When I was a Bishop 20 years ago, there was (and still is) a big push on ward statistics. This included sacrament meeting attendance, convert baptisms, temple recommend holders, etc. One way to juice the percentages was to get rid of “deadwood”, those pesky inactive people that dropped the numbers. The easiest way to do this was to visit them, find out they no longer live there, and send the records to the Church Office Building (COB) as address unknown.
Well, the Church soon caught on to this, and came up with a checklist. From the Church Handbook
Policy and Principles
Ward leaders, ministering brothers or sisters, or clerks should obtain the forwarding addresses of members as soon as they become aware that the members intend to move. If a member moves out of the ward without leaving a forwarding address, every effort should be made to determine the member’s new address, including the following:
1. Seek to communicate using phone, email, social media channels, or other resources available to your area or community.
2. Contact known family or friends of the member.
3. Contact the occupant of the member’s last known address.
4. Obtain the Bishop’s approval to return records to Church Headquarters.
If, after following these steps, a clerk cannot find out where members have moved, he obtains the bishop’s approval to send the membership records to the “Address Unknown” file
These all make sense, but how far should one go today with the “social media channels”. Do you slide into their DMs? Stalk them on Facebook? Look up publicly available property tax records to find if they still own the house? What about using a paid data aggregators, like PeopleFinder, or BeenVerified. My father said his ward pays (out of the ward budget, so tithing money) for one of these services, though if you read the fine print, there services say they are for personnel use only, and not for business or other group efforts.
If you look on the LDS tech forum run by the Church, you’ll see under the Membership Help section lots of talk about using these paid services. While the COB is smart enough not to endorse this, they have never come out and explicitly said not to. That way when some poor clerk gets sued, the church can claim ignorance.
There are posts on the Tech Forum by clerks that have used property tax records. When somebody pushes back, they will say they are only trying to help them in their salvation.
I wonder what the number of people that have are inactive, and don’t want their address given to their local ward will suddenly change their mind when the ward clerk shows up on their porch? I might hazard a guess that it will be 99.999% that will tell said clerk to take a hike.
When I was bishop, I remember a couple of memorable conversations when I knocked on the door of long time inactive members. One guy told me he had no interest in going to church, ever. When I asked if he would want his name removed, he said no way, it would kill his mother if he did that.
Another time I found a guy, and he said to just take his name off the list of members, he no longer considered himself a member. I tried to explain that it would require a written request signed by him before we could start the process of removing his name. He said that he was not going to sign anything, it shouldn’t be that hard, just remove his name per his verbal request, and he shut the door!
What has been you experiance either as a ward leader on the finding side, or as an inactive lost member on the other side?
What do you think of wards using social media to track down missing members? Or calling family members? Or using tax records?
Wheat & Tares 
Not exactly the story you were asking for — but your essay brought up a memorable one.
My favorite “Find My Sheep” moment was a local woman. “Clara”. She had attended twice, had been baptized and not been seen in years. I called her. Yes, she accepted an appointment for a visit and mentioned a 12 year old daughter.
The house was old and run down. There was a dead cat in the yard. I sat down on the sofa and discovered that I was sitting in a pool of some sort of fluid. A visit to the bathroom showed me 100’s roaches when the light turned on. I backed away and retreated back to the living room.
This woman was really large. Maybe 500 pounds — if not more. She had greasy hair and a particular body odor that led me to believe bathing was not easy for her. Her daughter was a younger version of the mother.
Within 3 minutes of walking into that house, Clara brought up my husband. She knew his name and where his professional office was. She asked if he still shared office space with “Ricky”. Ricky was a fit and immaculately dressed man who was in the same profession as my husband. The office space was large and there were three guys sharing that space. Ricky was one of them. She then casually mentioned that Ricky had rented the house next door for a brief time during his divorce — about 13 years ago. She then went on to tell me that she and Ricky got to talking and drinking one night. Her daughter was the result of that evening — and Ricky did not know that he had a daughter. Clara was hoping that I would help her contact Ricky.
I told her that I could certainly share the office main phone number with her — but anything more than that was not my business. I wished her well as she started into that process.
As I prepared to get into my car, I grabbed a plastic bag out of the trunk to sit on, arriving home, I stripped in the garage, threw all my clothes into a long and hot wash cycle. My own body got scrubbed hard — twice.
I kept trying to imagine Clara and Ricky in any sort of relationship — even with large amounts of alcohol. Nope.
She did contact Ricky. He was absolutely the father. Child support was eventually arranged.
Me? I felt like I had been played. The church wanted higher activation levels. Clara wanted information about Ricky. Me? I wanted out of there.
The local ward showed up a few time to clean up her yard and remove the dead animals. Clara continued to accept any free stuff or services the ward was willing to provide. I learned to put a trash bag over the seat of my car if I went into that house. Eventually, Clara’s name went on the informal “You Do Not Want To Contact” list that local members put together.
A decade or so ago, I was an assigned VT to a less active sister who was going to be emigrating to Australia, where both her adult children lived. The RS president was not happy that I wasn’t pushing her for a forwarding address. I explained her kids lived in different states, and she was going to be spending time with each of them before deciding where she wanted to live. I wasn’t happy I was being pushed for a forwarding address. This was an adult woman, who, in my view, was perfectly capable of contacting the church locally once she’d settled, and give them her old address so that they could get her records, should she so choose.
During the time I was in the bishopric, there was a member of the stake leadership who ran the peoplefinder app operation and aggressively shipped records back to Salt Lake, and then gave us instructions what to do if they bounced back to the ward list. I think it was this same person who in a stake leadership meeting also tried to require that inactive “do not contact by their request” people get contacted twice per year in person and told that we would continue to contact them at that rate, and if they didn’t like it, they should request their membership be removed. (I raised my hand and objected, saying we should respect people and honor their request.) It was all about improving our percentages. Our stake president hated the low percentages and was very competitive about his numbers vs neighboring stakes.
By the way, do y’all think you will be able to go back to using Mormons again now or will it take the usual ten to twenty years of non-enforcement of a presidential pet project before it is no longer considered a sin to use Mormon?
I believe the church HQ truly believes a doctrine I was taught on my mission – that an inactive or unbelieving member of record will be better situated at judgement day than an unbeliever never baptized or one whose names are removed. I think this is an unwritten doctrine, otherwise why is it so difficult to be left alone? Either that or desire for tithing money might be the cynical answer.
As a former bishop myself I had many of the same experiences described in the OP. Once I went with my HP group leader (as they were called at the time) and we pre printed a name removal request. All they had to do was sign. When I asked the person to sign they were livid, like in what universe is it so hard to “leave” a church you haven’t attended in 40 years?? I called a church attorney at Kirton McKonkie who said yeah just remove his name it’s clear he doesn’t want anything to do with the church but said the stake president has to agree.
Then when I approached the SP he didn’t agree and the person is still a member. Pretty ridiculous.
I removed my own name a year ago this week and I celebrated by drinking a sprite and eating a handful of M&Ms which is an indulgence for me. I offered my atheist daughter to leave with me but she didn’t want to hurt her mothers feelings, who is still active. Everything time she moved during college they were able to find her, I have no idea how.
littleredhenpecked, at no point in your story did I know what was going to happen next, well done!
10ac, I give the over-under at only 1-2 years, honestly, before “Mormon” is renormalized. Most Church presidents are forgotten almost immediately after they pass, no matter how much the “Follow the Prophet” crowd claims to adore them while they’re alive (look how quickly they all glommed on to Nelson even after he threw Hinkley, Monson, and Benson under the bus over the “true name of the Church”). The word “Mormon” is simply too convenient a shorthand to get away from, no other moniker arose to replace it, and Oaks’s big hobby-horse is using the right hand for the Sacrament, not the Church’s full name.
My funniest story about forwarding addresses happened when I was 18, so about 35 years ago before anything was electronic. I left home for one summer to work in Nowheresville, Wyoming at a camp. I was gone for 12 weeks. The bishop mailed my paper membership records to the camp’s mailing address, a mailbox on the side of the road, a two lane highway ten miles south of actual Nowheresville. I gathered that my parents (some of the ward’s most active stalwarts) were less than impressed with this.
My VT comp and I got handed a list of inactives. We were both returned missionaries from the same area of the world and giggled a lot about how this was trying to track down people from the mission. We were peering into mailboxes searching for addresses and knocking on doors to ask about neighbors. We found one woman who told us she’d formally joined another Church and we promised to make a note on her records. In hindsight, stalking people like that was kind of a strange thing to do.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from ex-Mos is the Church’s invasive efforts to track them down and send visitors. It does not create any goodwill towards the Church and I doubt it has resulted in reactivating anyone. As much as the newly inactive feel hurt that no one reached out when they quit coming, I believe the harassment experienced by longtime inactives, who have since moved and made no effort to participate in a local ward is more harmful than helpful.
It smacks of invasion of privacy. I am surprised someone has not sued.
I’m on the less active side. A few points.
Members never talk about why I’ve made the decisions I made. Never. They never want to talk about doctrine or church teachings in any sort of dissecting way. The church teachings for believers are simply unquestionable truth. Plus they don’t want to put themselves in positions where they too may begin questioning. They’re comfortable where they’re at and do not want to disturb that.
New bishoprics have always made me a focal point right as they start. Until they get to know the full extent of the ward and the real needs out there. I’m not someone in need. Not someone who is troubled. But it takes them a little time to realize that.
When I set my boundaries, people have mostly respected them.
There have been actually very few times where I have felt the need to verbally express my boundaries. These have happened when the bishopric has called me in for a calling and I’ve said no and once when someone texted me asking me to set up a time for tithing settlement. Another time a member of the bishopric asked me to give a talk. I decline jovially saying that he was probably asking the wrong person.
I have not expressed any verbal boundaries with my parents or parents-in-law. I simply just don’t do things sometimes. Two of my nephews got married in the temple a couple of years ago. I just didn’t attend the temple ceremony. There were a lot of people who attended. I am not sure that my absence was too noticed.
It is with my wife where I’ve set the most boundaries. I have told her that I don’t give blessings because I don’t believe they do anything, and because I can’t understand why women aren’t allowed to give blessings. I have told her that I don’t believe. But really, other than that I haven’t had to communicate my boundaries too much.
I have long crafted narratives about how to best handle different situations and encounters. Mostly I really haven’t ever deployed these narratives.
Speaking of boundaries (thanks Brad D):
My RS pres likes to preach at me along with love bombing of course!
I very politely asked her not to do that and to respect my personal boundaries and judgment.
I recently received a card, however, with more of the same, including an “inspiring quote” preachment! I threw it away and wrote a letter, “never meaning to send”, for my own sanity. Obviously, I’m still feeling annoyed and disrespected!
Formal membership removal seems to be the best way to distance myself!
In our neighborhood there are a bunch of kids my oldest son’s age and he’s very good friends with all of them. They are mostly active church members and he hasn’t been to church in years. Apart from some occasional goading to come to a church dance or youth activity (he does go every once in a while) this hasn’t been a problem. A few weeks ago, after a youth activity, some of his friends showed up at the door with a plate of cookies and an envelope. In the envelope were letters from many of the youth and some of the leaders admonishing him to come back to church. He was mortified. His immediate reaction was that he wants his records removed and wants nothing to do with the church.
If we could video record the “verbal request” to remove records, that would help.
Years ago the ward leadership, inspired by storied lore, decided it would be a great idea to go visit names on the rolls that no one knew anything about. The purpose of their visit? To collect the fast offerings these valiant souls had been saving to donate. This was in the DC suburbs. I think those valiant souls could have found a meetinghouse if they were so inclined. My response was: “So you’re going to go knock on strangers’ doors and ask them for money for the church?! You actually think they haven’t been to church in 20 years, but they’ve been saving their fast offerings and waiting for someone to collect them??” As I don’t have the appropriate genitalia,I never found out if they actually did this, or came to their senses. I was full on TBM at the time, and I still found it appalling and asinine.
I am dreading the day when we get a stats-minded bishop who sends his clerks on a mission to forward records of members no longer in the ward to their new addresses. This is because one of my adult kids doesn’t want anything to do with the Church right now (and hasn’t for several years). If his records were to be forwarded to his current address, and local ward members were to start making contact with him, it’s very possible that he would just remove his records, which wouldn’t bother me much, but it certainly would upset my wife quite a bit. I’ve already decided that when (not if, but when) the day comes that the ward comes asking for my son’s forwarding address that I will absolutely refuse to provide it, and I will also give them a stern warning that if they go off and track it down themselves, which I’m sure wouldn’t be very difficult given the online databases available today, that he is very likely to officially resign, which will make me angry with them (again, because it will make my wife sad).
It seems like an awful lot of time wasting and annoying people could be avoided if the Church would allow every member to simply log into the Church website and check a “do not contact” box. That member could always reverse that setting on their own by logging back in and unchecking the box whenever *they* wanted to. Ward stats could be calculated by taking this membership flag into account. The stats the leadership ought to be looking at are only for the people that haven’t checked the “do not contact” box on their record. With the “don not contact” flag, there would be no need to track down people who had moved out. If those people choose to uncheck the box, then they could also provide their new address at the same time, but while the box is checked, there really is no need for the Church to know where they live at all. Just think of all the time that could be saved and all the people who would no longer be repeatedly badgered by ward members if people could flag themselves as “do not contact”. I think the Church knows that a lot of people would like to be able to do this, yet they simply refuse to implement it, presumably because they believe it is the Church’s duty to badger people until they either become active again (I’m sure the badgering works every once in a blue moon) or they formally resign from the Church. Of course, the majority of people that don’t want to be contacted just put up with the annoyance of undesired contact from the Church over the years. Is that really what Jesus wants?