The church is in a better position for success when the members are not dependent on the church for testimony, but have achieved the goal of being rooted and grounded, as Paul teaches (Colossians 1:23, Ephesians 3:17). I would think being rooted and grounded is to have a testimony from the Holy Ghost.

My experience is that inactive members I encounter in real life, and not on the internet, didn’t leave because of cognitive dissonance over uncomfortable Church history. Often they aren’t even aware of it.

The internet ex-Mormon or disaffected Mormon community artificially skews toward people with the sort of issues groups like FAIR are dedicated to combating.

In the real world, it seems to be more a matter of burnout, or lack of social life, or something along those lines.

I also was impressed by Elder Andersen’s and Elder Cook’s recent remarks in this regard.

I believe those who never drift fall into two categories:

1) Those who never question – who simply are “blessed” to be believers;

2) Those who gain a testimony / witness / relationship / faith / conviction / whatever totally independent of their religion – those who become “agents unto themselves” – who are able to act and not to be acted upon.

Most people never take the time and give the attention necessary to pursue personal spiritual growth as a unique, separate journey. Therefore, when the wind blows hard enough, they “drift” – since they aren’t anchored properly on their own.

Does anyone know why lds.org, mormon.org, and providentliving.org are down??
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familysearch.org still is up.

For my own part as an evangelical, I have grown quite frustrated with the immense emphasis on the initial conversion experience at the expense of focus on sanctification & retention. The conversion makes up such a tiny portion of the Christian’s life. I agree that justification is important, but it’s hard for me to say that it’s more important than discipleship. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that’s like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is more important.

I have more to say about this, but it’s late and my thoughts are muddied. I’ll try to get back to this tomorrow.

I think the ability to attract and retain members is impacted by several key factors:

1) Relevance of the institution. I think our church gets high marks here when you consider forums such as General Conference where the entire membership gets very timely, relelvant, and faith promoting messages about the challenges of our day. The fact that we sustain these leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators makes their messages all the more impactful.

2) Relevance of the message. Here again we get high marks, as we have an important message about our eternal destiny and the covenant relationship required to inherit future blessings.

3) Local level. While we have very inspired and talented local leaders, I find most programs are not flexible enough to adjust to the needs of local members. This is unfortunate.

As members live in the local level, the ability to tailor programs including scope, frequency, and intent would be critical to adjust to the needs of local units. My frustration is when local programs (that are failing) are not adjusted to meet local needs. If the CHI indicates that program x must meet once per week, and PPIs should be conducted monthly, etc, etc, we risk running an empty program (shell), that can sometimes waste peoples valuable time, and fall short of its intended purpose. But any deviation from the prescribed protocols, and your ideas and suggestions for improvement are usually deemed heretical and unorthodox.

I understand that there is a tension between uniformity, correlation, and structure vs flexibility, but I think we almost always error on the side of uniform program rigidity as compared to local leaders being able to adapt and modify programs. For example, this may mean that Mutual doesn’t meet every week! (Gasp!!)

What this comes down to is what level of trust will local leaders be empowered to make decisions and modify programs without damaging the distinctive Mormon experience and “franchise.”?

My own take is that a greater ability to make the worship experience relevant to the needs of local wards will be helpful in reducing membership drift and inactivity for members who are not finding their worship experience relevant anymore.

1. I’ve often been guilty of saying one thing, but then doing another thing that either explicitly or implicitly is in contradiction to what I’ve said. Sometimes my conscience sorts things out, sometimes my conscience convicts me, and other times I feel like I have to leave it up to God to judge me as I sometimes just don’t know.

There are a bunch of things that I give mental and verbal assent to, but I fail to actually _do_ anything about them. So either I’m a hypocrite in those things, or am lazy, or a sinner, or I just don’t actually have faith in what I say that I believe.

2. I’ve been told that the Greek words for “believe” and “belief” used in the New Testament have a connotation of dedication and action attached to them, beyond mere mental and verbal assent. ( Can any Greek scholars here shed further light? )

3. Actions speak louder than words.

4. The famous “faith without works” and “shew faith by works” discourse: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/james/2/14,17-18,20,22,24,26#14 (I was wrong. I wrote John earlier instead of James.)

5. I was trying to lower the bar and _include_ more people for GMA’s hypothetical example of who is admitted to temple worship. If one honestly says he believes (even if he’s believing on the faith of others), and (strives to) keep the commandments, then (by James’ definition) that’s faith, and I think that’s an entre to the Temple.

6. Alma’s definition of faith in chap 32 also requires action: _nourishing_ the seed/seedling/tree.

7. Even many of our mainstream Christian critics define faith as “a belief (that results) in action.”

8. Elder Bednar quoted Joseph Smith in the “Lectures on Faith” about faith being a principle of action.

And now I think I’ve drifted too far from the original post.

How do we keep ourselves (and our families) from drifting away even while in the faith? How do we find the motivation to keep on keeping on?

I think the “drift” mentioned in the original post happens in the LDS church too. Hopefully, we can bring in converts who “drift out” of other churches, but once inside, how do we keep from drifting? How do we anchor ourselves deep inside the restored gospel and its official authoriized vehicle (the church) so we don’t wander off, get bored, get offended, etc. ?