Tell Me Your Story.

I am Brad Kelly and I am unofficially on the LDS Border Patrol.

We are a "Missionary Church" and so new people constantly come on Sunday to "investigate" the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to see if it's for them.  We are one of only 2 churches on the Earth that claims to be "THE" Church.  It's us and the Catholics who claim apostolic descent from different points in history.

But, being on the border means that I also see people leave.  Up until recently, I've seen this only from the distance.  But in the last year or so it's become pretty personal.  I have had 6 people I really care about decide not to come back to Church or call themselves LDS anymore.  This doesn't include the people I've known over the years who have left.

As a convert myself, and someone who choose to become a Latter-day Saint, I am making it my mission in life to find out why folks are leaving and what I can do personally to do a better job making people feel like a welcomed part of my church family.

Everyone I know personally that has "left the Church" has been born into it.  They have all been raised LDS and have decided to leave a various points in their adult life.

It makes a lot of sense that most of the people that are leaving are "born into the Church".  They didn't choose it and in varying degrees were "forced" into being a member.  I suppose you can say that when they realized "it wasn't for them", they simply left and went elsewhere.

But, what I have found is that most of these folks didn't leave and go find the church that was right for them...they have left religion all together.  It's not that they said this church isn't right for me, they said that organized religion isn't right for me.  I don't have all the answers right now, but I'd sure like to.

I am an analytical guy.  One of my favorite things is to say that "Numbers don't lie, people do."  For me, the exercise of selecting a church was done over a process of attending many over a period of 5 years, lots of data, and plenty of testing.  In the end, I'm really a religious pluralist.  I may be a Latter-day Saint, but I attend religious services of other denominations every year.  I regularly subscribe to beliefs held by the Eastern Religious Traditions and we treat nearly everything in my family we can with holistic, non-western medicine.  I keep as close to a Kosher diet as I can.  I side with atheists on all sorts of critiques of G_d and Religion in general.  But for me, I took Gordon B. Hinkley seriously when he said: "Bring what you have and see if we can add to it."  His statement was in reference to people of other faiths coming to investigate the Church to see if anything could be added to their existing religious beliefs.

Somehow, for many others, more and more people I know, the math isn't adding up.  Instead of adding, they are choosing to leave everything behind and live their life without religion. For everyone reading this post, if you have ever joined or left a religion, I'd like to know why you did.

I am not out to convince anyone of anything.  It's certainly a personal decision when it comes to matters of faith.  Consider me a social scientist collecting data if you will.  Consider me a concerned friend.  It's clear that the American Church in general is failing it's people.  There is a new movement to add a business to the Church in an effort to get people in the doors and then hopefully be able to provide them more than a school or a coffee shop.

At the end of the day, I'd like to think what you believe would be the determining factor for choosing a religion.  But, I'm only one man, with a very peculiar way of doing things.

I'd really like to hear your story.  Please respond to the post if you don't mind sharing or email me at NeonDion34@gmail.com.  Please indicate if it's OK that I ask you follow-up questions or not.  I'd really like to be able to push back a little...to poke or prod to uncover a few things. But, I will be grateful for your story either way.

Please do tell.