Recent Comments

  • Dr Cocoa on Public service announcements: election edition: “Attention Harris Voters: you and your college+ education will be vindicated in front of the entire world in the coming years. Just be ready to help clean up the mess without saying, “I told you so”, and we might just make it through this. Maybe.Nov 12, 06:41
  • E on Public service announcements: election edition: “Yes. This is so needed.Nov 12, 05:40
  • jader3rd on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “I don’t think that the list is primarily made up of people who were baptized young and then left. The lists are full of people who were just blessed as babies by grandparents. It would be very useful if ward records made it as easy to see if they were baptized as it is to see what Priesthood office the men have on record.Nov 11, 21:51
  • RLD on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “Are Church membership records perfect? Of course not–and nobody knows that better than the Church leaders who use them. Rest assured nobody is choosing temple locations based on the number of members on the rolls. As I recall, the primary criteria are the number of temple workers and the number of members doing temple work for their own ancestors. Leader and Clerk Resources gives local leaders a variety of reports and “key indicators” to help them understand their units, from the number of members attending meetings to the number of members with current temple recommends to the number of ministering interviews, and a lot more. I’m sure Area and General leaders have even more information. It’s not a question of which number is “right,” it’s a question of which number is relevant to the question you’re trying to answer or the issue you’re trying to address.Nov 11, 20:47
  • Stephen C on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “@ReTX: I think that’s a huge part of it: people who were baptized earlier in their life when they were single. JI: “So, is it the general consensus that the church’s membership records are unreliable?” For some uses, yes. “And that church leaders who rely on those membership records are making errant decisions?” Not necessarily. Depending on the decision that in-name-only members might “count” like RLD noted, and I assume that they often use more precise numbers that are less public.Nov 11, 18:42
  • ji on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “So, is it the general consensus that the church’s membership records are unreliable? And that church leaders who rely on those membership records are making errant decisions?Nov 11, 18:36
  • ReTx on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “I imagine that every one of my non-active but still onthe rolls family members is shown on the church records as single even though they are not. They all left the church in their early 20s, so how would the church know one way or the other what happened to their martial status?Nov 11, 17:22
  • RLD on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “Good stuff–thanks Stephen. I do think the discrepancy comes from leaders using (“raw”) membership records. In my experience leadership thinks of inactive members as members, whether they would self-identify as such or not. It’s not about inflating numbers; they were baptized, they “[came] into the fold of God,” and we have an obligation to them until they choose to explicitly leave. To Chad’s point, I’d guess those inactive members are more likely to be single because 1) they’re less likely to be affiliated with any religion and unaffiliated people are more likely to be single, and 2) they’re more likely to be converts and converts are more likely to be single. And maybe 3) being single makes people less likely to stay active. But that’s all supposition. I’m sure some of them only appear to be single because we don’t know about their marriage. Still, with only 54% of self-identified members identifying as married, I’ll bet the “sound bite” is correct for the definition of member that the leaders who said it had in mind. And if you’re thinking “How can we bring inactive members back to church?” then that’s the definition you should use and the conclusion that you have to make the Church welcoming to singles is correct. But if you’re looking around your congregation on Sunday morning and thinking “Most of the adults here are married” that’s probably true too.Nov 11, 16:15
  • Last Lemming on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the non-practicing are disproportionately single. It could be that they were single when they went inactive and nobody informed the Church of their marriages. (Just saying. I suspect that they are disproportionately single.)Nov 11, 16:03
  • Stephen C on Are Most Members Really Unmarried? Part II With Newer Data: “I guess it depends on disproportionate to what. If you mean disproportionately single relative to LDS self-identifiers on the rolls, then yes, that would explain the discrepancy in theory, but again I’m just conjecturing how exactly they came up with the “majority single” figure.Nov 11, 12:33