Mormons aren’t the only ones asking that type of question. Church attendance and religious belief percentages for Millennials, as opposed to other generational cohorts, are plunging for all denominations. There is a nice Q&A with a sociologist over at the Pew Center that lays out some of the facts. He suggests this is a long-term problem:
There used to be this view that there was a religious life cycle, that when you got older and married and had kids you got more active in organized religion. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. In the past 20 years, we really haven’t seen a lot of evidence of that cycle continuing.
What this means, in simpler terms, is that fewer young Mormons will remain active in the Church and fewer of those who become inactive will return to activity. While a few may find rehabilitated religious belief in another Christian denomination or in another faith tradition altogether, many seem inclined to leave organized religion behind and either cobble together an eclectic do-it-yourself belief system (the “spiritual but not religious” types) or become happily undefined (the “nones”).
There are two issues here for the Church. One is the socialization and retention issue, turning LDS kids and youth into LDS missionaries and then young LDS married couples likely to parent the next LDS generation. The Deseret News ran an interview with Adam Miller, an LDS philosophy professor in Texas who is one of the bright lights in the blossoming Mormon Studies field. He is the author of Letters to a Young Mormon, a short book directed to Millennials and parents of Millennials. The interview notes that a second edition of the book, with two new chapters, will be available today, Jan. 1 2018. From the interview:
I don’t know that ‘Letters to a Young Mormon’ is exactly the right thing for everyone all the time to read or to hear, but I do hope that it can be the kind of thing that can be helpful to a certain kind of person who finds themselves in a certain kind of place.
I think that certain kind of person is a Millennial and that certain kind of place is the Millennial mindset that questions organized religion like it questions organized anything.
Also at the Deseret News, Miller published an op-ed a couple of weeks ago, “Listening is the first step in speaking to Mormon millennials.” Maybe that’s a first step that parents sometimes forget. And leaders. Maybe all Mormons just aren’t very good at listening. He hits the second issue for the Church, albeit indirectly: missionary work. If we can’t reach Mormon Millennials, how can we possibly reach non-Mormon Millennials? “Which church is right?” is not a message that resonates with Millennials. “We have priesthood authority and you don’t” is another non-starter. Here is Miller’s view, from the op-ed:
This isn’t just a matter for missionaries. This is a generational problem. The question isn’t just: how do we talk to those that don’t share our faith? The more basic and urgent problem may be: how do we talk to young Mormons that do?
A last item is the recent “YSA Face to Face with Elder Oaks and Elder Ballard.” This is an official outreach to Mormon Millennials — the Church is at least trying. I confess I haven’t listened to the broadcast. There is a transcript floating around somewhere as well. Cody here at W&T did an analysis of the questions that YSAs submitted. I almost think the questions are more interesting than the answers (which apparently didn’t really answer anything). Rational Faiths posted a rather negative review of the event. The SL Trib ran a rather negative opinion piece reviewing the event as well. If anyone has a link to a positive review of the discussion, please post it in the comments.
So what’s the bottom line? The Church seems to recognize the need to change the message to reach Millennials, but I’m not sure an F2F with speakers three generations removed from Millennials is the right format. Unofficial outreach by Miller and others like Terryl Givens and Patrick Mason are helpful but likely reach a much smaller audience than official avenues like F2F or General Conference. Maybe the one-size-fits-all approach that has heretofore been the LDS approach needs to change. The traditional path of Scouting, seminary, a mission, and temple marriage doesn’t work for an increasing chunk of LDS youth, it seems. Maybe the Church needs to think about messages like “a mission is not for every LDS youth” or “temple marriage is great, but civil marriage is pretty good too, and we can even work with a deferred-marriage relationship.” The Church has to find a way to normalize alternative paths to lifelong activity in the Church.
Anyone else have insight into the Millennial problem or some success stories to share? Or is Mormonism truly becoming irrelevant to Millennials?
Wheat & Tares 
“ “Listening is the first step in speaking to Mormon millennials.” Maybe that’s a first step that parents sometimes forget. And leaders. Maybe all Mormons just aren’t very good at listening”
The above quote capture so much. When my carefully built life hit an unexpected bump and the wheels fell off and I was thrown into a spiritual ditch, I was expecting my religious community to come help bandage me up and maybe offer to loan me some tools while I put my life back together. I thought someone would ask about that bump that none of them had every experienced. I thought they would want to listen. I was wrong.
My story was too uncomfortable, too unexpected and too tragic. They were too busy trying to share the perfect scripture or GC talk. They wanted my story and my feelings to just go way. People lined up to give me advice. No one wanted to listen. No one cared about what I figured out about me and my relationship with God.
LDS religion and culture pushes members to share the gospel. The counsel for so very long has been to have members open their mouths and talk about the church.
Maybe it is time that more people sit still and listen to someone else’s journey. Really listen. Listen and think about what was said instead of listening for a break in the conversation so that a lecture can be given or a testimony shared.
It may sound strange, but there was a good post on the positive aspects of the Face to Face over at the exMormon Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/7emaah/the_overlooked_positive_side_of_the_ballard_and/
Personally, I perceive that (yes) the LDS Church is losing the battle to keep millenials engaged with the faith; at the same time many older members are finding themselves in the midst of their own battle to retain; or at least rebuild their beliefs. And, I think the scale and scope of the problem is MUCH LARGER than any of us would like to believe. I’m afraid that the church itself is primarily to blame as (for over a century) it presented a mythological and “dandied up” narrative that has been slowly, but surely destroyed by the mounting historical evidence and scientific fact that simply does not support the tale. As Dr. Richard Bushman (the highly recognized LDS Historican) has said “the predominate narrative is not true and can no longer be sustained”.
While I truly don’t believe that the LDS Church leadership, through the decades, deliberately meant to mislead the people. But, rather like Boyd K. Packer said “some things that are true – are not very useful” and the church presented a vastly simplifed, “clean” version of it’s history. LIke it or not, many members view this harsh reality as a violation of their trust. As we all know so well – once trust has been damaged or brought into question – it is VERY DIFFICULT to re-establish it.
If the LDS Church is to survive (and I sincerely hope it does) I think “the Church” and it’s surrounding culture are going to have to change rather dramatically; perhaps even starting with an apology.
“we can even work with a deferred-marriage relationship.”
Unpack this. Really???? The church far more needs to work on finding places for singles than people in relationships who can’t be bothered to get married.
I think the approach to people in the West needs to reflect the approach Truman Madsen took in his gospel/philosophy book, “Eternal Man”, which was intensely popular.
The short answer to the question that is the post’s title is yes, at least to judge by the numbers. And it’s especially irrelevant to YSAs, who church wide have about an eighty percent non-attendance rate (in my stake, it’s about 95 %). There are a number of reasons for this, many if which I and others have mentioned before: lack of trust in any institution, lack of faith in the Mormon Church’s narrative, most of which is either unprovable or highly suspect, the church’s continued bigotry, patriarchy, etc.. I could go on ad nauseam, but I won’t.
However, I think one of the biggest issues is that the core, bedrock things that the church has to offer are simply irrelevant to most millennials and really, most people. The church simply teaches and is founded upon doctrines that younger people, LDS or not, simply don’t care about. Community isn’t important to millennials, at least not the kind of community the church traditionally offers. The church is hopelessly out of touch when it comes to current sophisticated and nuanced thinking about marriage, gender, sexuality, etc. (if you spend years around young people talking about gender, identity politics, sexuality etc., it’s clear our leadership is so far behind the curve that they appear to simply be babbling about things that they really don’t know anything about). And most people, young or old, Mormon, “religious” or not already believe they’ll be with their families in the afterlife, so there’s not really much for the church to “sell” anymore and of course, the ignorance it displays on a number issues, including its own history, just hastens its lack of appeal to younger folks.
And I’ve really got to second Damascene’s comment. With a very few exceptions, there is no-one in my ward that I would have felt comfortable talking to about my own issues when I was young. Hardline members have so bought into the false narrative of the plan of happiness and the simplicity of Sunday school answers that anyone whose experience doesn’t fit their narrow expectations of what a human being is supposed to be is simply ostracized, either on purpose or accidentally. Mormons, it turns out, are extremely uncomfortable with anyone whose experiences might be different from theirs. And young adults are especially sensitive to that kind of benign exclusion/judgement. No wonder they don’t want to hang around. If the church was the same as it was today when I was an investigator, I certainly wouldn’t have joined. Listening is hard, but necessary, although I think it’s too late to come to any solutions that will save this generation of young people. A visiting GA to our stake began his leadership training talk with the words “It’s possible to lose an entire generation.” It’s sad to say, but I think we’ve already lost it.
I think this is an interesting outreach effort coming up, devotional mixed with socializing and activities, they’re trying: https://www.lds.org/church/events/january-2018-worldwide-devotional-for-young-adults?cid=HP_WE_3-1-2018_dSI_fCNWS_xLIDyL1-C_&lang=eng
Today’s Mormonism has one template that is applied to everyone, as if we are widgets on an assembly line. It’s corporate philosophy pushed as religion.
Organized religion needs to earn trust and relevance. Generational inertia doesn’t cut it anymore. If organized religion wants to survive, I think it should look to building community through real, local service (not the incestuous “service” that is done in LDS wards today). Give people a reason to get together. We’re not there to be entertained or have meetings. Often missionaries develop a closeness with each other due to their shared service at a close, local level. Why not build ward communities upon the same concept? Buy an apartment complex, renovate it, and provide affordable housing – do things that truly improve the local community. We could do so much but choose to follow a bland, corporate model that just isn’t engaging to many.
So many great comments. I think I align pretty much with Cody.
We have our kids in church 3 hours every Sunday (plus YM/YW and seminary) to help them experience God. They have gotten great at going through the Sunday (Wed, early morning) routine, but they are not having conversion experiences. We promise miracles, but no miracles actually happen that are not explained by science. Our worship services are ‘dead’ to them (or as my kids say, Mom, it’s so booorrrriiiing).
More of the same is not going to solve this problem. To keep the Millenials we need to build a church, starting with Sunday worship, that truly brings one before a Living Christ. I love the idea of doing this through service and that would be a great place to start. I don’t know that it is enough though. The first thing to find out is where and how are Millenials finding their spirituality (I’m going to guess the answer is more of an Adam Miller Buddhism) and then ask how do we bring that experience into Sunday, Wed, Morning devotion.
And then there are the extreme conservative social issues. My kids see the church’s stance on SSM as unbelievably awful in a bullying kind of way. I can’t see how the church is going to change their minds. I am also really worried about my daughters and the temple. The woman’s-role-in-life- as-man’s-help-mate ideology is so insultingly old-fashioned to them, they can’t relate. I have no idea how to fix this for them. Heck, I haven’t figured out how to fix it for myself.
Millenial here, raised Mormon since I was 3, was 100% active until about a year ago. While I fall within the discussed demographic, I only speak my truth. I really like a few of the comments above but I also feel that they’re missing a major point for why I’ve left the church. Having left the church, I naturally don’t see a strong argument for membership there. I hope the following doesn’t come across as too incendiary.
While I think the church should modernize their message AND come clean about the origin stories they let persist AND apologize for past mistakes, I don’t think that’s going to solve their problem.
What’s going to solve the problem? I actually don’t think it can be solved. Because I see their problem as not HOW they’re doing X or Y but what they claim to be. Mormonism (and religions in general) claim to be the ONLY source of peace in this life and happiness in the next.
Is it true that Mormonism makes that claim? I don’t know if you all have had significantly different experiences but mine boiled down to: All good things come from God. We’re the only ones with the priesthood. We’re the only ones with the complete truth.
This kind of “exclusivity” attitude is destructive in a LARGE variety of ways, large and small. It drives a lot of the cultural issues discussed here. The largest being: It can’t be true.
In this time of global information age, we’re meeting people who have a vastly different religion (or NO religion) and guess what? They are still capable of being moral, ethical, good, happy people. They aren’t suffering until they go to my particular church in my particular corner of the world. They’ve found meaning in this life with or without considering if there’s a life to follow and are doing fine. People who were like this used to look like great potential converts to me. “They’d make a great Mormon! All they need to do is research the Book of Mormon!”
Except…nowadays “research” doesn’t mean read a few chapters and see if it gives you a good feeling. It means going online and researching every aspect of the church. If you’re on this website then you probably already know more about church history than I did (before this past year), so you know it doesn’t paint a very convincing picture. The CES Letter, Letter For My Wife…not perfect documents by any measure but definitely shocking and not without merit . A year ago I thought that the story of the Restoration was spiritually uplifting. Now, the stark difference between what’s taught in church and what’s present just in church historical documents is frankly disgusting. I think it takes a LOT of faith to know the church history and still believe in the Eternal Plan as being divine revelation. I think that the threat of losing some eternal reward factors in that a lot but that’s neither here nor there.
This has become long and circuitous and probably inflammatory and I know some of you are MUCH better at research than myself but I think I’ve reached my point: I (and I think many Millenials as well) no longer see the point of faith, the comparative value in faith; especially faith in an obviously imperfect organization that claims exclusive divine right and wants you to be in a monogamous relationship with it (heh heh). There can be true peace in this life without it, and using the next life as some sort of leverage just comes across as desperate.
I still think spiritual thoughts, I still find stories in the bible and bom inspiring, I feel more free to make a connection with anything that moves me, instead of trying to fit it into a Mormon narrative first.
What can the church honestly offer Millenials?
(one last apology, saw this article around bed time and wast really interested in participating so the above isn’t meant to fling insults, but just present a perspective and continue discussion.)
Unless the next Prophet is Uchtdorf I think the international church dies over the next few generations. And even with Uchtdorf not sure he can move the others.
awonderingwarlock – I think my 20 year-old daughter could have written the same thing. When it finally dawned on her, after some tortuous months of salvage operations, that she was truly free to choose, she left. It was bittersweet.
The lionizing of Joseph Smith is one of her biggest complaints, and darned if I didn’t just sit through Primary sharing time two days ago that was all about him. Less than a week after Christmas, and we couldn’t expand on that? Instead we ask all these little kids, “Who ELSE’S birthday is in December?!?”
Yep. My kids have a similar story to tell, and we didn’t even make it past year one of seminary. In our culture, getting kids up at 5am for their parents religion would be viewed as abusive, and it actually felt that way too when the kid has no buy in.
I’m baffled as to the way forward, but I try to start with me. I try to fellowship with YSA’s and let them know I care about their challenges and isolation, and have every intention of using the less standardised RS lessons as a way of getting real. I’ve found that giving people a forum to struggle with their truth has opened up some space for the individual in the organisation – not sure if or how that solves the problem though. I have many friends, ex bishops and their families in some cases, who can no longer justify the impact this has all had on their families, and it’s often associated with struggling through punishing years of seminary and coming through the other side with kids who walk out the mormon door. And we have an amazing, humble bishop. I think his example and love is all that’s keeping me here. Wrong guy and I’d be out the door.
The church’s institutional stance on gay families was the nail in the coffin for my kids. I felt like giving an ironic high five to the guys for that payback after a lifetime spent serving in the institutional church when I could have used that time to build the community in which I live, and indeed some friendships. Rather than that we put ourselves in a position of being treated with wariness and suspicion, if not downright hostility by our no mo community. This also is a disincentive to our kids. Right now the answer as to whether it was all worth it is a loud and sad ‘No’. I no longer want to be anywhere my kids aren’t.
My son is currently studying medicine rather than serve a mission. I intend to be proud of him and his choices.
handlewithcare – high five to your son and the rest of your family as well. I hear you loud and clear on the good leadership/bishop front: I stay (and serve in leadership myself) because I feel like our little community still offers the chance for service, Christian discipleship, and growth. That tone is set by our loving, patient bishop. If leadership switched to someone of a more Pharisaic bent, I wouldn’t last long.
The relationships at church embody for me the intent of our spiritual teachings. If that gets mucked up then we have nothing to offer ourselves or others.
Thank you AWanderingWarlock – Your comments were hugely insightful and not at all insulting. Your experience seems to be at the heart of what the rest of us non-Millenials are trying to describe/understand. Mind if I keep your post to share privately?
I am rereading No Man Knows My History (excellent book, it’s too bad it has such a stigma). What I think Brodie does well is transport you back in time to feel what it would have been like to live in that time and give context to what was in the air. Everyone seems to agree that Joseph Smith was oozing with charisma and had a knack for making people see and experience his religious vision. Some people think he was a con man, others a prophet. They were getting revelations, lost scripture and finding remnants of the altar where Adam made sacrifices on a regular basis. My point is, he was successful because he tapped into what were burning questions for people in his day and made it tangible and exciting.
What this great post and comments point out is that, for so many people, the Church is no longer making people feel a part of something exciting. Church meetings are boring, the Church is extremely conservative and risk-adverse and the speakers at Conference are largely old men who repeat the same messages we’ve heard week in and week out at Church. This is not connecting with millenials and a lot of GenXers are also slipping out the door. I recommend a few things: 1. The Church should survey and do focus groups with people who have left. Listen to them, find out what made the difference. 2. Ask these people what, if anything, the Church could do to make them come back. In his Mormon Stories interview, Mike Norton even admitted there were things he missed and that if the Church radically changed, he’d come back. I don’t know that we would get a lot of people back, but I think the feedback could provide some great insights into the problems. 3. Start killing sacred cows! We need to put everything on the table and evaluate what can go. If we are really a Church that believes in continuing revelation, there needs to be some effort to unpack what is tradition and what is doctrine that we want to keep. We are still the Church that we created in the 20th Century to assimilate into American culture. We need to reevaluate and change again. Prohibition has been gone for almost 100 years, maybe it’s time to look at returning to the original spirit of the Word of Wisdom.
Right now, we seem to be beginning to recognize a problem exists. The solution is to make things more accessible by social media and add hashtags. This is a band aid and won’t fix the gaping wound. People in the world today are yearning for community and to be a part of helping fix the world’s problems. We do both of these things really well. People are less interested in things like truth claims, authority claims or saving ordinances. Right now we are answering questions no one is asking and I fear fewer people will join and more will leave.
Millennials are not bound to the church through convention. Their only attachment to the church comes from the value they ascribe to the impact of the church in their own lives. Sadly, the church is poorly positioned to demonstrate this impact quickly or truly mentor thirsty followers for the following reasons:
1. Spiritual growth is a long and angst-filled journey requiring discipline. Any saint in the church or guru in another faith tradition will say so. Like learning to play the piano, spiritual development is slow and often unmarked by perceptable milestones. Millennials want EVIDENCE of progress, but in Mormonism we only have two levels- “the spirit” and “not”. In between is often a hamster wheel of obedience and service. Many are caught at this lower “works-based” level while still thirsting for higher levels of transformation.
2. Correlation. We have a dumbed-down curriculum that intentionally avoids radical impact.
3. We lack gurus and teachers. No, not 14 yr old boys, but real teachers- people that are not only spiritual giants, but know how to show others how to work through spiritual stages. The church grew exponentially over the past 70 years, and now most wards and branches contain sheep, but few shepherds. Yes, there are a few giants sprinkled in wards and stakes, but they may or may not be directly working with millennials. They often spend their time tied up in endless meetings.
In the early days of the church, everyone knew Brother Joseph, the GAs. The saints not only heard great sermons, but were personally tutored in their day-to-day lives by giants. Today, our GAs are separated from us geographically, numerically (approximately 100 to 16 million), by stupid corporate formality, by health and age issues, and by a lack of ability to dialogue authentically (they can’t speak to anyone without the whole world listening and therefore have to curb what they say.)
4. We haven’t got a mission or a backbone. The early saints were building Zion in order to bring in the millennium. They were going to eradicate hunger and hate, poverty and sin and personally welcome the Savior back. Today? Meh. We’ve toned down our ambition and just want happy families. In our ultra political neutrality, we shy away from real issues like disparities in healthcare, education, and opportunity. All the while singing, “all is well”, when the truth for many millennials is that it is certainly not.
5. Stepping in it.
The church as a whole , the “fabulous” PR department, and church leaders are unfortunately making decisions and statements that turn off millennials. Excommunicating people like Kate Kelly, giving talks like “Mothers who know”, or the recently released RS President (Julie B. Beck) -a woman who led the largestbwomen’s Organization in the world – saying a Mormon prayer at the UT Trump-Pence rally- in the midst of the “grab ‘em by the p$&?!@“ scandal, the MoTab singing at 45’s highly unpopular inauguration, etc. all poison the well for millennials.
Put these all together and the future does not look promising for male, female, or gender-bending millennials, even with mission ages reduced, temple baptism towel duties increased, and more correlated meetings scheduled.
Ruth, thanks for your kind words. One of the most difficult parts (at first) of this trial was feeling alone. Hearing other’s stories and finding supportive communities like WheatAndTares is a comfort. It sounds like you show her unconditional love and I think that’s ultimately the most important thing. I’m not sure where she is mentally but tell her there’s a stranger on the internet who shares her feelings.
ReTx: That’s very kind of you to ask and I don’t mind at all. I would of course add that I don’t really know what I’m doing…I really am wandering. It’s been rewarding and terrifying so far. Experiencing peace/oneness/spirit/divinity in a wide variety of things now feels more genuine without feeling the need to mold it into a particular belief set, like seeing a rated R movie that makes me feel closer to humankind’s troubles (I Heart Huckabees if you’re feeling adventurous). On the other hand, I’ve definitely made some mistakes over the past year and the consequences to those mistakes feel more raw…like there’s no one else sharing the burden. I think that will ultimately become a positive thing but it’s a consequence I didn’t anticipate.
I like the idea of churches being another beautiful story to help be mindful when doing the things we do, not the thing we spend our time doing. I believe that it’s everyone’s responsibility to lift where they stand, to improve the human condition. I also think WHY that responsibility exists doesn’t require any spiritual discussion. HOWEVER, there is something…romantic?…about having a story in your head that matches the situation. Christ washing the feet of his apostles, Arjuna preparing for battle, Samwise carrying Frodo. I don’t think it’s Truth that determine the potency of a story. It’s whether it touches us and gives us that feeling that has a million names. Regarding Mormonism in particular, I think the story of eternal families provides an inspiring framework for how we feel about our families (sometimes). Do I think it’s true? I don’t know, the idea starts to unravel upon inspection (A Thoughtful Faith had a podcast recently that covers this in a little detail and I constructed a few concerns as well). BUT: does that really matter if it helps me express my love and serve my family in this life?
First, it is not just the young people. They leave because they have less social capital invested in the faith. The older people have what I call the sunk cost logical fallacy (or the tendency to throw good money after bad when applied to purchases). Our religion is crappy and boring and out of touch. And ours is expensive both financially and time wise. Another way to “leave” is to disinvest and disengage, mentally and emotionally. Of those sitting in a church meeting, how many are on their digital devices? Every prayer every week is announced to be given according to the program by this mysterious person named By Invitation because we can’t get anyone else to do it. Another symptom is what I call flaky Mormon casserole or the numerous ways people weasel out of responsibilities. The local leaders really have a hard time getting people to do anything. The same 10 families erodes down to the same 5 families. Passiveness and sometimes passive aggression is rampant. I see almost everything mentioned in the responses above happening.
One fundamental question (quite beyond which church) is the question of why church? Unless we answer this, we will fail.
Specific living and meaningful answers are difficult but I think fall into a few categories.
1. Dealing with death. All these young people are going to die, eventually. Some sooner than they think. They will see friends dying even at a young age. And their parents. In the 19th century people living in large families and tight knit smaller communities with a somewhat higher infant mortality rate and more diseases and accidents faced death more often. I think this drives religious life.
2. Community. We are all social creatures and even young people value community. The trouble is that religions have failed to structure themselves in ways appealing to youth community interactions. We see the explosion of the bloggernacle. My daughter (mid 20’s) probably has about 800-1000 people on facebook and she keeps track of a large number of them. She keeps in touch with friends she met growing up in the ward. Her unaffiliated husband is building an expensive house for them and the last thing he wants is for her to inform the local bishop. They have zero intention of forming even the slightest community connection with the new local ward. He has been to several church meeting and was not impressed.
3.At some point people start having children. Grandparents are usually distant and young parents need some guidance in how to raise their children. Experienced parents can help. A local Methodist church where my wife teaches grew from about 1700 members to over 5000 in the first decade of this century. About 75% of it due to their excellent pre-school program and about 20% due to their extremely well-organized youth sports programs. Young mothers initially saw preschool as a way to get a needed 2-3 hr break from the grind of raising the children and to do part-time jobs. But soon they found that the teachers of their children had valuable insights in the budding behavioral problems and had practical answers in how to better raise them. Many of the parents began attending the social events of the church, the best of which are near professional level musical productions. I don’t know how many experienced a sincere conversion to orthodox Christianity but it had to happen in more than a few cases.
4. Service. Efforts that clearly benefit the community locally all the way to international efforts. We have trouble getting people to vacuum the church for free. But relatively inactive members of other churches eagerly send their children to Mexico, Central America or the Carribean for a few weeks in the summer to dig wells, build better huts, plant trees and other helpful things.
We will fail if we focus on failure. We need to explore things that work. We must be willing to fail 10 times to find 1 success. Does this sound like the current LDS church with its myopia, top-down control, its pretending to be perfect?
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At Affirmation, we took notice of the F2F broadcast and wrote something up focused on LGBT questions being asked and the answers to some of those questions that were provided. Almost 4% of the questions submitted on the page for the broadcast dealt with LGBT issues. This is fairly significant, and perhaps just one area where the church and millennials are finding themselves at an impasse. https://affirmation.org/oaks-ballard-unanswered-questions/
At Affirmation, we took note of the F2F broadcast. Of the thousands of questions submitted on the broadcast page by young adults, almost 4% of them were related to LGBT issues. This is fairly significant, and just one area where young adults aren’t finding real and relevant answers. https://affirmation.org/oaks-ballard-unanswered-questions/
What I’m forgetting is that in my brighter moments, I’m able to tell myself that God will do His work with my children, as He has with me. Or why does it matter?
There has been a lot of interesting things said in this article and in the comments, and I have a question for everyone but especially Millennials. One of the common things said about improving things with the LDS church is Service. We should do more service in general or more community based service. A couple of people have suggested it in this thread and in others on the same topic in different posts. And here is my question.
Do members and especially Millennials looking to do more service? And what kind of Service are we talking about? Not to single out Cody Hatch but he gave concrete example of a Ward or Stake size long term project. Is that kind of project that Millennials are looking for? How about non-Millennials? Would Community building service project help people and Millennials stay connected to the church or are the other issues brought up overriding?
What are peoples thoughts?
There is a disconnect from people who eat, drink and breathe church and those who are just trying to get through all of the troubles of life and reconcile what they hear at church vs what their reality is. This isn’t just with the millennials. Here are two prime examples Elder Ballard https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/to-whom-shall-we-go?lang=eng and Elder Featherstone http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-encounters-with-institutional.html. This carrot/stick approach revolves around motivating people to stay and participate with
-promise of immediate blessings
-promise of eternal blessings
-threat of immediate consequences
-threat of eternal consequences
The eternal aspect is hard to grasp. It is hard to imagine a God that has a chosen people and a chosen religion. The church is softening on that a little. Check this out https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/treasuring-all-truth
The immediate blessing/consequence would lead people who sit through church to believe Mormons have a serious edge on those who do not participate actively. Some of the areas where we claim to have an advantage are
Mormons having a higher cure rate with access to the priesthood
Mormons having less sickness and illnesses
Mormons having lower depression rates and suicide
Mormons being happier in general than other religions
Mormons having more frequent and stronger spiritual manifestations
Mormons having more successful marriages
Mormons having the Holy Ghost help them make decisions
Mormons having more knowledge about God’s plan
There are many more examples. When Mormonism was isolated to a small group of people in a small geographical area that could echo each other well, it flourished. The problem is that in the real world, life is not as peachy as the ensign and general conference make it seem. Statistically speaking Mormons might have a slight edge in some of the measurable categories listed above, but the patience that Mortimer talk of above in his piano analogy is sometimes hard to find. If you are one of the ones that did all the right things expecting life to be all roses, then wake up to see the real world, it is hard to see how Mormonism works in any real way. We definitely have a self created crisis of expectations.
What is the solution? Lower expectations. Stop it with prophet worshipping. Stop micromanaging local leaders. Have some humility and admit we really know less than what we claim we know. Disavow Polygamy. Change temple endowment session. Get rid of meaningless meetings. Let people find their own ways to serve. Have better curriculum to study. Have paid clergy who are trained to counsel and prepare a meaningful sermon. Wait a second, I just described the Amazing Grace church in town that has had to add on twice in the last 5 years to accommodate all the growth they have seen. Mormonism is meant to be devisive. We seek out the elect. If a few seeds fall upon the stones and cannot grow it is not the fault of the sower. It would appear to me that the most righteous of all Gods children have already been born and that the millennials are second tier righteous, so more of them are falling away. God watched 1/3 of his children walk before the whole test even began so suck it up. (I am afraid this is what the brethren think, but I hope I am wrong).
I wonder what you all think about how the Church is trying to promote community service with its JustServe.org program? Download and app or log in to a website and you can find any number of ways to serve the community. We had a great lesson about the JustServe program from a couple in the stake who have been doing one the the service opportunities a month for the past year. They said their children are excited to help and even scroll through and pick service opportunities.
Scott J, rather than mandatory service projects, I much prefer letting people choose for themselves. The Savior’s words in the first half of Mark ch. 14 are very powerful. He was speaking to some who wanted to do service in an organized sort of way.
Mark L: I LOVE that program. I remember attending the intro lesson on that and really liking the goal, how the app/site was executed, really everything about it. That makes me wonder about who’s responsible for that program’s genesis and how well it’s been adopted…
On service, I think I’d like to see more power-of-the-group large type projects. We are a big JustServe stake, but even with that most members don’t sign up for the projects unless the ward is involved. Frankly, we are all just too busy to take on long term commitments and those with time (the SAHMs) tend to do massive amounts of volunteering through the schools already. But when the ward takes on a project, everyone shows up. And when everyone shows up then it can be broken down into smaller parts and assigned out to different groups to make volunteering not as difficult. For example, one winter our ward took on providing dinner at the homeless shelter twice a month. The schedule was divided up so various groups each took turns (even seminary took a turn) so that the entire ward felt involved. In my community, there are all kinds of things like this we could do – we have a community pantry that is always in need of workers, we have animal shelters in need of volunteers, barn builders, etc.. We have an orphanage in need of activities for the kids.
What I’d really like to see happen is condense or toss some of the busy work programs of the church and move some of our super talented people into community services projects. I have no doubt they’d come up with great projects and if we weren’t all so overburdened with meetings, lesson preparation (what percentage of a ward is in a teaching calling at any given time?), fun activities with the youth, etc., we’d have more time to do them. Shat if each ward adopted one organization in need each year (or multiple years) and that became the focus of the ward?
All of that said, I don’t actually think service will solve all of our problems. It may help people to stay if they feel like being a Mormon genuinely contributes to make the world a better place, but we need a connected, spiritual aspect to our worship that is currently missing. If we give people reasons to stay, it seems to me they’ll be more willing to go through the spiritual refiner’s fire to make peace with (if not accept) all the big time issues hanging over us.
Pres Monson has died, if he is replaced by a 93 year old not much hope for future.
Geoff-Aus: he probably will be replaced by a 93-year-old but to be frank, I don’t know that things would change much with the promotion of anyone but Pres. Uchtdorf to the presidency.
I’m going to be pessimistic and state that things will get worse until (and if) Elder Holland becomes president, and then worse again if Elder Bednar does.
As a millennial in the later stages of a faith transition, a lot of these comments really resonate.
One thing that turns me off about institutional Mormonism is the question of what I am supporting. Previous commenters are right that the early pioneers were building Zion and working to usher in second coming and they were Part of Something. They were activists for things they passionately believed in, and by supporting the LDS church they were building what they hoped would be a better world.
Institutional Mormonism doesn’t offer that to me. Supporting the hierarchy of the church means supporting the Patriarchy in a tangible way. It means ignoring my conscience and bypassing the radical love the Jesus of the New Testament advocated. It means focusing on a seemingly arbitrary set of behaviors and rules so that I can conform rather than throwing my energy into meaningful outreach to my fellow being. I participated in the Womens’ March last January because I wanted to stand and be counted in a show against bigotry and in favor of inclusion, and my faith community called me out for it. They called me out for a sign reading “with liberty and justice for ALL.” It’s gone beyond not being sure if the church offers anything to me; I can no longer be a part of the LDS church in good conscience. Words and ordinances claiming authority pale in comparison to actions that promote inequality. My faith community made it clear that liberals have no place among them, so this liberal took my efforts and talents elsewhere.
What could the LDS church change to get me back? Everything. It would have to radically divorce itself from America’s religious right and make room for all types of believers before I could consider ending it my name and support again.
Like so many other things Mormons have a backwards understanding of service. The community consists of a group pf people with time, talent, money, desire, etc. to spare and are willing to give it for the benefit of others. The community also has a group of people with needs for service. A given individual may be in both groups. (Actually all of us are to a degree in some way). For example, an unemployed carpenter might have time and useful talent but no money. An engineer running his own company might have money and talent but little time. A busy attorney might have…..none of the above- just kidding.
In the past the church just acted like a traffic cop, pointing out the direction to go but mostly we were on our own doing it. Today as society grows more complex and specialized, we see the emergence of organizations that focus on identifying these two groups and bringing them together and training them in ways that maximize the benefit for a given amount of effort. Unfortunately, Mormon Inc and its auxiliaries have not modernized enough, Not to say they have done nothing. But not enough.
One example is Habitat for Humanity. I look at the typical Elder’s Quorum or even include the YM/YW and Relief Society. There is no way in hell they could build a house in any ward I have attended as is currently constituted. Yet many a church around here has done this. Some do more than 1 house a year and have sustained that service for decades. I see their sign-up sheets and it is no longer than the list of the local ward home teachers. These congregations are larger than a ward but smaller than a stake for sure. How many Mormon guys or gals would trade a Saturday playing like they were a construction worker in exchange for no home/ visiting teaching assignments for a year?
Another example is a local church has a Great Day of Service, usually twice a year. This is a work in progress and has developed and been modified for many years. I have only done this a few times, not every year, They organize about a 100 different projects with about 10 or 20 people assigned to each team, They start off by feeding us all breakfast and there were at least 1000 people there. This far exceeds their available membership numbers because more than 2/3 of the volunteers are people like me who are not members of the church but volunteer. Some projects have many teams. The projects are modified each year. Check out the sign up sheet for the one done last fall for an idea of the breath of projects, http://www.dunwoodyumc.org/index.php/signature-events/great-day-of-service.html I helped paint a house, yes an entire house in one day. Helped build a gazebo at a school, Did some landscaping another time..
We have the potential horsepower to do something like this but not the organization, commitment, priority or even desire to do it. For me the Just Serve effort is not much more than another traffic cop, directing us , but doing little to amplify our efforts or riding on the back of other organization which do. Scott J. (1/2/2018 at 3:32 above) asks a great question and it has already been answered in other churches who have succeeded in getting young people to serve. Yet they still struggle to get them to attend sermons..
One obvious interpretation of some of the Parables and Teachings of Jesus might imply that those who are doers of the service for others are in a better place than those who are hearers only. Both would be nice.
Elizabeth St. Dunstan,
I wrote about the pioneer passion, and resonate with your desire to be part of that millennial urgency. FWIW, there are people in the core of Mormonism “anxiously engaged” in this work. Google the poem, “my people were Mormon pioneers” by Carol Lynn Pearson (a lifelong women’s equality and prominent LGBT advocate). In the end, it comes down to what you have been personally called to do. BTW, an LDS woman organized our community women’s march, and three generations of women in my family and all our male relatives joined us.
Mortimer –
Thanks for your response. I think you hit it on the head when you said that “it comes down to what you have personally been called to do.” I tried to sustain myself as an activist inside of Mormonism, trying to help my faith community and myself live up to our lofty gospel ideals. It was actually a good place and a good role for me for a few years. It isn’t anymore, but I absolutely salute and support those who feel called to that necessary work.
We need to quit giving church leaders, authors, and scholars a break and admit that they did intend to deceive when they altered the narrative, covered up facts, and excommunicated truth-tellers. They wanted to control the story. They lost control of the story. New generations are taking control by walking away. When those who are responsible can admit their mistakes–not simply say “mistakes were made” but list the specific mistakes–and apologize, then the conversation can begin. Who wants to have a conversation with someone who deliberately withheld information from them and then blamed them for misunderstanding?
I’m another millennial. I’m also active. I just stumbled across this and thought I’d share what is difficult for me.
I think millennials are obsessed with the idea of social justice. The church has problems with racism, sexism, and homophobia. That is what makes it hard for me.
I love the idea of community, service, simple teachings of Christ, etc. I have a hard time seeing all men on the stand, men passing the sacrament, men calling me to meet, etc. I also have a hard time with the quorum of the twelve being all white males. I have a hard time with the church’s stance on homosexuality.
I don’t know how the church can fix it. I think this is the biggest drawback for millennials.