Post by McLawsGirl on Mar 3, 2005 14:44:51 GMT -5
The Cost of Inactivity
A missionary in one of my former wards shrugged off the catastrophic inactivity of accelerated baptism schemes with the reply: "at least these people are on the rolls so that now we can keep track of them better." Many missionaries and mission presidents view the loss of many converts to inactivity shortly following baptism as an unfortunate but inevitable part of a “winnowing process.” If a hundred converts are baptized but only twenty or thirty are still active a month later, this performance is generally viewed as a success: the missionaries met their statistical goals, a few converts remained active, and the responsibility of dealing with the crisis of the other 70-80% is shifted to already overwhelmed local members while missionaries press onward to baptize yet more unprepared souls. Mission progress is tracked and measured based primarily on the number of baptisms, and not upon convert retention, generating incentives for “quick-baptize schemes” that undermine quality teaching and convert activity.
Elder M. Russell Ballard states: "We cannot establish the Church unless we have real growth - not simply numbers on paper."1 Only as converts become active members does missionary work satisfy its divine purposes. Convert loss is not inevitable, nor does rampant inactivity represent only minor collateral damage on the way to meeting monthly baptismal goals. It is possible to generate large numbers of inactives in a relatively short time, and even years of intensive fellowshipping and reactivation work are rarely able to remedy more than a fraction of the problems incurred by the accelerated baptism program. Missionaries and leaders must understand that the cost of inactivity is devastating and that the vast majority of converts can be consistently retained through the adoption of basic scriptural principles in the teaching and prebaptismal preparation of converts.
The Cost to the Convert
The cost of inactivity is immense. President Gordon B. Hinckley states: "Nobody gains when there is baptism without retention. The missionary loses, and while the Church gains statistically, the membership suffers, really, and the enthusiasm of the convert turns to ashes."2 He further notes that “Actual harm may be done to those who leave old friendships and old ways of doing things only to be allowed to slip into inactivity.” On another occasion, he taught: “What does it profit the missionary to baptize someone who leaves the Church within six months? Nothing is accomplished; in fact, damage is done. We have pulled them away from their old moorings and brought them into the Church, only to have them drift away."3
New converts who are not retained see their enthusiasm at the promise of eternal blessings change to disappointment and frustration. They lapse in fulfillment of solemn covenants they have only recently entered and they find their eternal prospects worse than if they had never met the missionaries at all. Wilfried Decoo, an experienced Belgian church leader who became the president of a branch of 200 members with only 10% activity as a 22-year old convert, reflects on his work with inactives over more than three decades:
"This is far more than a problem of organizational failure. If we take our religion seriously, we are talking about the prospect of a kind of spiritual death for those millions whom we have lost; indeed, perhaps 'spiritual holocaust' is not too strong a term. For many the suffering begins already in this life. I know, from years of experience in working with inactive members, of the agony--some of it lifelong--involved in the process of leaving the church. Here are people who once joyfully discovered the gospel, gained testimonies, and then turned their lives upside down and even severed relationships with families and friends to follow gospel principles, only to sink back eventually into the bitter pool of disillusionment.”4
The Cost to the Congregation
Since the original release of this paper, I have been inundated with messages from members around the world who have long noted problems with the widespread revolving-door "quick-baptize" approaches. Such stories have come not from disaffected members or anti-Mormons, but from faithful and reliable members of the Church, including bishops, high counselors, stake presidents, branch presidents, CES teachers, ward mission leaders, stake mission presidents, and returned missionaries who have been concerned by these issues. They cite the tremendous burden of recent and ongoing “quick-baptize” practices to local members and the hindrances they present to the work of the Church.
Wilfried Decoo notes of the cost of to the congregation of disillusioned inactives:
“Probably every unit of the church has some of these sad souls, and they are not all converts, of course. In the larger wards or branches they can be assimilated and their potential for disruption can be contained. In the mission field, however, both their presence and their influence can be disproportionately large, partly because a small branch might not be large enough to integrate them readily, and partly because branch presidents and bishops are not allowed to evaluate the readiness for baptism of even seriously troubled and eccentric converts if missionaries and mission leaders are determined to baptize them.”
High activity empowers a ward or branch, while inactivity saps vitality. Christ taught of the ninety and nine "found" sheep and the one "lost" sheep. Yet in the Church today, the ratio is approximately forty "found sheep" to sixty "lost sheep" in the United States (if those who simply attend church can be considered to be "found"), and twenty-five "found sheep" to seventy-five "lost sheep" outside of the U.S.
Which congregation branch is better suited to reach out to the community: one with 75 actives and 25 inactives, or one with 75 actives and 300 inactives? The first is better able to meet its own needs and reach out to the community. The second is chronically unable to meet even its own home teaching "needs" and remains forever mired and self-consumed in its own problems, unable to effectively meet the needs of the larger community, or even of its own new members. The ongoing baptism of poorly-prepared and poorly-fellowshipped converts who go inactive soon after baptism can quickly undermine even the most dedicated home and visiting teaching programs.
The disproportionate numbers of “troubled individuals” rushed to baptism by full-time missionaries in some areas can quickly overwhelm and cripple previously healthy units. Because home and visiting teachers are expected to visit all members monthly regardless of activity status, rush baptisms leading to prompt inactivity place a tremendous burden on local wards and branches. This is especially true in areas with low activity rates, where active Melchizedek priesthood holders can be assigned very long visitation lists. Many members have noted that their visits to inactives seem to have little if any impact, and they feel chronically guilt-ridden for not being able to visit their long lists of mainly disinterested and hostile inactives each month. In combination with the hostility encountered from many of their assigned home teachees, this serves to extinguish member enthusiasm and foster chronic burnout. When they do succeed in putting forth the enormous effort to accomplish this task, they note, their peace is short lived, as the following month they are expected to do it all again. In areas of the world where few members have their own transportation, the time and transportation costs of regular visitations can be prohibitively expensive for local members.
con't to next thread...
A missionary in one of my former wards shrugged off the catastrophic inactivity of accelerated baptism schemes with the reply: "at least these people are on the rolls so that now we can keep track of them better." Many missionaries and mission presidents view the loss of many converts to inactivity shortly following baptism as an unfortunate but inevitable part of a “winnowing process.” If a hundred converts are baptized but only twenty or thirty are still active a month later, this performance is generally viewed as a success: the missionaries met their statistical goals, a few converts remained active, and the responsibility of dealing with the crisis of the other 70-80% is shifted to already overwhelmed local members while missionaries press onward to baptize yet more unprepared souls. Mission progress is tracked and measured based primarily on the number of baptisms, and not upon convert retention, generating incentives for “quick-baptize schemes” that undermine quality teaching and convert activity.
Elder M. Russell Ballard states: "We cannot establish the Church unless we have real growth - not simply numbers on paper."1 Only as converts become active members does missionary work satisfy its divine purposes. Convert loss is not inevitable, nor does rampant inactivity represent only minor collateral damage on the way to meeting monthly baptismal goals. It is possible to generate large numbers of inactives in a relatively short time, and even years of intensive fellowshipping and reactivation work are rarely able to remedy more than a fraction of the problems incurred by the accelerated baptism program. Missionaries and leaders must understand that the cost of inactivity is devastating and that the vast majority of converts can be consistently retained through the adoption of basic scriptural principles in the teaching and prebaptismal preparation of converts.
The Cost to the Convert
The cost of inactivity is immense. President Gordon B. Hinckley states: "Nobody gains when there is baptism without retention. The missionary loses, and while the Church gains statistically, the membership suffers, really, and the enthusiasm of the convert turns to ashes."2 He further notes that “Actual harm may be done to those who leave old friendships and old ways of doing things only to be allowed to slip into inactivity.” On another occasion, he taught: “What does it profit the missionary to baptize someone who leaves the Church within six months? Nothing is accomplished; in fact, damage is done. We have pulled them away from their old moorings and brought them into the Church, only to have them drift away."3
New converts who are not retained see their enthusiasm at the promise of eternal blessings change to disappointment and frustration. They lapse in fulfillment of solemn covenants they have only recently entered and they find their eternal prospects worse than if they had never met the missionaries at all. Wilfried Decoo, an experienced Belgian church leader who became the president of a branch of 200 members with only 10% activity as a 22-year old convert, reflects on his work with inactives over more than three decades:
"This is far more than a problem of organizational failure. If we take our religion seriously, we are talking about the prospect of a kind of spiritual death for those millions whom we have lost; indeed, perhaps 'spiritual holocaust' is not too strong a term. For many the suffering begins already in this life. I know, from years of experience in working with inactive members, of the agony--some of it lifelong--involved in the process of leaving the church. Here are people who once joyfully discovered the gospel, gained testimonies, and then turned their lives upside down and even severed relationships with families and friends to follow gospel principles, only to sink back eventually into the bitter pool of disillusionment.”4
The Cost to the Congregation
Since the original release of this paper, I have been inundated with messages from members around the world who have long noted problems with the widespread revolving-door "quick-baptize" approaches. Such stories have come not from disaffected members or anti-Mormons, but from faithful and reliable members of the Church, including bishops, high counselors, stake presidents, branch presidents, CES teachers, ward mission leaders, stake mission presidents, and returned missionaries who have been concerned by these issues. They cite the tremendous burden of recent and ongoing “quick-baptize” practices to local members and the hindrances they present to the work of the Church.
Wilfried Decoo notes of the cost of to the congregation of disillusioned inactives:
“Probably every unit of the church has some of these sad souls, and they are not all converts, of course. In the larger wards or branches they can be assimilated and their potential for disruption can be contained. In the mission field, however, both their presence and their influence can be disproportionately large, partly because a small branch might not be large enough to integrate them readily, and partly because branch presidents and bishops are not allowed to evaluate the readiness for baptism of even seriously troubled and eccentric converts if missionaries and mission leaders are determined to baptize them.”
High activity empowers a ward or branch, while inactivity saps vitality. Christ taught of the ninety and nine "found" sheep and the one "lost" sheep. Yet in the Church today, the ratio is approximately forty "found sheep" to sixty "lost sheep" in the United States (if those who simply attend church can be considered to be "found"), and twenty-five "found sheep" to seventy-five "lost sheep" outside of the U.S.
Which congregation branch is better suited to reach out to the community: one with 75 actives and 25 inactives, or one with 75 actives and 300 inactives? The first is better able to meet its own needs and reach out to the community. The second is chronically unable to meet even its own home teaching "needs" and remains forever mired and self-consumed in its own problems, unable to effectively meet the needs of the larger community, or even of its own new members. The ongoing baptism of poorly-prepared and poorly-fellowshipped converts who go inactive soon after baptism can quickly undermine even the most dedicated home and visiting teaching programs.
The disproportionate numbers of “troubled individuals” rushed to baptism by full-time missionaries in some areas can quickly overwhelm and cripple previously healthy units. Because home and visiting teachers are expected to visit all members monthly regardless of activity status, rush baptisms leading to prompt inactivity place a tremendous burden on local wards and branches. This is especially true in areas with low activity rates, where active Melchizedek priesthood holders can be assigned very long visitation lists. Many members have noted that their visits to inactives seem to have little if any impact, and they feel chronically guilt-ridden for not being able to visit their long lists of mainly disinterested and hostile inactives each month. In combination with the hostility encountered from many of their assigned home teachees, this serves to extinguish member enthusiasm and foster chronic burnout. When they do succeed in putting forth the enormous effort to accomplish this task, they note, their peace is short lived, as the following month they are expected to do it all again. In areas of the world where few members have their own transportation, the time and transportation costs of regular visitations can be prohibitively expensive for local members.
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