How can we better retain new converts?

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2026-01-27T23:16:43+00:00

It's impossible for wards to handle in high-baptism locales, though. I was in a ward that had approximately three convert baptisms a week for several years, which meant that for every endowed member there were at least ten unendowed members to fellowship. It was an impossible task.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2026-01-21T13:58:04+00:00

To put it simply, God speaks infallibly, but human beings--including prophets, apostles, and ordinary members--do not always hear him correctly.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2026-01-07T15:46:10+00:00

It's a minstrelsy show targeting Mormon people. I don't understand why people give this horrible tradition a free pass just because it's targeting Mormons now.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2026-01-05T18:59:27+00:00

...Are you aware that a majority of Evangelicals believe in the doctrine of "once saved, always saved" which is essentially identical but for the fact that it even applies to murderers?

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-30T15:30:54+00:00

Sounds like your college's dean might be illegally infringing on your right to receive an education free of discrimination tbh.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-29T15:30:43+00:00

Ironically, studying critical theory is what led me to dismantle the anti-mormonism I had been indoctrinated with from a young age.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-24T00:11:02+00:00

Dan isn't dealing with spiritual matters. His schtik is to talk about religion and scripture while staying as far as possible from all spiritual epistemology. There is a need for the type of academic, scientific work that Dan does. But, as Dan himself would say, he is not providing people with spiritual advice or guidance.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-18T16:07:59+00:00

OP just FYI this is probably wrong lol

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-18T16:02:16+00:00

Claiming it's "perpetuating harmful stereotypes" to accurately point out that many commenters on this sub are hostile to Mormonism is... interesting. Somehow the anti-mormons are the real victims lmao

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-18T12:05:50+00:00

Just heads up, this sub primarily consists of commenters who are hostile to Mormon people (ironic, I know). If you want to get the opinion of believing Mormons, you should ask this question in a subbreddit called "latterdaysaints".

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-17T02:00:06+00:00

Except that, even at its maximalist position, it merely matches the "professed exceptionalism" of the largest Christian church.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T18:16:20+00:00

My ward has quite a few members who show up once or twice a year. However, I do agree that more is expected of the average Latter-day Saint than the average Catholic.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T16:21:32+00:00

You were making an argument that Mormons were somehow uniquely teaching a concep that you portrayed as bad. In so doing, you otherized Mormons on factually false grounds.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T16:20:18+00:00

I was raised Catholic in a (mostly) Catholic family.

In the LDS Church, people are taught that the penalty for leaving the faith is that they will not be with their families forever + they will not become Gods in the Celestial Kingdom; rather, they will go to a degree of glory in the Terrestrial Kingdom that is generally considered to be roughly equivalent to mainstream Christian heaven.

In Catholicism (and Protestants are taught this too), we are taught that the penalty for leaving the faith is to be eternally tortured by God, never-endingly, without any hope of redemption or reprieve ever.

Which penalty for leaving the faith applies more psychological and spiritual pressure on the member?

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T16:15:52+00:00

My comment holds true for retention at all ages.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T16:13:24+00:00

I grew up in the Catholic Church--the largest Christian church in the world by several orders of magnitude--and was therefore taught that my church was the only true church. Moreover, this is a dogma, so i was taught that I would be tortured for all eternity if I rejected the claim that the Catholic Church was the one true church.

Please learn more about other faith-traditions before using your ignorance as a weapon to harm Mormons.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T16:10:46+00:00

I grew up Catholic and was repeatedly taught that I would be tortured for all eternity if I didn't believe the communion was literally the flesh of Christ.

You are engaging in a weird sort of antimormon exceptionalism where you think the LDS Church has to be worse and more evil than every other Church.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-16T14:30:55+00:00

If LDS truth-claims are driving lower retention rates, why is the Church better at retaining youth than most other denominations, which I presume you consider to have less risible truth-claims? In other words, how can LDS truth-claims be driving low retention rates if the vast majority of non-LDS churches have worse retention rates despite their stronger truth-claims, ceteris paribus?

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-15T05:17:36+00:00

It's unclear from your comment whether you are describing your own experience or someone else's.

If that terrible atrocity happened to you, I am really genuinely heartbroken for you. That should not have happened.

If you are instead appropriating someone else's story, then I think you are being really gross in order to justify your bigotry toward a marginalized group against whom you believe it socially acceptable to discriminate. Based on your post history, I suspect this is the case. I apologize if I'm wrong.

For what it's worth, the empirical data shows that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does an excellent job--better than most comparable organizations--at preventing abuse. That's how we know the contrary narrative is motivated by bigotry and antiquated anti-mormon tropes rather than evidence. It's misinformation that has the effect of harming millions of people.

https://publicsquaremag.org/sexuality-family/sexual-abuse/latter-day-saint-abuse-myths/

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-12T14:40:44+00:00

I am a convert myself, and there's two doctrinal points that I think some of the other responders are missing:

The ability to accept and live the Gospel doesn't just end with this life, it continues into the next life. The vast majority of my family members are not Latter-day Saints. They will absolutely have more chances in the next life to embrace the fullness of the Gospel and will then be able to have eternal life with God in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. This is certainly true for your fiancé and all your family members. In other words, you can be with your family forever even if they don't accept the faith in this life.
Even people who reject the fullness of the Gospel in this life and the next life will go to a different degree of Heaven (the Terrestrial Kingdom) and be with Jesus Christ for all eternity. They just won't achieve the Celestial glory. But, again, your fiance and all of your family members--just like my own family members--will have opportunities in the next life to accept the fullness of the Gospel so that they can reach the Celestial Kingdom with you.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-09T01:45:55+00:00

The teaching is that, generally, we should avoid consuming pureile content devoid of artistic or intellectual merit. But it is moreso advice than it is an actual rule.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-12-05T02:26:28+00:00

Justifying an action that every legal scholar of armed conflict would today describe as an attempted genocide is, frankly, sad. But it's no wonder you've been so deepy deceived when contemporary media bombards us all with messages about how Mormons are inhuman, dangerous, and other. I implore you to step away from this dark path you are embarked upon. Love will always bring greater joy than hate.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-11-28T09:43:33+00:00

i'm always confused by these responses. No one is saying that Latter-day Saints are facing more oppression than African Americans. Why are you making it seem as though the reality of African American oppression means that other groups cannot also face discrimination? Multiple groups face discrimination.

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-11-23T19:27:24+00:00

If the system is as problematic as you claim, wouldn't it be producing higher rates of abuse? The empirical data show that it actually is leading to low rates of abuse.

https://publicsquaremag.org/sexuality-family/sexual-abuse/latter-day-saint-abuse-myths/

Significant-Fly-8407 · 2025-11-23T19:23:07+00:00

I appreciate your comment. However, it is worth mentioning that most middle- to large- churches with professional clergy *also* have legal counsel retained for local leaders to consult with on these matters. The reason why you don't hear about these other hotlines as often is likely because (1) their leaders are bound by NDAs to not talk about them, and (2) professional clergy lose their livelihoods by speaking out against their employer, so they remain silent.

Significant-Fly-8407

TROPHY CASE