The Salt Lake Tribune continues its interesting look into the numbers that define LDS church membership and growth today, with a look at “lost members.” The story reports on a large number of Utahn Saints that have fallen between the cracks, and cannot be located. All told, the list contains around 180,000 people, or roughly the population of Salt Lake City. The story allows Elder Merrill Bateman a chance to explain the statistics, which he does very candidly:
We really don’t give up on people. As long as they have not asked to have their names taken off the rolls of the church, we have a responsibility toward them and believe in time . . . we will be an influence to help them find their way back.
On the other side of this righteous concern are those who are hoping to evade detection, purposely staying off the radar. These people are an enigma to me, given that most of them know they could easily stop the pestering calls and visits by asking that their names be removed from the Church’s records. Why they don’t do this I don’t know, and the article, although it asks the question, also comes up without an answer.
Some other interesting tidbits: The Church staffs three centers (in Salt Lake, American Fork, and St. George) that exist for the sole purpose of making calls and tracking down all the missing members. These callers are specifically instructed not to do any preaching, only to get information from people they are tracking. While I understand the approach, I wonder how it works. It would seem that those who have disappeared from the church’s view are doing so on purpose, so that the only way to bring them back would be to get them to have a change of heart– presumably by helping them feel the spirit through sharing the gospel. Or perhaps the information collected is simply passed on to local units who then take up the duty to re-evangelize the found member.
Lost members are kept on the records and presumed alive until they turn 110 years old. About 50,000 names are added to Utah’s list of lost members alone, but over 90% of those names are found within twelve months of being reported lost. Apparently, if you want effective bureaucracy, This is (still) the Right Place.
“…most of them know they could easily stop the pestering calls and visits by asking that their names be removed from the Church’s records. Why they don’t do this I don’t know …”
Ryan, this is probably the Misstatement of the Year. Having spoken with a number of disaffected Mormons over the years (often as a WML tracking down inactives with the Elders), I can assure you that the perception is that the Church really won’t leave you alone, even if you ask it to, repeatedly! I honestly have heard this same gripe many, many times. Perhaps everybody who wants to sever formal ties with the Church is just doing it wrong? Having never had my name removed, personally, I can’t speak first-hand about this. But I understand that those who’ve tried have found the process agonizing slow and difficult. (It’s conceivable that this has changed, but I don’t know).
I also suspect that many of the disaffected assume that to try to jump through the Church’s hoops in order to formally disaffiliate will expose them to redoubled efforts by the Church to keep them in the fold. They then decide they’d rather not go through that, and just dropping off the Church’s radar is an easier path.
Aaron B
Hm, I’m under the impression that they don’t have their names removed because they want to keep one foot in Zion, as it were.
(Ned Flanders: “I even kept kosher, just to be on the safe side!”)
That’s a very interesting take, Aaron. I’m surprised to hear that. The Church seems quite adamant about how it leaves people alone once they ask to be removed from the records. I would assume that when such a request comes in, the name does actually get removed. That would mean that at the local level, people are just not getting the message that they need to stop knocking on that specific door. But from my experience, all the efforts at bringing less-actives back that I’ve been involved in focused on printouts of current records, which would mean that we would never knock on the door of a person whose name had been removed.
So what I’m saying is that while I believe you, I can’t really figure out how, beyond a few exceptional cases, local church units can continue to pester those who’ve completely severed ties by having their names removed from the roles. What am I missing?
Julie, that was sort of my impression as well. Not exactly that they want to be half in Zion, but that they’d feel a bit of guilt by completely severing ties with the church, and so take the easy road of just not dealing with it, and turning away sincere Elders’ Quorum members that knock on the door every year or so.
I seem to remember reading this in the Handbook a few weeks ago. If I remember correctly there is a formal process one must go through and I thought it seemed extensive. I would imagine many disaffected Mormons aren’t mad enough to go through the hassle.
Aaron is right, the process really can be a bit burdensome and technical. Yelling at your hometeachers to leave you alone is not enough. In fact, writing a letter to the Bishop asking him to leave you alone is not enough. Instead, you must be explicit, in writing, that you want your name removed from the records of the church. Once you do that, the Bishop is required to talk to you personally to confirm that this in in fact what you want and to make sure that you understand the eternal consequences (doesn’t that sound fun?). After that, the Bishop must complete some paperwork and send all of these materials (form, letters, etc.) to the Stake President for his approval.
Unless and until that is done, your name is not removed. You can, of course, ask to be put on a “do not contact” (DNC) list. Problem is that this does not mean that you are free of any further contact. Instead, wards are required to contact their DNCs every so often (usually once a year) to make sure they still do not want contact. (The Stake President over my last ward required us to make these contacts every quarter.)
As you might imagine, people often get very, very angry when the church, for whatever reason, does not promptly remove their name from the records. Sometimes this removal doesn’t happen because of some failure on the individual’s part. They don’t put their request in writing, or they aren’t specific enough about wanting their name removed (“leave me alone you damn Mormons” doesn’t cut it). There are also instances where the person requesting removal has adequately jumped through all the right hoops, but the Stake President, Bishop, or Ward Clerk lets something slip through the cracks. (Hard to believe, I know.)
These problems are far from “exceptional.” To the contrary, they are quite common.
There are several factors.
I find that people who lack sympathy for those of us flying under the radar usually don’t understand family dynamics. I don’t want people to bother me or my wife at home. It’s not a big deal, but I’d prefer them not to visit. Are you saying I should tell my parents that we’re no longer sealed, just so I can stop those visits? My parents probably set a lot of stock in the oft-repeated Mormon Myth that the sealing power will bring back all your inactive kids back to the family. I think it provides them comfort, since I am not the only inactive child. I want my parents to be as happy as possible for the rest of their lives. If that includes believing that all of us kids will eventually come around, so be it.
But let’s not pretend that resigning your membership is as easy as stopping a subscription to Reader’s Digest.
My name ended up on the list of lost members once. The church called my elderly grandmother in Vernal, Utah, to ask if she knew my whereabouts. She replied, “Sure do. He’s on his mission in Brazil.” A model of efficiency, to be sure.
Thanks for this info., everyone. I had no idea it was this complicated.
“Why they don’t do this I don’t know”
I have no idea what ward I am in or who the bishop is. Why doesn’t the church put an address/fax number/phone number on its website for people to use who want to resign? I haven’t been able to find anything of the sort on lds.org.
This is all so difficult.
To further complicate matters, Ryan, I have known bishops and stake presidents that cannot stand the idea of actually removing people’s names from the records of the church. They would go to great lengths to try to avoid that. I’m not sure if those lengths would include procrastinating the day of the paperwork until their release, but I do know that they might find a technicality to avoid it if possible. (Of course there are others that have no problem knocking it out for someone — it has a lot to do with the doctrinal assumptions each shepherd holds I think).
But Ned’s point is a very good one. Extended family considerations make it much easier to fly under the radar than go through the red tape. I have two brothers that are well below radar right now it doesn’t bother me (though I didn’t let them off the hook when I was EQ pres and they lived in my urban ward boundaries). I think as long as they don’t get harrassed by the home teachers they have no reason to jump through any permanent hoops.
I’ve wondered once or twice if, when I was inactive, I had tried to get my name removed, the process would have been made easier or harder by the fact that to the Church’s computers, I was an unbaptized member over 9. Someone goofed when I was baptized and didn’t put me in the system — I had to bring our ward clerk my baptismal certificate to get a membership number, to get the lds.org member stuff.
Considering that I got temporary temple recommends to do baptisms, and a patriarchal blessing, despite not being listed as a member (no, I can’t figure out how that happens)… and that my parents had a list of 10 joint home/visiting teaching assignments, 8 of whom were classified as “letters only” and one more was a “do not contact,” I’m thinking that the Church paperwork system is completely hopeless, and such requests would be ineffectual in most cases. And I’m not, by nature, a pessimist, and I don’t have an antagonistic view of the Church. My anecdotal experiences just tend to give me the impression that, well, it’s not surprising to have hundreds of thousands of “lost members” the Church is trying to contact. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s not a lot higher.
Sarah, the number is much, much higher than that. The 180,000 figure is for lost members in Utah alone.
Ryan is absolutely right that the total number of lost members is far higher than 180,000. One anecdote: When I moved to Atlanta Ward in 1999, there were 890 members on the ward directory. At first I thought it was a joke, given that only about 130 people ever showed up at church. Turns out that people would fall away or move out and their records, for whatever reason, never followed them. When I moved out of that ward earlier this year, there were about 500 members listed. The rest of the records were shipped off to SLC as we had no idea where those people were. An extreme problem, to be sure, but I would be a bit suprised if the total number of lost members was not seven figures.
But as SFW alluded to, SLC does (I’m told) have a fairly large staff of people who’s sole purpose is to find these lost members. I’d be curious as to whether anyone has the inside scoop on how effective they are.
My mission president gave us the impression that church leaders are asked to “drag their feet” when dealing with people who wish to be removed from the rolls. Do with that what you will.
I think it’s odd that the church refers to these lost members as “in transit.” It makes it sound like it’s just people who are moving, or something. I seem to recall that one of the Tribune articles on this subject from earlier this year that was confused by the term.
Geoff, regarding bishops who “go to great lengths” to avoid removing names, it seems to me that if Randy B. in comment #6 is correct that there’s a loophole that swallows the rule: how often could a bishop report that he’s personally interviewed a prospective removee and satisfied himself that he “understands the eternal consequences” of the request? It seems to me that the removee is making the request precisely because he doesn’t understand the eternal consequences, and the bishop is probably unlikely to be able to help him reach that understanding talking through the screen door on the porch. So the bishop reports, “Yeah, I talked to the guy about the eternal consequences, and he doesn’t believe that there are any. So on the list he stays!”
By the way, it seems to be true that many people in the past have found it difficult to get their names off the records. Here is a website with tips to make it easier. A few years ago there was a notable court case where the church used copyright law to successfully sue Gerald and Sandra Tanner for posting sections of the GHI online that gave the church protocol for name removal.
I can tell you from personal experience that the process is not difficult, nor is it complex, nor is it lengthy. It’s the people who don’t or won’t follow it who make it difficult.
In a perfect world, it should go like this:
1) MoNoMo writes a letter to her bishop, explaining she wants her name removed from Church records.
2) Bishop contacts MoNoMo by phone or in person to verify that she wrote the letter (this is to prevent family and friends from doing it for her without her knowledge; trust me, it happens).
3) Bishop completes the paperwork, attaches her letter, and forwards it to the stake president.
4) Stake president sends MoNoMo a letter telling her that her name will be removed in 30 days and she has that window of opportunity to cancel her request.
5) After 30 days, the stake president sends the request to Church HQ; MoNoMo’s name is removed from Church records. Done and done.
Where do the problems come in?
a) MoNoMo wants no contact, but doesn’t want her name removed from Church records. Reasons include keeping her family happy and hedging her bets. In this case, the ward should make a sincere effort to honor her wishes. Most ward councils have a “do not contact” list, but after a complete turnover of ward leadership or two (say, 3 to 5 years), it’s quite common for someone to see MoNoMo on the ward list, wonder who she is, and go out to her house; the process starts all over again.
b) Some leaders don’t believe that people’s names should be removed from Church records. When people say “I don’t want contact,” they don’t tell them about the name removal process, and either (best case) put them on the DNC list or (worst case) try to reactivate them.
I’ve served in bishoprics and as an elders quorum president, and my attitude has always been if they don’t want contact, tell them how to take care of it permanently. If they won’t write a letter, be honest with them and tell them you won’t contact them, but you can’t guarantee that someone won’t sooner or later.
If you’re reading this and you want out, write the letter. If you don’t get a response or don’t get the response you want, contact the stake president and complain. This will take care of the issue 99 times out of 100.
Ed, in addition to the obviously bad spiritual advice, that site gives a singularly bad piece of legal advice: In the event that the Church tries to excommunicate you upon your request for name removal, you should sue them. I have no idea whether the Church does this, but it seems pretty clear to me that it has the First Amendment free exercise and free speech right to do so.
The current handbook (>=1998) directs that bishops and stake presidents should not act on a name removal request if they have evidence that the person has committed a transgression that warrants convening a disciplinary council. In other words, name removal cannot get you out if you’ve done something that could get you excommunicated (adultery, apostasy, child abuse, embezzling Church funds, etc.).
This prevents people from escaping ecclesiastical discipline for serious sins and then “wiping the slate clean” by being re-baptized.
One thing that hasn’t been considered is the issue of the perception of those who don’t want any contact. Even if the process is not that complicated, it makes sense to me that the people that are wanting out probably have a lower than average confidence in the Church (else they’d probably want to stay). The negative views that are required to cause someone to want to leave the Church, an option much more drastic than not going to most meetings, will likely cause the person to assume that “those Mormons” will harass them constantly. So, even if the process is easy, most that want to leave likely won’t see it that way, even if the facts actually do demonstrate that they should simply write the letter.
My very limited experience with the DNC list is that it’s sort of fluid. There seem to be “stages of do not contact” in effect, but I haven’t ever dealt with it that much.
Right after I got to my mission in Guatemala our Area Authority started a program of cleaning up the records of the Church in Central America. Every single area got a stack (sometimes up to 6 inches tall) of membership records, one sheet for every person baptized in that area. It was our responsibility to go out and find every single person and clean up the records. This meant we were to find them (which was the most ridiculous part of the project considering how many addresses were along the lines of, “the red house on the corner” or “in neighborhood Central”), update their full information, invite them to church, and if they didn’t want anything to do with the Church we gave them the information of how they could remove their names. Of the hundreds of names I did, there wasn’t a single one who actually took down that information.
What was amazing was how many people had forgotten they were baptized or how many didn’t even know they were members (swimming-with-gringos kinds of stories).
I was told the same thing after tracting into someone that wanted their name removed while on my mission. He told us he would pass the information along, but they’d have to follow the steps outlined in #20, and even then he wasn’t sure how smoothly it would go.
i got a call from the ‘tracking’ center re: my sister, who had temporarily (4-6mo) been living in DC as an intern (y’all know how the singles wards there hate/refuse to transfer records for interns). i just laughed and gave them my parents address for her; although the concern was touching i guess.
#22
This is has been modified. For legal reasons, all requests are to be honoured, but a note is to be made on the form when it is sent in, so that if the person wants to return to the church, any outstanding issues can be dealt with.
Having processed two requets myself, the process is quite easy. One was done after having received a letter, the other was done without a letter. The forms were filled out and within a week of it being sent in the records were removed.
I would guess that many people who no longer affiliate with the Church don’t care if its records are a mess and don’t feel overly traumatized telling the home teachers to go away every year or two. There is no motive to seek removal from the records.
What Bateman described sounds wrong to me.
The problem is later in the article it was told how efficient the whole system is.
So figuring that Nanosecond is the speed that records can be transfered I would say most of those 180,000 simply walked away from the church.
It would be easy to say they are lost, but with churches in almost every city in the country it is easy to find a ward building. The 180 thousand choose not to.
As for why people do not leave. The main issue is family, not the paper work process. Most of my wife’s family would freak if we left. I’m not talking short term either. Most people on that 180,000 in Utah, with big member families, simply cannot emotionally leave due to family.
The church says that they respect your right to worship as you wish, but when it comes to the family that rule is not followed very well. I know of several people whose family has disowned them after they left the church, and one resigned. How does it feel to know that a good member called his own son a follower of Satan just because he did not feel the church is true? He told me he wishes he had stayed and lived the lie.
Family. sometimes it’s not what it’s about.
gunner #29: The church says that they respect your right to worship as you wish, but when it comes to the family that rule is not followed very well. I know of several people whose family has disowned them after they left the church, and one resigned. How does it feel to know that a good member called his own son a follower of Satan just because he did not feel the church is true? He told me he wishes he had stayed and lived the lie.
And for every story like that I can give you two or three of people who joined the Church and were disowned, called a child of Satan, etc.
The problem is not with the Church or its teachings, but the hard hearts of some people in it who are not living the teachings of the Savior.
There was a period on my mission in france where I had signed of on more name reomovals than I had taught people that got baptized…
It does sound like stalking. If I didn’t want anything more to do with the church and I was mad, it would be one more thing to be mad at, that I had to write a darn letter to be left alone.
I have a friend who is gay and now in a committed relationship with another woman. The last I heard, the church wouldn’t remove her from the rolls because she has MPD and can’t decide for herself.
I think this is a compassionate thing, though. I was very grateful that they didn’t remove my mentally ill sister, who I know would not want that if she were/was in her right mind.
John Fowles is right, this is very difficult. I wonder if they teach the people who call to be very diplomatic.
I think I would rock at a job like that. Instead of a greeter at Wal-Mart, which is where I’m headed.
Some people like the attention the Church gives them and others simply don’t. Some like greasy cookies prepared by unknown hands and others don’t. Some like making a political statement by writing a letter to the bishop, and others simply want to be left alone.
Why does the Church track people down like escaped convicts, anyway? Is it the tithing? Membership numbers? Why not just consider them “nonmembers”–i.e. not lost–if they haven’t attended for a year? They can come back on their own time, get re-baptized or whatever it takes.
Some people have no idea about the resignation process, which is why it’s a good thing the Tribune is now doing a series about it. In fact, 20 years ago you COULDN’T just write a letter to get your name off the records. You’d get called in and excommunicated. Someone had to file a lawsuit to preserve his dignity by saying, in essence, “you can’t fire me; I quit!”
Well, some people don’t want to get fired or quit. Some prefer to go delinquent on the job, take multiple sick days, take a hiatus or a super-long vacation, and that’s thir right.
annegb, I might be misreading John (I often do), but I think he was being sarcastic.
On the issue of difficulty, I would agree that it is not “hard” to get your name removed in the sense that there are no “feats of strength” required, no complicated riddles to solve. But that is not to say that the process of name removal is always simple or even without significant aggravation to the person involved.
Consider this far from uncommon situation:
– Member, for whatever reason, becomes inactive.
– After some period of time, someone, say a missionary, goes to see her or gives her a call.
– She tells the missionary that she is no longer interested in the church. The missionary makes a note of it, but the person, for whatever reason, does not get added to the official ward DNC list.
– Sometime later, someone else comes to visit (new missionary, home or visiting teacher, new EQ or RS president, whatever). Our inactive member is puzzled and a bit perturbed. She thought she made it clear the first time that she was not interested. She now says, in no uncertain terms, that she wants to be left alone — no visits, no calls, no letters, nothing.
– Assume that this information gets passed along to someone in a position to do something about it. (Something that certainly does not always happen.) As a result, this person is added to the DNC list.
– Despite being added to the list, at some later point, the person gets yet another visit, either by someone who is not aware she is on the DNC list, or as part of some regular “touching base with all the members” program.
– This time she becomes irate and tells the visitor in no uncertain terms that she wants to be left alone and, in fact, wants nothing more to do with the church — ever, period. To accentuate the point, the door is slammed in the visitor’s face.
– This most unpleasant visit gets reported back the Bishop. The Bishop then calls the person to try and smooth things over and to let her know how to make her wish happen — remove your name from the records of the church. The Bishop explains that to do that, she will need to send something in writing stating as much. The Bishop also explains that in so doing, she will loose all of the blessing afforded by being a member.
– This person, puzzled at why the hell the Mormons simply won’t leave her alone, and aggravated that after yet another contact from the church she still has go through the trouble of writing a letter, finding a stamp, and mailing it off.
– Despite all that, she does as the Bishop asks and sends the letter. (Again, that doesn’t always happen.) She does this in the belief that she will never have to hear from the church again.
– A short time later she receives yet another contact from the church, this time in the form of a letter letting her know that her name will be removed within 30 days unless she takes some action otherwise.
I have served as a counselor in three bishoprics, and I’ve seen this happen each time I served. In fact, this is one of the more kindler, gentler scenarios (no threatened lawsuits or worse here).
I’m not saying that process for removing names, structurally, should be changed. (I think the idea of setting up lds.org to effectuate name removals, for example, would be a mistake.) But I can understand why people feel exasperated at times in their efforts to get their name removed. I fail to see the benefit of pretenting that this does not happen, or that people don’t really get upset. It does, and they do. It should serve as a reminder to all of us to take people’s wishes seriously, and to effectively communicate those wishes to the leaders who need to know.
Jenna #33: Why does the Church track people down like escaped convicts, anyway? Is it the tithing? Membership numbers? Why not just consider them “nonmembers”–i.e. not lost–if they haven’t attended for a year?
“And after they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ; and their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God, to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the author and the finisher of their faith.” — Moroni 6:4
“It shall be the duty of the several churches…to send one or more of their teachers to attend the several conferences held by the elders of the church with a list of the names of the several members uniting themselves with the church since the last conference…so that a regular list of all the names of the whole church may be kept in a book by one of the elders…and also, if any have been expelled from the church, so that their names may be blotted out of the general church record of names.” — D&C 20:81–83
Why do we do it? Commandment by way of revelation.
There are a lot of practices listed in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants that we don’t do anymore. Some inactive, non- or ex-members see this as harrassment. Some people even have restraining orders out on members for this reason.
The reasons some don’t resign are many and complicated. Also, the Church isn’t exactly transparent with its processes, either. Pick a ward in Georgia and one in Oregon, bring two memebers with the same transgressions to their bishops and they’ll have completely different outcomes, most likely. One could get excommunicated and the other might get informal probation for a month. If an intrepid inactive returns s/he could find her/himself in an embarrassing situation in front of stern male strangers and gossipped about for a year.
Lots of “inactives” are people who were baptized at 8 or 9, then never went to church for years as adults. Maybe they didn’t ever even want to be Mormons.
For some good examples of why some don’t take their names off the rolls, see the New Order Mormon discussion board or The View From the Foyer discussion board (google ’em).
I know I have told people on a number of occassions to never come to my house and it does little good. Within the last few months my home teachers have come twice. Now, it is like I am avoiding the Church or anything. It is due to my anxiety problems. I worry about harming other people and something always happens that causes me much anxiety such as the elderly lady who hugged me and gave me cookies when I was fixated at that period with the thought that I had glass all over me. Then, she said she was going home to prepare her holiday meal. I did not want to hurt her feelings by her kind gesture, but there was a great deal of emotional pain involved. No matter what, there is always some anxiety involved for me with a visit.
I am a visiting teaching supervisor and have been for years as it is one of the few callings one can do without going to Church. Also, I have some sisters that I visit teach by phone, which is my assignment. One of the sisters had her phone disconnected so I cannot call her and it is hard to get people to send to print my email and send it to her. I have phobias of sending mail directly to people or I would send it myself.
I guess I cannot fault others as I recently ordered something that was sent to one of my families homes and the step-dad was mad as he did not know the family was having any contact with the LDS Church. He called me personally to ask if I sent the item. It was very uncomfortable experience and I hope I did not cause any problems.
I am very open to having people call me. I find it so strange that if I do not make it to Church in a years time that my Home Teaching does not even call me. Yet, they show up at my house uninvited when I have explicity told this specific Home Teacher that I do not want visitors at my home. But there has been a year when he did not visit or even call. The last time he visited, I reminded him that I did not want visitors at my home. He said that he knew that. Then, he apologized for not visiting the last month when he had gone months without visitng or calling me. Is he trying to mess with my head or what? He hands me a handful of papers to events that I cannot go to due to my phobias. Why are people so insensitive?
Coming unexpected is worst because I may be more contaminated than usual.
Well, I know these are rather negative remarks. But it is real to me.
The bottom line is that a person may have a good reason for not requesting visitors and you could cause a lot of problems by visiting.
This is what happened when people are considered perfectly capable of making the most important decision they can make for time and eternity (i.e. baptism) before they’ve even hit puberty. They don’t need to write a letter to join; why must they right a letter to just get out already????
To be fair, the baptismal preparations should include information about being followed from residence to residence, even if they decide in college or long after they’re grandparents that they no longer want anything to do with the Church. What’s that you say? An eight year old wouldn’t understand all that? Well, what DOES an eight year old understand? Enough to be baptized? They want the party and the adulation and the ritual and the photos and the cooing, but how many eight year olds really understand the ramification of this important religious decision?
Maybe the Church should only count as members people over the age of 21 who still consider themselves Mormons, not eight year olds. They should also stop counting the 110 year olds–there aren’t many of them left either.
If you want to leave the church, then do what it takes, otherwise, live with it or get with the program (which is what I would suggest). It takes guts to go to your family and tell them that you don’t want anything to do with the church. It takes guts to tell your church friends that the last twenty years of callings, talk and lesson preperations, and so forth were for naught. It takes guts to talk to your bishop or stake president about why you want to leave and request a formal severance from the church. All of these things probably make it hard to do – due to anxiety, pride, or whatever else. But if you honestly believe that you aren’t getting anywhere by having your name tied to the mormon church or that either there is something better out there or that the church is of the devil, then do us all a favor and do what it takes to get your name removed. If not, I guess the rest of us will bug you until you either take the plunge and do it, or start coming back to church.
But my guess is that most of you, aside from family, don’t have close ties to the bishop or have many “active” friends in church and haven’t held callings for some time. You likely despise such people and opportunities. You likely don’t really know if there is something better out there. Many of you just become apathetic to the church because it took too much time from what you wanted to do or became offended off of something that may or may not have been intended for offense. And so you don’t feel it to be any worth to do what it takes to get your records removed becuase a few contacts here or there don’t really bother you any way. If they do, then read from the beginning again.
Funny though, what you think takes so much of your time or what you don’t care about, you still sit here and blog about it.
Randy, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I wasn’t referring to the process of removing one’s name from the church–that may well be difficult, I can’t say. I just meant, this whole thing is so difficult, and discouraging. A lot of this stems from a genuine concern for the spiritual welfare of others. It is difficult for believers to sit back when others mock (greasy homemade cookies anyone?) and judge, and demand removal. It is difficult and aggravating for non-believers when believers try to dissuade them from removal. It is all just so difficult.
[rant]
The last two comments are both right on target. If you can blog about being harassed by insistent Mormons (let alone talk about suing the Church), certainly you can write a one-sentence letter to your bishop and stick it in the mail.
There’s a part of me that thinks there are some people out there who want to keep their membership so they can continue to complain about being harassed. This is why the so-called “Recovery from Mormonism” board is nothing of the sort — no one is “recovering” by any possible definition of the word, they’re only complaining about how horrible their lives have been and how evil and deluded Mormons are.
For crying out loud, grow up, take responsibility for yourself, cut your ties, and enjoy your new life.
[/rant]
In an effort to be fair and balanced, I feel a need to make a few more remarks. The Home Teacher of which I spoke earlier has actually given me numerous rides both to Church and very frequently to see my Bishop a few years back. I have respect for him as he is a single male member of the Church who I think has never married and that is not always easy. I think it is due to a condition that I believe is terminal. Also, he has gone on a lot of splits with the missionaries through the years and given them a lot of rides. When I was trying to go back to Church, he would try to wait until the Chapel cleared before we left so I would be less anxious. Also, he would make a shecial trip to pick me up so I would only have to go to Sacrament.
I did tell my Home Teachers that they can come visit if they will stand on the side walk and not come up to my house or come near me or try to hand me anything.
In years gone by before my problems, I had a lot of Home Teacher and Visiting Teaching visits that I really enjoyed. At one time, we seldom went in our living room as our basement was the room where our t.v. was. The only people who usually went in the room were myself with my Home Teachers. I am the only member in my family and my family gleefully dubbed that room “The Mormon Room” during that period. A lot of great memories and a lot of very decent and loving people have been my Home Teachers and Visiting Teachers as well as my friends.
My current Visiting Teacher has a lot of health problems. I did meet her once at a restaurant about a year ago. It was nice but it is hard for me to eat around people so I do not due that as a general rule. She has trouble going places now but emails me frequently. She is sometimes bed ridden so it is hard for her to talk on the phone. She does mail me nice things in the mail as well.
Well, my earlier statement was not the full truth so I tried to clear things up a little. In addition, my other home teacher is a really awesome individual too who has shown a great deal of empathy to my situation and things I have been through in the past.
Umn, I guess I was never lost from the records so this was never about me really. I’m so vain. 🙁
Does the church’s Membership tracking program (MLS?) have a field for “Do not Contact” or “mail only”?
Is there a “comment” field so that results of contacts can be noted?
“Brother John Doe talked to Betty on Oct 15th, 2005, and she requested ‘no contact'”.
We got a new bishop this year, and recently got a new Ward Mission Leader, and they are now duplicating what was done earlier in the year. Every inactive person was called early in 2005 to see if they wanted home teachers, or no contact, or whatever.
Now, the new WML and his helpers are going to all the inactives and asking them face-to-face if they want home teachers. Apparently, the list or report from the first go-round this year wasn’t passed on to the new WML.
I see a bunch of people getting ticked off (those who said ‘no’ to home teachers), or else thinking we’re stupid (those who said ‘yes’ to home-teachers).
[sigh]
#44 is precisely what will happen as long as a person remains on the Church records. The Church believes (rightly so, IMHO) that it has a responsibility to spiritually nurture its members, and as long as you’re a member, people are going to try to minister to you. If you don’t want to be ministered to, you have to remove yourself from the membership rolls.
This offends some people who don’t seem to realize that this is not the Church of the Small Town Neighborhood who only counts “members” by who’s warming the pews.
Mike, I agree with your comments. There’s something else going on here.
A “lost member” in Utah sent a letter to the editor of the trib and you can read it here.
Like I feel. Most “lost members” want to be lost. Let them make their own choices. Remember the
Alamo11th article of faith people.We will let the “lost” members do what they choose. Heck we are all about agency. Now, that doesn’t mean we won’t try to contact you, it just means that we have our agency as well. The crazy thing is is that as an LDS people we don’t just knock on our own members (less active or whatever), we also knock on those who have not partaken of our faith. If we honestly believe that what we have is true, why would we not want to share that with all people? Granted, our approach may be different.
Nathan, sure we have our “agency,” but we should still treat others with politeness and respect? If some inactives feel like we’re hounding them, maybe we should look at ourselves and ask if we can do better.
I agree with #49, and the way to do it is to help them get their names removed from Church records.
The problem, as I mentioned previously, is that there is a significant percentage of Latter-day Saints who are mortified that anyone would even consider removing a person from the records, and make every attempt to prevent it from happening. The problem is not policy, it’s culture.
Recently the Los Angeles Times ran an article (link) about a woman whose inactive-Mormon husband had recently died. Members of the local ward continued to call her and come to her home, even when she had told them she didn’t want any contact, and had even done so in writing. She got so frustrated that she went to the Times to complain about it.
I’m embarrassed to say that story took place in my ward, and was the result of a “contact at any cost” policy of our previous bishop. When it hit the paper, the stake presidency counseled them on this sort of thing. But the damage has already been done.
We as a people need to accept the fact that the best thing for some people is to let them go. If they are to receive the blessings of the gospel, then the Spirit will lead them back. Hounding them will not.
Over the past few years, I have served as membership clerk or executive secretary for three bishops, so I have had some experience with membership problems. When we receive a membership record, the bishop writes them a welcome letter. I call a few days later and try to schedule an appointment for them to meet with the bishop.
When I call someone whose records have been sent from the lost member file, reactions vary. Most are glad to hear from the us, even if they have not been active in many years and do not plan to be active. Some even complain about being neglected.
But there are a few who are hostile or even abusive. When that happens, the bishop sends them a conciliatory letter, promising that we will not visit them regularly but that, since they are members of the church, we still feel responsible for them. The letter explains how they can have their names removed from the records and we enclose a stamped envelope addressed to the bishop that they can use if they decide that they really do not want to be members any more.
I have never met a bishop who was reluctant to remove the name of a disaffected member. Unfortunately, not many choose that option. For reasons that I cannot fathom, some will hang onto their membership for years even though they want nothing to do with the church.
From the point of view of the wards and quorums, it would be a good thing if we could easily remove the names of disaffected members. There are not many of them, but even those few present a huge problem. It is realy bad for the morale of the ward to send home teachers or visiting teachers to homes where they will not be welcome.
Is the church afraid of legal liability if we remove these people from the records without waiting for them to initiate the process? Would it be practical to accept an oral request rather than requiring that it be put into writing?
I do want to add that I was in a missionary meeting with the full-time missionaries and the Bishop when I was a stake missionary. A family came up and the Bishop issued extreme caution to be taken as the nonmember husband was an alcholic so I do know that leaders are cognizant of issues and take measures.
Also, I have been told to call my family during the day when the antagonistic person who I believe to be a nonmember is not at home.
Personal experience, for what its worth: I stopped attending church in 2002 after concluding that the BOM was not historical. I was living in Virginia at the time, and then moved to Texas. I never got around to removing my name because, well, I had other things to do, and felt no urgency in removing it, although I have had not the slightest intention of returning. Nor have I been harassed. No one has called or visited in the intervening years.
Then earlier this year, I think in January, I got a letter from the church headquarters asking me if I was so-and-so, which I am, and it asked me if I needed contact or wanted to remove my name. I put it into a drawer intending to get to it. Then I moved in March, and can’t find the letter. So I just haven’t gotten around to it.
I need to find that letter.
In Transit, it was news to me too, but apparently you can disbelieve the historicity of the Book of Mormon and still believe in the church. See beliefs E and F.