Religion News Service guest columnist Emily Jensen discusses the move by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to have service missionaries come under the leadership of proselytizing missions.
If recent trends are discouraging, projections about the future are even more so. Latter-day Saints have long depended on a three-pronged strategy to fuel membership growth: attract converts, have large families, and keep young people in the fold so they can serve missions and have babies, repeating the cycle of success.We’re still attracting converts, which is great in comparison to the declines other religions are already experiencing, but the numbers aren’t strong.
And, as stated above, retention appears to be a deepening problem. Low activity rates used to occur primarily in regions of the world where most members were converts. But now more members are dropping out in the United States as well — even in the stronghold of Utah. These people are often still on the membership rolls, but they’re not holding callings, paying tithes or raising their kids in the church.
But putting all this pressure on missionaries is problematic. Making service missionaries proselytize seems like a misstep in the church’s effort to gain more converts. Why not let the service stand on its own? Why not allow service missionaries the choice if they want to integrate teaching instead of making it mandatory?, “is to help others come unto Christ by serving them as the Savior would. We serve voluntarily in charitable organizations, church functions, and within the community.
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