It may not be read in general conference anymore, but needless to say, I was interested to take a look at the Church’s 2021 statistical report. One interesting thing I noticed has to do with the counts of proselytizing versus service missionaries. Here’s a graph showing the end-of-year counts of missionaries since 2010. You can see in the count of proselytizing missionaries the jump with the age change in 2012, the slow decline afterward, and then the dramatic drop with COVID and then some recovery. The count of service missionaries has had fewer dramatic movements, increasing through 2018, then declining for a couple of years, and then increasing sharply in 2021.
As I mentioned in my conference review post, several speakers reminded young men that they need to be serving missions, and that young women can go as well. For example, here’s President Nelson in the opening talk of the conference:
Today I reaffirm strongly that the Lord has asked every worthy, able young man to prepare for and serve a mission. For Latter-day Saint young men, missionary service is a priesthood responsibility. . . . For you young and able sisters, a mission is also a powerful, but optional, opportunity. . . . Your decision to serve a mission, whether a proselyting or a service mission, will bless you and many others. [italics in original]
As an aside, I find the patronizing tone directed toward young women grating, but I feel like at least it represents a step forward from President Hinckley’s 1997 talk where he pretty openly discouraged women from serving. Anecdotally, for some women I know who were missionaries at the time, the talk led many elders to sneer to them, “Why don’t you just go home?”
Looking back to the graph, President Nelson and the other GAs are clearly concerned with the upper line, the count of proselytizing missionaries. It fell from about 67,000 at the end of 2019 to about 52,000 at the end of 2020. Of course this can be attributed to the pandemic. But then through 2021, even as vaccines became more widely available, it rebounded only a little, to about 55,000. I suspect they’re concerned that all the disruption in missionary work because of COVID has made missionary service seem more optional.
Even though President Nelson mentioned both proselytizing and service missions, I think the GAs’ concern shows that they’re still more focused on proselytizing missions. If you look at the lower line in the graph above, you’ll see that service missionaries fell off from their 2018 peak even before the pandemic, but then didn’t really decline as it began, and then rebounded strongly in 2021. The end-2021 count is only 1000 short of the all-time high. So if they truly considered service missions to be as good as proselytizing missions, I don’t think they’d be so concerned.
This next graph shows the same data as the graph above, but arranged differently. Here, the total number of missionaries is shown in the purple area, and the percentage who are service missionaries is shown with the black line.
The pattern here looks pretty clear. The overall missionary count increased dramatically with the age change announced in 2012 and then leveled off at a higher-than-before level for several years before the pandemic, dropped off with the pandemic, and then rebounded. The percentage service missionaries dropped with the age change announcement, as more young people became eligible and started proselytizing missions, but has been increasing since, other than a dip in 2019. (This is pretty speculative, but my son did a service mission around this time, and he was told that the Church’s whole system for handling service missionaries was being changed at the time to integrate it better with the system for handling proselytizing missionaries, so I wonder if the dip is related to that change.)
In terms of the total missionary count, the pandemic dip was from about 98,000 to 82,000, with a rebound back to 91,000 in 2021, so about half of the dip being made up. It doesn’t seem surprising in retrospect that service missionary work would take over a greater share of the work during the pandemic, as there were suddenly more people in greater need, so service missionaries were probably less likely to be sent home (not to mention, they were already probably more likely to be serving close to home). Looking toward the future, for a long time I’ve hoped that the Church would make a decision at the top to just drop proselytizing missions entirely in favor of having missionaries do service. It seems like now that they’ve made it easier for young people to choose service missions, this change might just happen as a bottom-up phenomenon, where service missions will come to dominate just because that’s what the young people are choosing.
I do wonder how the GAs would or will react if the percentage of service missionaries crosses 50, or 70, or 90. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to push back, and give talks where they emphasize that service missions are all well and good, kind of like women serving missions, but proselytizing missions are crucial. If they do allow the shift to happen, it seems like a culture shift in the Church will also be needed, where we show in general that service missions are as valid a choice as proselytizing ones. At the very least, we would have to start having stories told, from sacrament meetings up to general conference, of missionaries having dramatic and wonderful experiences on service missions and not just on proselytizing missions.
In any case, I will be interested to watch in future statistical reports whether the percentage of missionaries who choose service will continue to increase.
Not one member of the First Presidency served a mission as a young man. Not one. And now they put a guilt trip on all young men about serving missions?
This is actually quite shameful. Locking missionaries up for months on end during covid was not good for anyone. We had a young missionary development serious mental problems from being locked up in an apartment. He committed suicide soo after he was released and sent home early.
Young people today don’t want to be locked up and wasting time. They certainly don’t want to be treated as second class members for not going on missions. This will just drive even more young members away.
I am never quick to criticize, and I do so sparingly. But this is the wrong approach.
I believe that young people should be willing to work hard. Service missions provide that opportunity for those who are not suited to proselytizing. Denigrating service missions in this fashion will discourage young people from serving in this way.
It was a great mistake to send proselytizing missionaries home during the so-called pandemic. They should have been out providing service to those in need. Sending them home to play video games and watch funny cat videos on YouTube prevented service from occurring.
Some young people need time to develop their service abilities. Service missions would assist in that endeavor. This push for proselytizing missions or nothing will hamper the ability to learn how to serve for those who need time.
Having seen my nephew and a ward member both come home early recently and transition from proselyting to service missions for medical/mental health challenges, I’m both grateful that such an option exists and concerned that promoting one over the other will result in second-class status perpetuation
This is anecdotal, so take it for what it’s worth. We know a young man from a ranching family who turned in papers for a mission during Covid. Regular papers, so not a service mission. He was called to whatever mission serves the high desert southwest, including New Mexico. He was told to bring work clothes and to expect to be driving a pickup truck around the area helping people. According to his parents, he is thriving and his mission has been the kind of experience every parent dreams of for their child.
These counts of missionaries don’t break down what portions are closer to 20-years-old or 70. Changes in that split would likely be a large driver of the proselyting/service split. Or maybe I am overestimating the portion of old missionaries and there are too few to drive any trends.
PWS, to be clear, there are no “regular” papers anymore. Missionaries apply for a mission and it could wind up being any sort of mission. The entire point was to tear down the cultural barriers between a “regular” (i.e. proselytizing) mission and those “inferior” service ones.
https://www.thisweekinmormons.com/2018/11/new-opportunities-and-mission-types-announced-for-prospective-latter-day-saint-missionaries/
PWS – My son just returned home from serving in the New Mexico Farmington Mission (which covers the four corners area) and what you described is the standard experience for missionaries in that area – including the proselyting missionaries. All the missionaries drive trucks and spend huge amounts of time doing service like chopping wood. It’s just how they operate in that area. In fact, an axe and maul for splitting wood were on his recommended packing list. He absolutely loved it and spent 18 of his 24 months deep in the Navajo Nation. It was a perfect fit for my son.
Incidentally, my son served during COVID and was part of the last group to get the full time allotted to them in the MTC prior to it being closed down due to COVID. The day he went to the field was the day they sent everyone out early or home.
Thanks for your comments!
Ivy, that’s tragic about the missionary who killed himself after returning. I hope there’s a move toward a greater appreciation of the strain a mission can put on a young person’s mental health, given that so many missionaries are returning early now even prior to COVID.
acw, I agree. I have a son who did a service mission because a proselytizing one was just going to be too much for him, and at least in my hearing, people around us were very supportive, which I so appreciated.
PWS, Chad, and Jason, I’m happy to hear the lines blurring between the two types of missions, with even proselytizing missions sometimes involving more service than they used to. This seems like a really positive development!
John, that’s a great point. I’d love to see the breakdown of young vs. older missionaries too. It’s too bad it’s not in the statistical report. I swear the Church has occasionally released the breakdown in a random Church News story or something. I could be misremembering, but I thought I had seen it a time or two.
I’ve long fantasized that the church would develop a special type of mission for kids with genius level minds – giving them the option of serving a “mission” that focuses on intensive study of world religions and mormon theology, with the goal that some of these kids would become leading scholars in mormonism or religious studies more broadly. The Church already has hundreds of thousands of hands and feet serving the kingdom; it desperately needs more minds doing it.
That would be an interesting alternative, Classics.
I felt that the emphasis on full-time proselytizing missions was so heavy-handed. Missionary service in this capacity is physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and psychologically demanding. Not everyone can handle the demands of a full-time proselytizing mission, and that is absolutely all right. I have found that service and genuine human interactions without agenda do a better job of bringing people to Christ than any form of proselytizing ever could.
The church needs to reform its missionary program from the ground-up. The focus needs to be more on humanitarian aid and service than on preaching. Instead of proselytizing missions, give people the option to serve either a humanitarian or service mission – essentially, develop LDS versions of the AmeriCorps and Peace Corps. Prospective applicants can choose to serve either in a foreign country, in another state, or in their own communities. Have their assignments consist of them improving the areas they serve in and bettering the lives of those they serve. Focus on permanent change and permanent solutions versus temporary, feel-good assignments that voluntourism falls prey to.
To avoid falling into the voluntourism trap, have all the same safeguards the AmeriCorps and Peace Corps have in place to ensure accountability, and have the missionary assignments be 2-3 years with options to extend 6 months to another year if they so choose. There would also be opportunities for education, job training, and job fairs/networking opportunities for those who participate and a stipend provided for their years of service at the end of their assignment (like the AmeriCorps and Peace Corps do with their participants).
Think of how much greater the reach would be and the real, lasting impact this would have versus what proselytizing missionaries do today: knock on doors, make awkward conversations in public with the intent of conversion as opposed to actually getting to know someone/learn something new, chat with people on Facebook, make cringey TikTok videos, focus more on numbers than on people. I could go on.
JC:
I’ve always wondered why service wasn’t a greater portion of missionary service. It is almost as if Ammon is somehow edited out of the Book of Mormon whenever leaders think of missionary service.
Old Man:
Exactly. Ammon didn’t spend his time preaching to the Lamanites. He lived among them, he served them, he loved them.
It was love above all and a genuine desire to actually get to know people different from oneself that motivated King Lamoni and the Lamanites to change their ways for the better and to come unto Christ. Not relentless proselytizing.
The statistics are interesting and startling. I originally thought a service mission would be an exception for young people with disabilities or special needs. But this wouldn’t account for 40%. If 40% of young men/women are honorably excused from a proselytizing mission, does that indicate a mental health crisis among LDS youth? Or are they explicitly choosing a service mission over a proselytizing mission? This could indicate a decrease in faith in thecLDS truth claims.
One caveat about the statistics open is whether the numbers are skewed by senior missionaries.
Charles, FWIW, I have a son who chose the service route because of his anxiety around the proselytizing way. I don’t know that it is even evidence of a mental health crisis so much as an acceptance of the reality that 18-24 months of being away from home for the first time while (possibly, depending on the mission) being berated by mission leaders for not converting enough is just not a healthy experience for most people.
Here’s a post I wrote about my son’s experience:
https://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2019/03/24/i-hope-they-dont-call-me-on-a-mission/