be harder for the missionaries to get in. They don’t even tract our neighborhood. The only time they do that is when the ward asks them to check an address and see if an inactive member lives there when the ward gets a record transferred in.
I only know of one person that returned. They were deeply offended by some members and after about 5 years went by and the offender moved away, the man returned and was returned to key leadership roles in the ward.
Our ward has hit it’s baptismal target every year since 2011. Honestly though most stay, some have moved and some have gone inactive but for the most part they have all stayed. I live in Canada
My wife and I have been a part of at least one family being baptized or coming back for the last 10 years. I think some of the reasons we don’t hear more is online the leavers are louder than the joiners. Also i think the technology age has afforded more options for social communities online so people who are searching often find something that is online and is a little less demanding than the church and its participatory structure.
In my last ward we had convert baptisms most months, and many of our ward families were reactivated as adults. It was overall a great ward, very welcoming. I’m in a new ward now with some boundary changes, and not sure that’s a trend in this one.
When we lived in an urban area of Denver, we had baptisms almost every month. At least 2 sets of missionaries were assigned to our ward at any given time, and sometimes it was up to 3. Most of the ward was apartment complexes, many of which were government subsidized. Not unusual for converts to be dealing with impending eviction and other serious financial woes. One set of elders mentioned that they’d get even more baptisms if they didn’t have to deal with getting First Presidency approval for several investigators. Retention was very low, often because the new member would move (turnover rate for active members of the ward was very high – about half the ward would be replaced every year according to the bishop in one of our ward conferences). Typically we had to provide some sort of transportation to the church for any new converts, so that was another hindrance if no members were available to take care of it. We figured the forced humility of dire living circumstances tended to make people more willing to listen to missionaries. I’ve lived in 4 suburban wards since then. I don’t think I’ve seen more than one convert family per year in any of them, and even that didn’t always happen.
In our current elderly ward in a better-off area, I heard the missionaries declared our stake a deadzone – not worth much effort. They’ll have better chances elsewhere, apparently.
We are Americans who live in the United Arab Emirates. We lived in Mumbai, India previously. We have periodic baptisms here in the UAE. And the work is BOOMING in Mumbai. It was awesome, a true blessing to be a part of it. 🙂
Watch the church disappear. Convert baptisms are down, retention of youth is 70%! How long can those trends continue without a serious decline in membership? What does God say? Lower the age of missionaries to 12? He’ll address it after Monson’s gone? Give POX a chance to work?
This is a slow motion train wreck.
Some of the trends are affecting all churches (not just the LDS), such as youth retention dropping. Other trends may well be localized. I’m wondering if anyone has overall statistical data?
I share your questions on the stats – they fascinate me. Given the video’s leaked of church HQ meetings, I would assume some of this slicing and dicing of things like convert/retention on different socioeconomic categories has been done. But none of that is released. Even the few comments on this so far show some trends (Ok, not anything of an appropriate sample size!!!). I think Steve and I live in an area where professionals live with few apartments and the proselyting is slow going. My kids have all been called on missions in far away lands that are much less developed. I am glad they were able to experience that and have a deeper appreciation, but they have all mentioned how many baptisms they participated in and also how few of them are still active.
Throughout my time in the Church, I have seen converts come and go. If I had to generalize, those that seem to self-select and somehow contact the Church themselves, or, have a pretty strong support structure of friends, seem to stick. Those who are tracted out, and seem to be “forced” into the Church in a short period of time are the ones who come and go. The other group are the younger converts that have friends or a boyfriend/girlfriend who is a member. Those also don’t seem to stick. We have a number of inactives in the category. We’ve had a few convert baptisms since we have been in our current ward but they are few and far between.
I think there are a number of reasons for the lack of converts, but IMHO, one of them has to be the church’s continued public stance about gay marriage, “traditional” families and an antiquated view of gender dynamics. A lot of the people I meet don’t know much about the Mormon Church, but they do know about the Prop 8 and BSA business. That’s enough to keep a lot of people, especially the younger generation, away from the church. I think part of that reason has to do with the fact that any large, bureaucratic entity has a hard time keeping up with fairly rapid cultural shifts. The church is generally behind the curve on most of this stuff and often seems not to mind that it’s behind the curve.
There’s a high cost of membership for converts in terms of dedication, time and money. There are also pronounced tribal customs that must be learned and adhered to and one often feels like an outsider until they become well absorbed and integrated. Love bombing is used to try to offset all of this in the beginning but love bombing looses it’s potency after awhile and often tastes a bit like saccharin. At first the whole experience feels cult-like until that feeling becomes slowly silenced by indoctrination (no offense, correct usage is intended).
Those who were born in the church have family ties that root and network them and they have many, many years of layered indoctrination ingrained into them to the point that they often stop questioning and start shelving. Part of that indoctrination is that the LDS (corporate) church is THE only true church. When viewed from the outside (without layers of indoctrination) this is clearly an *outrageous claim,* there are many competitors to choose from and at far lower cost! When viewed from the inside it may a reason to stay because others act as if it’s true and (fear) what if that IS true is a motivator? Yet the D&C itself reads Behold, this is my doctrine—whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. So which is it really??? (Watch for the twisted apologists that are often applied to this one!)
In the past the cost of leaving was very high. In the early days of the church it probably meant leaving family roots and networks behind and literally moving to a new settlement elsewhere. So they could get away with the high cost of staying. But today much of that leverage is gone, yes there can still be a high family cost with leaving but the church boundary is now much more permiable with a lower cost of leaving.
So the church struggles with the balance between the high cost of staying vs the declining cost of leaving and the increasing motivation to go given the recent exposure of the church’s significant past deceptions (lies) and the resulting destruction of testimonies (betrayal). In short it’s growth problems are largely self induced, even suicidal, odd given it’s claim to prophecy.
I’m not clear what the trend line is on young people’s attrition. It seems to me that it has always been an issue. When young people become adults, they sometimes quit going to church, particularly if they don’t follow the so-called ideal model the church lays out. But converts have always made up for it. I think there is a problem with fewer converts that reveals that the other problem is the hole in the bucket. Plus people are having fewer kids now that birth control is reliable and a two-income family is practically required in our economy. Continuing to double down on what isn’t working seems destined to fail. At some point we have to look at the product, not just the sales force.
I think that a major factor is also the “law” of diminishing returns. At least in the U.S. there are fewer and fewer with any interest in religion, fewer with no exposure to Mormons (in other words they have seen the appeal, or not). My mission was in southern California, ’68 and ’69 where we averaged 1.8 baptisms per companionship per month–though each companionship had areas encompassing 3+ wards. At that time the more open-minded culture, high in-migration, and reasonable proportion of Mormons to Non-Mormons coincided with a fairly high rate of members referring their friends to us.
Are Mormons in their 20s and 30s leaving the LDS Church? April 14, 2016 article.
Our world is changing. There is a wider, speedier line of communication for all of us. The younger generations have grown up with this and take it for granted that it is an entitlement. They are more likely to see how diversified the world is now. However, just because the world is diversified does not make it right. The leaders created a proclamation to the world on the family decades ago. This was compiled from all the doctrines and principles found in the scriptures. For the church to change that would mean the scriptures lie. Once that is gone we might as well scrap the whole religion. Honestly, the church does embrace diversity as long as it does not pervert the doctrines and principles of Jesus. LGBT are welcome as members as long as they practice the laws of chastity and fidelity. They also have to give up the notion of same-sex marriage. The proclamation states marriage is between a man and a woman. We are biologically made to form a family together. Making Jesus (thus God too) our guide is the avenue to making relationships more loving and forgiving. Whether converts come or go is not the issue. I can not control how a person chooses to be converted or whether they stay active or leave. It is each individuals choice to believe what they wish to. I can only pray for them to see what the truth is. I can be there if they want me to.
@celeste
“This was compiled from all the doctrines and principles found in the scriptures.”
Except that the doctrines and principles change whenever the LDS church finds it expedient. For that matter, there is plenty of stuff in the Bible (see Leviticus) that nobody in his right mind actually takes as the rule of law. Pretty much looks like LDS church leaders are making it up as they go and cherry picking whatever support their whim du jour.
“welcome as members as long as they practice the laws of chastity”
Well, the laws of chastity include not masturbating and not viewing pornography. Practically every normal, healthy person masturbates and a great many view pornography. So it seems that pretty much nobody actually obeys the law of chastity, but everybody seems willing to trot out that old chestnut when it comes to supporting anti-LGBT bigotry.
“We are biologically made to form a family together.”
That’s right. Attraction between two men, two women, or a woman and man are all biological functions. This loving bond contributes to strong families.
” I can not control how a person chooses to be converted or whether they stay active or leave.”
No, and neither can the LDS church, apparently. That contributes to the poor retention rate and the stampede of people leaving. Hence, the title of this article.
” I can only pray for them to see what the truth is.”
You mean, you can pray for them to see *your* personal truth. Go ahead and do that.
The bottom line: people are leaving the LDS church because in this day and time they see it for what it is, and other denominations satisfy peoples’ spiritual needs without all the crazy baggage and outright bigotry.
@celeste
“This was compiled from all the doctrines and principals found in the scriptures.”
I have never seen an annotated Proclamation to the Family with scripture sources.
@Celeste
“This was compiled from all the doctrines and principles found in the scriptures.”
I have never seen an annotated Proclamation to the Family with scriptural sources. Does anyone know if one exists?
@Celeste
” This was compiled from all the doctrines and principles found in the scriptures.”
I have never seen an annotated Proclamation to the Family with scriptural sources. Does anyone know if one exists?
@anon You have a lot of anger in you regarding the LDS faith. The vast majority are not leaving the Church. Sorry to burst that bubble, but while I’m at it I want to correct a few more. You said, “Practically every normal, healthy person masturbates and a great many view pornography” — the truth is far from this. Your view of “normal” is so egocentric it is not too alarming to be honest. Masturbation is a very self-centered activity. It’s the “Me-itis” that seems so prevalent in todays world. If I can’t get another to fulfill my basic needs I will just fulfill my own — this must be your thought pattern. And thank goodness society still sees Pornography as “anti-social” and is not the norm as you state. Also, your statement that, “Attraction between two men, two women, or a woman and man are all biological functions. This loving bond contributes to strong families.” is again egocentric. Many Societal norms are being attacked now. This is quite impossible to be the “new norm” for the time studies have not shown that to be true. Many social studies have shown that children thrive the best in a setting where a “Mom” and “Dad” provide specific role models for a family. Most single mom’s and dad’s will tell you that, though they try hard, it is impossible to fill both “parent shoes” over a long period of time. Men have a hard time being “maternal” and women have a hard time being “paternal”. Lastly, there is no “stampede of people leaving” the Church. From what stats I have seen this is just not the case. Of course there may be localized incidences where there is an “outflow” but it is definately not “systemic”. I invite you to lose the anger and let’s have a very rich discussion about things you have written —
I recently read an older psychological study (re 1990s) that stated that patterns of disaffiliation were clustered around divorce, and partial parent disengagement. I would presume that still holds true today, perhaps even more so. The LGBTQ movement further adds complexities. Regrettably our leaders (perhaps a general trait of humanity) really, really want simplistic, linear narratives of doctrine, history, and church activity. Life is complicated and we need to accept that for our patterns of affiliation. Catholisim has endured because of conquest and being deeply embedded as a culture. Perhaps we need to let go of activity and embrace embededness.
One thing that can be done to assist those who have left to come back is to treat them with kindness. I see these conference talks where people who leave are called lazy, wanting to sin, etc. What is the purpose of offending these folks? This post here uses the word “apostate.” Clearly it has negative connotation. It hearkens to a very judgemental membership and culture. I can only imagine how quickly the Church would dwindle if it didn’t have a full time missionary force.
Not many convert baptisms where I am, and those that happen often don’t result in long-term attendance. Mostly it’s all existing members moving in and moving out of the area. The ward I grew up in elsewhere is getting old, as I see when I visit. It’s the same people running things that were running them back when I was in the youth program, except that really can’t continue much longer as they are suffering the effects of old age, ill health, and some of them now dead. Demographics have shifted and there aren’t that many younger members living in that ward boundary.
I think that demographics play a big role in our perceptions of how the church is doing and how it is growing. My sister moved to Las Vegas years ago and rode the boom of new growth, mostly from Californians relocating. New wards and stakes were being created all the time, she lived in 4 different wards without moving in 5 years. To most of us that would create the image of a growing dynamic church, but most of it was just the shuffling of existing members. There is a town not far from me that was the LDS ideal in the 50s through the 90s, upper middle class, big yards, good schools, close to good jobs. Its population was only 50,000 but the LDS population kept expanding until there were 5 wards and a stake. The population began to shift in the 90s as it became a very popular destination for Chinese immigrants, for the same reasons that it was popular with LDS families. Today the town is majority Chinese and there is only one ward, most members would see that as evidence of a shrinking church with a not so bright future, but again it was just population reshuffling and not negative growth. It’s hard to see the big picture beyond your local reality.
The number of families leaving the LDS church is very high. Stunningly high. The numbers are high enough that it makes me uncomfortable. I see the church sending out missionaries, then more missionaries. Younger and older missionaries. Add more young women. Add more media and mormon ads. It isn’t working.
The Mormons in Transition group I am involved in has a very steady number of families joining on a weekly basis. This is a metro area located 1800 miles from SLC. It does not advertise nor solicit. Someone has to search the Internet to find the group. Apparently, people do. The group is growing. There are already sub groups. Soon it could be a stake. It is growing that fast. The average member is the high achiever type who would normally be your highest leadership in a stake or ward.
People join the MIT group looking for people who share their cultural background. They come looking for unconditional acceptance.
If I could take the dynamic found in the MIT group and infuse it back into the LDS church, that dynamic could save it. It would require loving people wherever they are at in their faith or life journey..
It’s not going to happen in the LDS church.
Why are LDS members leaving?
Here’s my personal perspective. Never been to a Mormon church service, but attended both protestant and catholic services. I actually *enjoy* going to church, and I look forward to it every week. There’s a beautiful sanctuary with religious icons, light streaming through stained glass, and churchy acoustics. There’s a trained, professional speaker who got a theology degree and knows how to write a sermon. There’s music led by a professional choir director, and I love to sing along with the familiar hymns. Nobody stands up, cries, and tells stories about how Jesus helped find their car keys. Instead, there’s a predictable program with a sermon, songs, prayer, and ritual. I get my weekly course correction and reminder to be thankful and try to be a better person. After about 1 hour of this, I go home. No wearing funny clothes, no visits from home teachers, no chores at the church, no handing over 10% of my income, no worthiness interviews with some guy unqualified to judge my worthiness, no “callings” to do stuff I don’t really want to do, no indoctrinating kids. I go to church once a week, I enjoy it, and then I get back to my life. Which is *not* 100% about church. Nobody wants to stick around after their Mormon “baptism”, once they discover what a hassle it is.
I’ve enjoyed the posts and comments and find myself wondering at what makes the difference between wards.
I’m also curious about how the shift to smaller wards (which is usually better for adults) from large wards (usually better for kids) plays into things.
Any thoughts?
(I’ve had some connection problems and a few lost comments here but I’ve been reading everyone ‘s comments).
“Though convert baptisms might be down by 13 percent and the Church’s growth rate is its lowest since 1937, there’s not all bad news about these membership statistics. Some of this is due to the Church’s focus to have more devoted and converted members of the Church—something with which they’ve seen a great deal of success.
Lots of other denominations would be thrilled by a 1.7% increase, but for Mormons this represents the slowest growth in any year since 1937 (when it was 0.93%), so no one’s exactly throwing a party.”
http://www.ldsliving.com/LDS-Church-Growth-Slows-to-Its-Lowest-Level-Since-1937-But-Here-s-the-Good-News-in-That/s/81912
“I’m also curious about how the shift to smaller wards (which is usually better for adults) from large wards (usually better for kids) plays into things.”
I’ve noticed that’s the case–teenagers have a hard time in small wards, but many adults (including myself) have a difficult time in large wards. In my last small ward, many of our YM, especially, went inactive (although some of them came back to activity once they became adults), but the adults in the ward stayed very active and involved. I had many close friends and held leadership positions, even though I was only in the ward for a few years.
In my current large ward, most of the youth stay, but tons of adults have stopped attending. And of course, if the adults stop attending, usually their children stop attending too. Reasons vary, but a common thread is that the ward just isn’t very good at reaching out to people. The ward’s so big that no one notices or even cares if an adult stops attending. Many adults don’t have friends in the ward.
The solution here seems obvious–get rid of big wards and have two small wards combine YM, YW, and SS for the youth. One ward holds Sacrament Meeting, then both wards have other meetings at the same time (combined for the youth and perhaps the primary, and separate for the adults), and then the second wards holds their Sacrament Meeting. For adults, it seems like a small ward. For the kids, it feels like a large ward. Everyone wins.
“I’m also curious about how the shift to smaller wards (which is usually better for adults) from large wards (usually better for kids) plays into things.”
How are you defining large and small here Stephen? Speaking as an adult, I’m preferring my now larger ward by far since it merged with the neighbouring ward 2 years ago in the next new year. But what is considered large here in Britain might well be small by your standards. We have under 200 in sacrament meeting, maybe 150 on a good week.
Large and Small wards are generally determined by the stake president. Here in Utah County, wards are massive. One stake president remarked that large wards get bigger budgets, and the youth programs are generally better. However, it’s easy to feel lost in the ward when Sacrament meeting routinely fills the entire gym. In Davis and Weber Counties, my wards have been much more manageable in size.
Stephen,
To go back to your original posting’s questions, I sometimes wonder as well. I don’t know anything about real numbers across the church, but I can see around me. In my church settings, such as this morning, I saw and felt genuine love and fellowship centered in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If another person searching for his or her spiritual home was also there, he or she might have had a similar positive experience. However, that same person likely would not have had as positive an experience if he or she was looking on the Internet at sites such as this one. Testimony-sharing works best in person and in smaller settings, I think. To the degree that anyone actually cares about the prospective converts you write about, well, if they really care and really seek to help build the church of our Savior, they can use sites such as this one to bear testimony for present or future readers. I’m very thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I say that as a convert who joined the church based on people caring and sharing and my own study and choice — it was the single best decision I ever made.
The ideal seems to be combined youth programs — the problem being that every time they do that they can’t keep the parents from the wards behaving (i.e. two wards for the adults, but the kids meet together; but generally that leads to problems from the adult interactions with the kids).
Thanks to everyone for their comments.