Less-active Mormon

{{short description|Members of LDS Church who are not actively participating}}

{{Sources exist|date=November 2023}}

Less active Mormon is a term used by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to describe a person who is not actively participating, but who is still on its membership records. These are individuals who do not attend the Church's services and are not otherwise involved in its activities or callings. Some less-active members maintain good relations with and positive feelings toward the Church. Reasons for disengagement can include lifestyle issues and problems with social integration.{{Citation |first= Perry H. |last= Cunningham |contribution= Activity in the Church |contribution-url= http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/EoM/id/5447 |pages= 13–15 |editor-last= Ludlow |editor-first= Daniel H |editor-link= Daniel H. Ludlow |year= 1992 |title= Encyclopedia of Mormonism |location= New York |publisher= Macmillan Publishing |isbn= 0-02-879602-0 |oclc= 24502140 }} {{cite news |last= Stack |first= Peggy Fletcher |author-link= Peggy Fletcher Stack |date= 23 September 2011 |title= Active, inactive – do Mormon labels work or wound? |url= http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/52631643-80/mormon-church-lds-says.html.csp |newspaper= The Salt Lake Tribune |access-date= 2013-09-20}}

The LDS Church does not release statistics on church activity, but about 60 percent of its members in the United States and 70 percent worldwide are less active or inactive.Member activity rates are estimated from missionary reports, seminary and institute enrollment, and ratio of members per congregation - [http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2011/07/countries-of-world-by-estimated-member.html ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/]{{cite news | first=Peggy Fletcher | last=Stack | title=New almanac offers look at the world of Mormon membership | date=January 17, 2014 | work=The Salt Lake Tribune | url=http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/57369318-80/church-lds-percent-growth.html.csp | access-date=2015-04-20}}An "unverified" worldwide LDS activity statistic of 36% was briefly published in 2014 on the Deseret News website. See:
{{cite web | title=LDS DEMOGRAPHICS PUBLISHED, THEN SCRUBBED BY DESERET NEWS | work=Mormon News, October 13–17 | date=October 2014 | publisher=Signature Books | url=http://signaturebooks.com/2014/10/mormon-news-october-13-17/ | access-date=2015-04-20 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://archive.today/20150420215900/http://signaturebooks.com/2014/10/mormon-news-october-13-17/ | archive-date=2015-04-20 }}{{citation |url= http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/latter-day-saint-social-life-social-research-lds-church-and-its-members/8-consequential-dim |contribution= The Consequential Dimension of Mormon Religiosity |author-link= Stan L. Albrecht |first= Stan L. |last= Albrecht |year= 1998 |editor1-first= James T. |editor1-last= Duke |title= Latter-day Saint Social Life: Social Research on the LDS Church and its Members |location= Provo, UT |publisher= Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University |pages= 253–292 |isbn= 1-57008-396-7 |oclc= 38962731 |access-date= 2011-08-09 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111006013004/http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/latter-day-saint-social-life-social-research-lds-church-and-its-members/8-consequential-dim |archive-date= 2011-10-06 |url-status= dead }} Activity rates vary with age, and disengagement occurs most frequently between age 16 and 25. Young single adults are also more likely to become inactive than their married counterparts,{{citation |url=http://religionnews.com/2016/10/05/leaked-worldwide-only-25-of-young-single-mormons-are-active-in-the-lds-church/ |last=Riess |first=Jana |title=Worldwide, only 25 percent of young single Mormons are active in the LDS Church |work=Religion News Service |date=October 5, 2016}} and overall, women tend to be more active than men.{{Citation |last= Bushman |first= Richard Lyman |author-link= Richard Bushman |title= Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction |year= 2008 |place= New York |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn= 978-0-19-531030-6 |page=55}} A 1998 study showed that a majority of less-active members return to church activity later in life. Further research has shown that "a completed mission correlates well with staying Mormon for the long term, even among people who were not very active in the LDS Church growing up. In other words, eight in ten people who had been less active as kids were still Mormon in adulthood if they had served a full-term mission."{{Cite book|last=Riess|first=Jana|title=The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2019|pages=46}}