40% Of LDS Missionaries Are Leaving The Church Within 6 Months?

[malkie]

For me the sales pressure wasn't as bad as the purpose behind it and the reaction the GA gave me when I expected a pat on the back. Numbers were rendered empty. We were supposed to be saving the world from an eternity of lesser kingdoms and here this guy acted like it didn't mean anything. Thinking about it afterward, maybe there was some petty jealousy or perhaps he got the same response from the higher ups, eg, no special reward for doing your job type thing. Anyway, it's just another corporation selling something and the goal is to just get them to sign on the line that is dotted and then move on, without emotion.

I don't know when you served, but in the early 1990s, the former approach of maximal baptisms was dropped and presidents who promoted it were frowned upon. Perhaps you knew one of the opponents of the soccer baptism strategy? I forget the anecdote, but one or more of the apostles was sent to various Latin American countries to reorganize things because the numbers were so ludicrously out of line with attendance.

Baseball baptisms were a thing when Bernard P Brockbank was president of the Scotland Mission. I was almost dunked under that program, but my dad intervened. Later I became a "hormonal" convert - the woman I married was a member, and the pressure was substantial. One missionary was warned that she was in danger of being sent home for her antics in "persuading" me.

When I became branch president in my early 20s I inherited a membership list of just over 300 people, more than 200 of whom were "inactive prospective elders". Almost all of these men were baseball baptisms, and had no idea that they were members of the church, though most had some memory of being initiated into the baseball team by being dunked.

Back in these days the only exit for people like that was excommunication. I was chased from more doorsteps than I could keep count of for suggesting that.

Our normal sacrament meeting attendance count was ~25.

[Craig Paxton]

40%??? This just seems too good to be true. I'm a skeptic. That said, Dehlin has deep, well placed, undercover spies throughout the corporation...so if any source is going to be true it would be from Dehlin.

[I Have Questions]

"We have it on very good authority that the church is now telling people in secret private meetings that 40% of Mormon missionaries who are returning from their missions as of late are leaving the Mormon church within six months." (John Dehlin)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nhZw36seLKk

If true, this is terrible news for the Church. If 40% of missionaries are leaving the Church, then it seems the mission is actively deconverting more people than if they had just stayed home. So, going on a mission now puts one at risk of leaving the Church much more than someone who doesn't go on a mission?

So strange. I would love to learn more about this.

What’s his source?

I’m still interested in knowing where this “data” is coming from.