Even though there arguably no huge bombshells coming from the on-going Mormon Leaks, even the small quantity of leaks gives a few snapshots in time on some subjects. One such case is the dealing with Young Single Adults (YSAs). Mormon Leaks released a 2008 video of the top church leaders discussing YSA retention and then recently released a “draft” document from 2005 on the same topic. The picture is clear – the church is hemorrhaging YSAs and this of course concerns church leaders. Statistics such as 72% of YSAs are inactive before age 20 SHOULD be concerning the leaders. Maybe even concerning enough to lower the missionary age?
Ministering to Young Single Adults (2005 Memo)
https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/documents/4/44/Ministering_to_Young_Single_Adults.pdf
The 2005 document just leaked breaks the issue of YSA retention into 3 key factors: Mobility, Lack of Responsibilities or Connectedness or Roots, and Little Accountability
Mobility
The report identifies that young adulthood is a time of real transition from youth to adult: College, work, and lots of moving around. For those not attending a church school, the world revolves less around church activity and for many EQ/RS just isn’t as compelling as YM/YW was. They call out “ward hopping” – that act of attending various wards other than their own. This can be done to have a bit more independence from the “responsibilities” (i.e. callings in a ward), but not out and out becoming inactive and the associated guilt. And of course they are just trying to increase the chance of dates (as was pointed out in the 2008 video that YSAs usually don’t marry within the YSA ward). Can you blame them?
Lack of Responsibilities or Connectedness or Roots
I do think they have also correctly identified PART of the issue in this area.
The YM/YW programs are very structured and have lots of prescribed interactions with church leaders, especially the bishop. The transition into EQ/RS can be an abrupt and unappealing change. The memo instructs that leaders need to keep a connection with YSA’s and that “leaders should strive to let YSAs know that there is still a place in Church for them, that they can be spiritually nourished through their attendance in Sunday meetings.” The document covers some relevant issues, but the one thing that seems to be missing when reading this is much of an emphasis on what most religions would call “ministering” to the YSA. More than an interview with the bishop they want to feel that someone in the ward cares about them. They want and need a non-judgmental mentor, not always a Judge in Israel. “Letting them know … they can be spiritually nourished through attendance in Sunday meetings” doesn’t cut it if they do attend and it is essentially the same lesson they have heard every 4 years for the last dozen or more years. Leaders can tell them that all they want, but if they don’t feel spiritually nourished when they go – they will not stay.
Little Accountability
The report correctly points out that YSAs feel less accountability to their bishop (and parents for that matter). They are adults at this point in their life and the bishop’s primary responsibility (so I have been told over and over) is to the youth. The report also mentions that it is just easier for YSAs to fall through the cracks due to YSA wards, conventional wards, and confusion over which ward is “responsible”, and reporting systems that don’t cater to accurately reporting this group. This feels heavy on the “tracking” and light on the “loving” aspects – a bit more like “how can we make them eat their vegetables?” instead of “how can we make the meals tasty and appealing?”
Recommendations
The report recommends
- Continuing the youth pattern of annual or semi-annual interviews with the bishop.
- The stake has the responsibility of the YSAs within the stake and needs to be keeping in contact with all YSAs
- Callings/assignments should be given to every worthy YSA
- Create multi-stake YSA activities
2008 Video of Top Church Leaders discussing YSAs
This video of a discussion covered some of the same topics (Elder Renlund presented a large bulk of the time and he was also listed as a contributor to the 2005 memo). One area that the video focused on was marriage trends. The average age of marriage is increasing in the US and in the church and this is a threat to having a “multi-generational church” which requires (a) Retention (b) Temple marriages and (c) Children. All 3 were not trending well. Retention of YSA is significant and of concern. The later marriage age generally means less children and internationally only 6% of marriages were temple marriages.
A summary given towards the end of the presentation summarized:
- Losing an increasing number of our YSAs.
- This poses a threat to the growth of a multi-generational church.
- Losing them because we are not using them in meaningful ways.
I once again feel a part that is missing in the last statement. Sure involving the YSAs will help many, but the church and its programs need to BE meaningful to them. One statement on the video was that YSAs were one of the most underutilized resources the church has. That to me rings of “man was made to help the church” instead of “the church was made to help man”. Some married people in the church feel that the church worships one definition of the family even more than Christ. That can be a hard underlying message for a YSA. Who wants to go to church every week to get a dose of discouragement?
The recommendation is somewhat the same as the 2005 memo:
- Give YSAs more callings and get them serving members (why not just say “serve others” including non-members?)
- Work on spiritual engagement, not just social.
- The Stake is responsible for coordination of YSA efforts.
Comparison on Statistics
Both the video and the memo included several statistics – probably the most revealing part of the leaks. So in the few years between the two leaked items, did the YSA statistics improve?
Both the video and the memo were not statistical reports, but instead used the grave statistics as attention grabbers on the importance of and extent of the issue. So there are not many specific metrics that can be compared side by side.
It is worth noting that the LDS church is not alone on this issue. It is during the YSA years that the population in the US tends to dramatically drop in church attendance and then begins a slight rises after a few years, especially once children arrive. So in some ways this isn’t surprising at all. It is jarring for many leaders in the church that were possibly used to decades past where significantly more YSAs remained active.
Questions:
- Do the statistics seem to match what is “on the ground” in your ward/stake?
- Do you feel the memo and video identify the core reasons for YSA inactivity? What was missed?
- Do you feel that the recommendations of the memo and video will be effective in reaching the YSAs and improving retention (and marriage) rates?
- What would you do different with the YSA program?
- What do YSAs think when they see the information leaked about the huge YSA attrition? Are they being asked about how they view this?
Wheat & Tares 
The YSA video was the one I watched after the leaks first came out–after recently ending my ten-year tenure in the YSA program, I was interested in what they thought about us. I was touched by their genuine concern, but thought their solutions were off base and indicative of how little they consult actual YSAs. If I remember correctly, they suggested implementing stake level advisory boards, and listed who should be on them. They started, rather predictably, with a married couple, and on down the list of usual suspects, with an actual young single adult tacked on as an afterthought. It was pretty indicative of the status quo.
Actual young people could tell you why they’re not going to church. I reckon asking them would get us a lot farther than anything I’ve seen coming out of the church so far.
This report does nothing to address doctrinal difficulties which YSAs increasingly experience as they gain the critical faculties which are part of tertiary education. On top of this, the church sells it’s self on it’s conservatism and opposition to liberality which is unattractive to young people. They know too much, with too little focus on personal spiritual experience. It’s a very difficult time for the church and without some answers our young people will continue to opt out.
As a parent to young people, I find the institutional church of very little help and some hindrance in bringing them closer to Christ. To them the church looks like it belongs to old white men. Decreasing the mission age will not make it more attractive unless they can see that a mission will make some significant difference to humanity.
I work with the YSA in our stake and I’m with Penguin on this. I think there is clearly genuine, Christ-like concern for the YSAs, but there are so many blind spots:
1. Accountability: It’s not that the YSA don’t feel accountable to the bishop; they don’t feel accountable to the church because they tend to view it as being more flawed than people from older generations. The POX, denying women the priesthood, and the church’s dealings with homosexuals (not to mention trans people) all serve to alienate empathetic and intelligent young people who feel that the church lacks any kind of moral high ground given the issues mentioned above as well as the church’s dishonesty about its own history. In short, the reason why young singles don’t feel accountable to an institution as flawed as this one is because they shouldn’t.
2. The Mormon marriage/family culture: YSAs simply live in a different world than 80 year old married Mormon men do. That means they’re more focused on career goals (both men and women) and they socialize differently than older people do. The social bonds they form tend to be a bit more nebulous/porous, though nonetheless important, and they tend to hang out in groups. And they absolutely do not buy into the Mormon party line about being married before your mid-twenties and having children right away. YSAs and young people generally, are smart enough to know that the world doesn’t work the way Mormon leaders claim/believe it does. In my ward, I know personally three young singles, two of whom were recently baptized, who no longer attend church because people would not stop asking them when they were getting married. The church rhetoric of single=selfish is not only absurdly wrong, but also really damaging to the retention of young singles. Who wants to go to a church where you are count less than a married member does?
3. Acceptance: Related to number 2, YSAs don’t need to be lectured about missions and marriage. They need to be loved and accepted and not judged, just like the rest of us. The fact that most leadership is so severely lacking in empathy that they can’t remember what it was like to be single and don’t particularly want to listen to the singles is quite shocking, actually. Mormon leadership needs to stop seeing singleness as a problem to be solved and needs to start seeing singles as people, regardless of whether they’re YSA or SA. Until that happens, these numbers will only get worse. And I have very little hope that things will change. Despite the whole continuing revelation rhetoric of our church, I see ossified paradigms and antiquated thinking stifling the growth of members generally and inhibiting outreach efforts to YSAs in particular.
I agree with previous comments that the leaders show genuine concern but little understanding. I recently ended my long tenure in many YSA wards, and there were a few recurring themes that exemplify the disconnect between leaders and YSAs:
While I was a 26 year old working professional in a ward of mostly working professionals, I was assigned to a particular stake committee. We had a monthly coordinating meeting held at 9:30 pm on a Wednesday. When several of us expressed that starting at 9:30 pm on a weeknight was much later than most of us were comfortable with, the high councilor expressed shock. But you’re young! Young people stay out late! The meeting schedule was never changed. We had several stake activities that were scheduled from 10pm to 2am.
I got sick of being treated like a teenager. Leaders and visiting adults started every lesson with “now when I was your age…” followed by a story about when they were 17 or 18. I knew they were genuinely trying to connect, but I finally told one leader I knew well, “no. You weren’t out partying when you were my age. You had two small children, and you were sleep deprived and dealing with the challenges of being an adult. I’m dealing with adult challenges, too.” I loved when a leader would talk about real life things they were experiencing, like how it’s sometimes hard to find time for scripture study or a gospel topic they’d been pondering, or a challenge at work or in their family. I could relate to that stuff! We could genuinely and humanly connect. It was much more interesting than dating woes from the 70s.
And once again, ministering. There was a couple in one of my YSA bishoprics who would invite 2 or 3 ward members to dinner every other week or so. I was invited a few times. We’d sit and chat and really get to know each other in a small group setting, and then when I saw them at church, they knew enough about me to have a conversation that didn’t just default to “how’s the dating going?” They watched my dog when I left town and I tended their garden when they did. I knew that if today was a rough day for me to be at church, I could sit with Sister H and feel like someone noticed if I was there. That kind of ministering was all too rare in the wards and stakes I attended. More of that would go far.
Yes, I just get the sense that the church powers that be don’t really understand that they’re dealing with individual human beings, not a monolithic problem to be solved.
Take the way they typically talk about the declining marriage rate and the increasing age at marriage. They seem to think that single people just don’t understand how important marriage is, and that if they would only stop prioritizing their careers and material possessions, everything would be fixed. I spent a whole lot of years in singles wards and now most of my friends are mid singles or people who married in their early 30s after leaving the singles ward, and it is obvious that the reasons my friends are single or stayed single for a long time are as diverse as my friends are. Few, if any, had a suitable marriage partner they turned down because they wanted to get ahead in business. Getting another lecture on the importance of marriage doesn’t help my female friend who seems to find herself serially dating gay Mormon men, or my male friend who has social anxiety, or any of my friends who are just looking for someone they feel good about marrying.
The same is true of why single people are leaving the church. I know a lot of people who have left because of the social issues that handlewithcare described. But I know I’m not getting a representative slice of the population, and there are multitudinous other reasons, and I’m not convinced that the reason people drop out at age 20 are always the same reasons people drop out at age 32 after facing their first tough year in a family ward.
Until we start approaching people who have left with a compassionate heart for their individual story rather than trying to cram them into a box labeled “does not understand gospel,” or “was not sufficiently tracked,” I don’t think these efforts, well-meaning as they are, will make much of a dent.
I think a big part of the problem is the non-stop worship of the family. It’s really off point for a Christian church to spend so much time talking about The Family that we lose the teachings of Jesus in the process. I get that we’re super proud of our tidy divorce-resistant cis-hetero nuclear families, but the last I checked, salvation is worked out individually with fear & trembling. We have much more in common than we have differences. Focusing on a so-called ideal alienates people we should be fully integrating.
I wish we did more dinner groups involving singles, divorced, married, etc. all together. And bring back the linger-longers.
Preach, penguin! Absolutely. I think the hardest part of moving into a regular ward after all that YSA time is how clear it was that they didn’t want me. I live on the Wasatch front and I think our verbage here speaks volumes — regular wards are called family wards. Singles a supposed to be segregated, their lives at a comfortable arm’s distance. I’m a pretty darn good organ player and I love nursery, and I made that known to ward leadership. Two years later and still no calling or involvement, I just stopped going. I expected to feel guilty, or some kind of loss. It felt amazing. Turns out foisting myself on a ward that didn’t want me more than cancelled out any edifying effect of church. Discontinuing that has been excellent for my mental health.
The loss of so many of our youth is incredibility sad. I don’t believe there is much we can do about it. I work with the youth in my ward, so I see first hand what is happening.
The message of the Book of Mormon is that prosperity is the source of disaffection from faith in God. When the Lord decides it is enough he will respond with the teachings of destruction, pain, and suffering. This is the only means available to the Lord to bring people to their spiritual senses. Read Helaman 12.
The Nephi cycle, as some call it, is in our future.
Kind of weird that single ADULTS still need supervision by married couples as “shepherds”. Seems insulting to their adulthood and to their sheep -only status because they aren’t married. Age is not what makes you an adult in our church…it’s marriage.
YSA wards are too prescribed, too contrived. The meat-markets, er- um, I mean YSA wards are supposed to give young adults leadership responsibilities, but I have to say that as a 25 year old RS President, I sucked. The college sophomore who was the RS President before me an the junior who followed me also sucked. The EQ of full of young pre and post RMs was worse. One of the best indicators that the church is divine is that idiots like us haven’t ruined it yet.
Imagine that you are all of 19 years old and away from home at college. You are were recently diagnosed with endometriosis and you are experiencing excruciating pain at 2:00 am. You want a blessing, may need a ride to the ER, and really want to talk to another woman who knows about this stuff. Unfortunately for you the guy who is your HT is the immature dork who you couldn’t wait to end a date with last week because he was snorting french fries up his nose at McDonalds. The other 19 year old young women in your YSA ward are as clueless as you.
Wait! In the regular ward in your area has a stake patriarch, a few physicians and nurses (both male and female), a dozen RS women who have gone suffered through endometriosis, a functioning compassionate service leader and a whole bunch of grown-up HT’ers.
YSA wards are a bad idea and I can’t believe that the church is clinging to them as though they were a God-given mandate. They aren’t. They are just another church policy. Bad idea. Isn’t 72% inactivity enough to convince the powers that be that it doesn’t work? Put them back in regular wards and put them to work as regular saints. Sure, have YSA activities and dances, but stop the insanity of YSA wards. Not even the bishops who serve in them really want to be there.
Diversity matters, difference matters. Put the YSAs back in regular wards and highlight the fact that people of different ages and life stages experience the SAME testimony in their souls. That’s a miracle. That’s incredible. Focus on that. Let that young education major work in primary, that recent RM serve in scouts, that awesome organist play for the ward choir. But for the love, end the YSA ward!
Robert Putnam, a scholar who studies modern communities and happened to be young community organizer Barack Obama’s Harvard mentor, would argue that the digital era and millennial generation is to blame. Society is shifting and holding to antiquated social models – like traditional church- is an exercise in futility. We might think of the end goal- filling hearts with God instead of worrying about filling pews with warm bodies. Is the pew the only or now the best way to fill hearts with God? If that is the end goal, what is the best way to accomplish it?
I don’t want to throw out communal worship (an essential element of the gospel) with these new-fangled ideas. But, certainly we can call into question whether YSA wards “work”, whether the 3 hour block “works”, and a few other sacred cows in Mormondom.
I was thinking over what helped me best as a YSA, specifically a student YSA in London, and that was having Institute effectively on-campus. It wasn’t, but it was quite literally just across the road. The Institute director was a full-time employee, and held weekly lunch meetings for those of us LDS students just over the road. It was pretty much like having an LDS chaplain as part of the university experience. I was also involved with chaplaincy groups of other denominations on campus.
The singles ward I also attended in the same building was less helpful, as it was so easy to get get lost in the crowd, but there were some fantastic people, and some amazing teachers and speakers there, so church was on the whole an uplifting, and engaging experience. I was only there as a student though, which I think is very different experience to someone working in a career.
I did read a few years ago that the church has established an Institute centre in Manchester (apparently it’s the YSA building dedicated 2014), as there are several Universities there, and a relatively large number of LDS students. I think the idea was to have an older missionary couple run things. I don’t know if that would work as well as a full-time employed Institute director did for me. It would perhaps depend whether they were willing to engage in off the wall discussion session on topics that would not normally be covered in a standard Institute class, such as I experienced, or whether they are simply pushing a set agenda of mission and marriage which might well turn students off (some info on the Manchester YSA here).
I guess what I’m really recommending is that the church put its money where it’s mouth is and employ LDS chaplains on university campuses. That would be hugely beneficial to YSA students, many of whom are away from home for the first time, unless they’ve previously served a mission.
It seems a common thread in the comments are that most Higher-up leaders, YSA bishops, and even members seem to have good intentions, but are blind to many of the issues and needs of the YSA and how the YSA wards look to some of the participants.
I work for a mature company as a manager. This type of blindness just SCREAMS out to me the need for surveying the individual members (YSA in this case) to get feedback so that the blindness to the issues can be looked at and attempts made to address them. Go and employ Qualtrics from the happy valley. Another benefit to surveying is that in many cases it makes people feel they are being heard and that can calm down some portion of discontent (that does not work if over time it seems everything is ignored). I am looking forward to the book that Jana Riess is working on based on a survey THAT INCLUDES INACTIVE AND FORMER members. Even the informal sampling done within the church (i.e. asking bishops what YSA members perspective) isn’t looking at the whole population if 25% of the population you need to contact are not even at the address you have for them.)
This information *should* to go up and down the chain of command / lines of authority within the church. But what I perceive instead is that the church management culture is a case study of the “Yes Man” management style. You are NOT generally rewarded for pushing issues up the chain of command. Even Elder Packer said that we need to make sure we “face the right way” and “accept direction from leaders above us and not push our leaders for changes we think are needed” (my wording).
Until that management culture changes, I don’t expect any specific improvements. And not just within the YSA context.
I do want to say there are some examples at the lower levels of those that care and care enough to take the time to listen. I am impressed with stuff I have read on facebook about Richard Ostler who was released as a YSA bishop a short time ago. I get the feeling that he took the ministering part of his role as bishop as the primary task at hand and humbly and earned the love of most of the YSAs in his ward. I suspect if Elder Packer could talk with him that Bishop Ostler would be given a bit of reprimand for how he is willing to speak out, even publicly, on what he is experiencing on the ground as a YSA Bishop. We need more Bishop Ostlers and leaders above that will really listen to people like him.
I liked much of Handle withcare wrote.
I get the feeling that if the Church was a corporation ( oops is it?) the share holders might be asking serious questions……one of the difficulties is that the ‘corporates’ make all the decisions.
I have taught the YSA for years now and absolutely love it…..but the problems are complex about retention….however our Church experience offers little personal spiritual experience…our YSA Sunday School lesson is repeated as we know every 4 years, yes we can all get more out of the lesson but this is systematic of our Sunday experience.
Why isn’t our curriculum much more expansive and variable with opportunity to focus more on doctrine and how these ideas form me as a person and my relationship to God. In a time in our history when reflection and meditation are very distant in human behaviour….maybe our classes should be quite different…maybe our YSA should much more informally in ‘class’ ? Our sacrament meeting focus on ‘talks’ more than the Sacrament…..and no time is spent on spiritual reflection as we rush from speaker to speaker…..out Testimony meeting is largely a time for our personality distordered to have a static captured audience….with classics about ‘ livening this place up ‘ and telling rude jokes, to speaking to birds and the colours of the chapel walls I saw in the room we used to meet in in the Premortal life’…..how do our sensitive young people cope ( or anyone else) with elements in our worship like this ( I have hundred more examples)
Like us all our YSA need to be loved and needed and that belief in The Father and His Son, our Savior is imperative to our living on this earth….absolutely imperative…..and that fundamentally come from a need ,a belief and living it as a proof.
A new start of some sort is needed and quickly
I think many leaders really try, and really care, and really are energetic to think of ways to make church attractive to be part of a YSA ward or to be active on their own, and honestly try to care about these individuals. There are good people trying to retain them.
But outside the church-run universities culture…I just think a lot of church over decades has focused on certain things (like Hawkgrrrl said, the family instead of Christ), and they don’t have a strong message to attract the singles. At the BYU univiersities…I think they have more of a message of how it integrates with learning and growing and preparing for life in a spiritual and intellectual way.
I’ve got two boys graduated high school. One on a mission, one not likely to go. The one not going on a mission goes to a YSA ward instead of our home ward, and he just doesn’t find it offers him much that matters to his life. He is focused on university (not BYU) and preparing for a career. I don’t think he has huge doctrinal issues…he simply doesn’t find the message very appealing. To him, it’s just “meh”. It is something our family did. Not something he cares much about.
So…I hear leaders half-jokingly say that if a nice girl comes along, I bet he would get more active in the singles ward then. Is that really what we want the young generation to base their church activity on? Um…does that not just lead to relationship problems later…when the underlying testimony in the church is still “meh”, and a girl is hoping she can “convert” the young man and he’ll respond by being strong Peter Priesthood for the rest of his life?
The root seems to be…what the church has to offer singles is just not that appealing to some. It’s just all about going to the temple and finding eternal mates. There should be more of a purpose to worshiping God, at any and all stages and situations in life.
It would be nice to compare these statistics to same age group of other religions in the US…is it a “Mormon problem” or is it a general religion and generation trend?
My wife and I were assigned to a YSA branch for three years and to be honest I’m not sure why we were there other than to try and encourage people to leave home wards and attend with us. I was a clerk (something one of the kid’s could have done) and my wife mainly socialized. The ysa’s were there to mingle and socialize because the leadership positions were limited to teaching, RS, and EQP presidencies and then committees for activities of one sort or another. They were assigned to vt and ht with about as much success as in a home ward. As I compare the reasons that we attend church it’s basically the same for both groups, socializing/community, callings, and maybe worship but with the YSA branches there aren’t enough callings to go around and that’s not something I think you can fix without inventing make work positions like assistance song book coordinator. I think it’s better to leave them in home wards and just handle the getting together stuff out side on a stake basis. That way there are more openings for callings that are real and meaningful. Wards will have to be willing to open up positions to younger people but why not? It’s better for them to learn now than when they have jobs and babies and no time.
Just exactly do you hold someone ‘accountable’ in a volunteer organization?
Happy Hubby: Just to clarify, I think the talk about facing the right way was Lynn Robbins, not Packer: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/which-way-do-you-face?lang=eng
Someone did a post on how singles are treated like they are “kids” well into their late 20s which causes many of them to leave, being chaperoned by married “adults” who are younger than they are in many cases! I know we love to say that people “were offended,” but gimme a break–that’s insulting! It’s like we are deliberately trying to offend people by treating them like children.
There was a guest post a while back from Jess Lang (aka Celibate in the City) that was on this same topic: https://wheatandtares.org/2011/08/31/guest-post-on-lds-singles/
It’s great to see the stats from both leaks condensed into a single table. Thanks for posting this!
My thoughts echo those of others. The judgmentalism and pressure to conform are causing the Church to self sabotage. When you’re already bleeding young people at alarming rates, who in their right mind would ever think it’s a good idea to then turn to the young men and essentially tell them “you can serve a mission at 18 (maybe 19 if you want), or you can leave.”
I get that that wasn’t the intention, but that’s the reality these young men face. If you don’t serve a mission then you’re viewed as shirking “priesthood duties,” if you’re a “shirker” then it’s difficult to get girls to date you (they’ve been trained since young to marry only an RM), if you’re single, male, and not an RM there’s no place in the Church for you. In the end, the real effect is “serve a mission or leave.”
And as more and more young women serve and as more and more young men seek after women who are RM’s in a culturally-fueled quest for “greater righteousness,” I would expect to see some of the same effect show up with the women.
And none of the above even gets into the fact that missions are becoming less and less effective. For example, six of the nine wards in my stake have two missionary companionships assigned to them. I can’t imagine what these kids even do to stay busy and feel productive when being isolated to half a Midwestern suburban U.S. ward for their proselytizing area. It has to be demoralizing. Thus, even if you choose to take the ONLY path the Church is offering you, there’s a good chance you’ll still end up having an incredibly lackluster experience.
I’d love to see the Church just relax about all this. Let the YSA’s do what they want and welcome them with open arms however and whenever they want to participate. Alas, the Church I’m currently seeing seems to care much more about control than about love and acceptance.
Scott…well said. I agree. I think an unintended consequence by “raising the bar” to inspire people is that a large group just see the height of the bar and say…”well…I guess I’m not going to the CK. What’s the point?”
As more and more people demonstrate this with their feet…I think the correction the church needs to make is “church should be a church of love, all are welcome…come as you are…there is a place for everyone”. That just seems to be at conflict with decades old teachings of setting goals to achieve higher degrees of glory. It starts to require a better teaching of the tension between grace and works.
GBSmith,
I agree that YSA wards should be disbanded and the members should return to regular wards. Within a regular Ward there is authentic work to be done- primary children to teach, YMYW and elderly people to serve, pianos to heft, cheesecakes to bake, community service to do, indexing and genealogy to do, etc.
Is it any wonder that YSA wards languish spiritually when everyone is essentially at the same developmental level and there isn’t a lot of authentic service or contribution to give to the cause except planning your next super cool dance or ice cream social? (Clarifying- most YSA activities are self-centered wastes of time with little to no spiritual value.) Let’s be totally honest- YSA wards were created to be meat markets- to help young people mingle and marry.
Dear SLC, you don’t need to worry about the YSAs meeting up if you disband YSA wards and put the YSAs back in regular wards. There are plenty of male and female “Yentas” (matchmakers) in the wards. We could even formalize their role by creating a new calling in each Ward- the ward “yenta” who would be responsible for matchmaking. Wouldn’t that inspiration be awesome! I volunteer! Me first!!! I’m inactive, but I would come back in order to have that calling. Ward Yenta. Is someone taking notes? That is one of my best bloggernacle ideas to date. I already know several informal ones. We just have to make their work official-put it in the CHI.
I can only speak to what’s happening in my house. The problem for our YSA girls isn’t mobility, responsibility, connectedness, etc.
The problem is that they have tried for several years now to know for themselves that the church really isn’t a sexist place. They want to stay, but time after time – in institute classes, bishop’s interviews, class (one of them’s at BYU-P), in conversation with peers, in church-sanctioned apologetics, in the temple – they learn for themselves that it is.
When you’re a young woman, looking ahead at the rest of your life – a life you may very well live single – your church’s rhetoric about women matters.
They are just trying to piece together a spiritual life.
It’s interesting to me that the issue I mention isn’t even on the radar in these leaks. Have they no inkling?
Scott and Heber13,
Great points. The heightened demand for conformity and obedience to not at all gospel related cultural norms is really driving people away. My son, who’s nearly 16, already knows he’s not going to serve a mission. That, of course, will cause a domino effect as far as his church social circle. He’s a strong and independent enough kid that that won’t really bother him, but I can certainly see how much the “not conforming as a young person” thing really drives the young people away. Like Scott, I, too, wish the church would relax a bit, but it’s almost like a kind of corporate discipline and efficiency is ranked much higher in this church than a genuine, though flawed, effort to become like Christ. Serving a mission or getting married has nothing to do with what kind of disciple one can become. It’s a crying shame the church doesn’t realize this.
Ruth: For some reason, and I can’t imagine why this would be, men don’t notice the sexism nearly as much as the women notice it. Huh.
I agree, Brother Sky. I think most loving leaders would try to back pedal a bit to those youth who don’t stay on that “fast track” to exaltation (as it seems to be presented)…and try to make others feel ok if they don’t go on missions…but…the message has already been sent, and it sticks with the kids that are affected.
And…many RMs are going inactive…so it also makes you wonder if emphasis is still in the wrong place. I mean, go on a mission or not go on a mission…can you say it is really making a difference to become “christ-like”? I would say there is a correlation to being obedient and following the program. But they just aren’t the same thing.
There are quite a few good and insightful comments. Thanks for sharing them. I only spent a few months in a singles ward, so I don’t think that really counts.
Heber13 – I too would really like to see ALL of the stats – year by year. I find it a bit odd that they didn’t actually show trends. What was the YSA age-range retention back in the 1950’s? I kind of assumed it was quite high and said so in a draft of this post. One of the other Wheat & Tares reviewed it and asked where I got that number from. I do see that Janna Riess mentioning in http://religionnews.com/2016/04/14/mormons-20s-30s-leaving-lds-church/ that “we’ve gone from a retention rate of 72 percent to 70 to 64, that’s not half bad considering the times we live in.” I think she used the Pew data that she links to.
As far as how are other religions doing? I have read Elizabeth Drescher’s “Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of Americas’s Nones” and when you look at some of the stats of other churches, the church is doing better than most. But that could be re-phrased as, “The LDS church is lagging behind in the decline in retention of youth compared to other churches, but the slope is heading in the same direction.” It isn’t very comforting that the LDS church will delay entering into declining amount of membership a few years later that other churches in the US.
Hawkgrrrl, The talk was given by Elder Robbins, but in the talk he is telling the “advice” Elder Packer gave him to “Never forget which way you face!”
I like the post that you mentioned https://wheatandtares.org/2011/08/31/guest-post-on-lds-singles/ (I guess I need to do my homework a bit better before posting in the future). Her fix to the YSA issue was “If we found a way to get small numbers of singles together on a regular basis to have actual fun, while simultaneously allowing them to meet new people on a constant basis, then we will have done something.” Sounds like a good suggestion and does a bit to address the common comment of “the YSAs don’t find church appealing.” My only problem with her suggestion is – I want to keep having fun and meeting people even after I get married. I won’t vote for that suggestion if the YSAs don’t have to have a 3 hour block on Sunday, but I am still expected to!
I will hold on to my man card and dutifully ignore Ruth’s comment about patriarchy and sexism in the church. Of course I am being sarcastic. What can I say – other than, “Yep, there is that. It is clear to me even and as a man I probably still am blind to a bunch of it.”
I saw something in facebook that I have holy envy over: https://onsizzle.com/i/m-a-cathedral-welcome-m-we-extend-a-special-welcome-6762295 Oh that our family wards could be so accepting of YSAs (and everyone else)
The best single wards do two things: first, as many callings as possible go to the single members (including executive secretary, all the clerks, etc.) Second, the ward does regular effective service. One singles ward I was in did a tutoring class one evening every week where a K-6 student (often from a home where English was not the main language) was paired up with a specific YSA for the year. The tutoring would take place in the larger classrooms at the church. Even a YSA with a minor church calling can participate in a meaningful manner every week.
Happy Hubby: Very funny Facebook photo from the cathedral!
Part of my comment is to say that the particulars of YSA wards/YSAs in family wards are complicated. But we act like if we could just get them situated right, things would be good. My girls actually have a lot of patience for that. One ward situation won’t suit every person 18-30.
But they can’t ignore the doctrines so recently learned in the temple, or so recently reiterated in the essays, or so blithely repeated in classes. They are finally and fully in control of their religious life and are truly looking for a place to call home. It’s more than a little sad for them that it’s not likely to be the church of their youth. Sad for us as parents, too.
This post just caught me on the day I realized this is happening. I think I thought they would stay, after all.
I love the thoughtful and supportive responses this post has elicited! I would print this thread and mail it to headquarters if I thought there was a shadow of a chance it would be read before it got forwarded to my stake president (clarifying- I’d love for my SP to read this. I’d just be sad it bypassed the GAs).
My aunt served on the general RS board as a single, working woman. As much as she tried to bring up ideas about disbanding YSA wards and reintegrating, the only lasting change she was able to push through was that nylons and blazers are no longer required for general conference, just strongly encouraged. It’s the little things,I guess.
I have a friend, RM grew up in the Church, who was in training to be a Doctor. Earlier in the day he was assisting a surgeon do heart surgery and held a human heart in his hands. Later that day he was told he couldn’t get the church keys to the Institute building because he was single and obviously they can’t trust singles….. The contrast was an eye opening experience for him and then he had his name removed from the Church just after the Nov. 2015 policy change,
I’m not at all surprised. It’s terrible, but typical. I had church and institute keys for most of my YSA career, but only because I wasn’t afraid to throw a fit and refuse to play the organ unless given access to practice on the instrument itself. Come to think of it, I think I still have a church key to my last YSA ward…Oops.
Happy Hubby
Was first introduced to Bishop Ostler after having his son serving his mission in our area. Every YSA bishop, if not every bishop, should be required to take a class from this guy to figure out how to handle a ward with love and compassion.
This is certainly disturbing news to see actual numbers and this from the presumably fastest growing church on the face of the earth. However, I believe the singles problem is a FARCE.
It is a myopic perspective that ignores the elephant in the room. The entire correlated LDS church is floundering. Organizational tweaking isn’t enough. I am on the opposite keel of the age spectrum (in my second adolescence moving towards the childhood of old age) and I have almost exactly the same experiences at the LDS church as is described for the younger adults (except nobody is pressuring me to take a second wife).
The conceptual disconnect behind the singles problem is “the sunk cost logical fallacy.” Once a person invests enough in a cause, they find it increasing difficult to abandon it even if it is not in their best interest. Young adults don’t have the same level of sunk cost into the LDS church as the other adults. They look at the LDS church with fresh intelligent eyes, unencumbered with as much personal sacrifice and don’t see enough benefit, social or spiritual, to be worth it to them.
The solution is quite simple but revolutionary. If you build it they will come. Stop worrying about the things that we can’t control, like our history and human agency and start doing something about the things we could improve. This does not have to be the “true but crappy” church or a high-cost and low-return church that mostly relies on unquestioning faith and obedience in the face of self-righteous mediocrity and sexist stupidity and promises of remote godhood in the next life. Build a truthful church that teaches the gospel of Jesus Christ with power and authenticity in a way that empowers and is attractive to people in general at each stage of life, one that would naturally draw many people in from other faiths and social circumstances (without being hounded by a clueless missionary army 80,000 strong).
I predict even more stormy weather for HMS Mormon with even more drastic social and technological changes ahead. A robust religion will survive the tempest. Will we?
I would think one of the best ways to keep young adults engaged is having the conversations in the meetings…like…real Sunday school classes to study and talk about what they are hearing. Even if we don’t know answers…having the talks will do more to keep people striving to look for answers and study things out than creating a stifled atmosphere of “All is well in Zion…if you don’t think so you are the problem” …which would certainly send the message there is a reason others are leaving, and as much as they want to cling to the church of their youth…it doesn’t feel that way anymore and the path of least contention is to just stop attending.
HH: That is some additional background in the surveys that is useful, I agree. Even if they are finding it follows trends outside mormonism, it doesn’t remove the concern that anyone leaving is a concern and we should always minister and preach and invite to come to Christ and try to keep all feeling welcome to attend. It doesn’t remove the urgency…but it may help clarify what root causes should be focused on if we better understand what is really happening.
Mike – You nailed it. You also nailed my hope for the future.
Look – the Brethren listened to the comments!!!
http://www.ldsdaily.com/entertainment/lds-church-break-singles-wards/
(I realize it is a parody)
Dear Friends, Really good post and discussion. I’m honored that my name came up as a helpful YSA Bishop. Thanks you. I do believe that most of our “wounds” are self-inflicted with our YSAs. I don’t believe they are less faithful, less diligent, or less spiritual than my generation (I’m 55). As you know, I wish we could look inward as a church and see how we might do things different to connect with our YSAs better.
In my YSA Ward, we had 1/3 active, 1/3 inactive but did consider Mormonism their spiritual home, and 1/3 inactive with no desire to reconnect. I spent a lot of time with the middle group (often connecting with them via the DM functions of social media since I had no other way to connect … except knocking on their door and that rarely worked). I spent a lot of time listening to this group so I could really understand them. It was so helpful for me to learn where they were coming from and that some of my initial assumptions were incorrect (like they just needed to read and pray more). Some general conclusions:
1) The culture seems rigid and judgmental: If they had missed a checklist item along the way (e.g mission) then they felt liked they didn’t belong. And/or other stuff (like clothing, tats, etc). They just felt three is a certain look/checklist to feel welcome in the congregation. I sometimes wished I had a tat so that those with tats would feel more welcome.
2) Burdened by sin: There is soooo much shame in our culture. So many felt that they were no longer worthy to attend church. I tried to teach there is no belief or behavior hurdle to attend and/or feel welcome in our congregation. We are good at teaching “don’t sin” … but we are less good at teaching that sin is part of mortality and we grow and learn through sin … if we can get over it we are usually refined in a positive way. Here is a post I made about sin, shame and the iceberg concept: https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10209526826840693 and another one about pornography (that I believe is peaking now and our wonderful YSAs will be there parents and leaders of tomorrow and will have much better tools (because they are the first generation to deal with 24/7 access and “get it”) https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10210699039265271. Masturbation is sure messing up many of the YSAs I served … I told them it was about a 1 or 2 on the sexual sin scale, but they felt the shame and guilt of a category 5 or 6 sin. Then they just feel unworthy and withdraw (https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10209126875962171). I love the Prodigal Son and the hope this parable gives https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10209802682896922
3) LGBTQ ministry: The ministry of Christ to love and accept others … even those the people in power deem as unworthy … doesn’t (for some) line up with the current church position for towards the LGBT community. I had two straight YSA’s resign during my time because of this issue. We needed them. Their hearts are so good and pure and focused on serving others. Then, the LGBTQ members themselves find it a difficult road to stay in Mormonism. Here is a talk I have in my home ward after being released on this issue: https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10210429652330766
4) Hard Historical Issues: Some of my YSA’s were learning stuff for the first time about church history. It was very difficult to have taught one thing (for the RMs) and then learn something different. I think the issue was more they felt the leaders of the church hadn’t always told them the truth about history versus the history itself. It is more of a trust issue. Here is a link to another talk I gave about my mini-faith crisis with the policy statements but why I remain a deeply committed Mormon: https://www.facebook.com/richard.ostler.5/posts/10210497270621181
I have great faith in the YSA age group. I learned so much from them. I often felt I was the student and they were the teacher. Loving and accepting comes easier for them. I hope and pray more of them can find a “seat at the table” in Mormonism. Thanks, Richard (Papa) Ostler
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Richard. I think it is clear just from reading your comments that you really did listen. I see you mentioning in your talk that you “listened to understand” versus “listened to respond, preach, or fix.” I have respect for that and even if the YSA couldn’t always articulate it – I am sure they felt it.
Papaostler, Bro Sky and many others have touched on factors that have negatively affected my children’s involvement with the church.
#1 The cookie cutter mold. One son was subject to negative comments from church members and at least one leader when he chose to attend a top ranked public university for his major rather than BYU. Sadly, at the institute and ward associated with the university he experienced
additional thoughtless and ignorant comments from those in leadership positions in relation to his wonderful non-member girlfriend and other issues (like serving a mission).
Formulaic, repititive thinking and teaching that doesn’t allow for individual differences. For one, we really don’t have all the answers though we too often pretend we do. The fact is, we don’t even know all the questions. It is possible prayerful people can get differing answers to the questions that vex them. For some, a “testimony” comes easily, for others not easily (or maybe not ever). Some people might need a calling, while others simply would like to be free to find their own path–maybe just attending sacrament meeeting –and not become the ward “project” to fit them into the cookie cutter mold. Just welcome them. Get to know them for who they are. Respect and accept them. Love them.
The Prop 8 campaign was atrocious in our stake and included (among other things) the seminary teaching the class that great calamities would befall CA if Prop 8 didn’t pass. Demonizing others and fear mongering isn’t productive. Sure, you might temporarily win the battle, but you lose the war.
Lois-similar issues here in the UK for our family. It’s a good ward with good people, but can’t accommodate my kid’s interests and questioning. So, eventually I run out of promises that it can, and my kids make their choices. I guess this is happening throughout the church as kids seek their ‘ tribe’ and find a disconnect. I’m not blaming anyone, least of all my kids. Oh no, got that wrong. I blame me. And of course that’s not helping.
Looking forward to catching up with your posts PaO, we can only try to engage.
This isn’t just the LDS church struggling with this.
I was listening to Episode 42 of “The Deconstructionists Podcast” where they interviewed Diana Butler Bass about her book, “Grounded”. At about the 42 minute mark Diana says,
I think is a huge cultural critique. It is almost like these people are pointing at the church and saying, “PLEASE do something or we are going to leave” and the church has just sort of said, “you will come back once you have children.” … I have stood in rooms where I have BEGGED people to stop saying bad things about the young adults that are leaving the church. I say, “They have a legitimate critique and you are not listening to them” and people say, “Oh no. Once they grow up they will see things the way we see it and they will all come back.” And I will just stand there and say, “Don’t you understand how that is treating these humans beings that can think for themselves as if they are less than. Just because they are younger than you. Please listen to what they say and folks will not listen.”
They go on to say many of these leaving are spiritually hungry and looking for that spiritual food within the church, but not finding it – even though they still believe in God.
She then mentioned a survey that 60% of the people that have left the religion of their youth say they left because they can no longer believe what their religion teaches.