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.