Phenomenal Member Retention Rate in U.S. Mission Field

Mike Murray, mission president in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission and who I introduced to you, has had some startling results in improving the retention rate in his mission with an increase of over 50%. Elder Michael Oakford, one of his missionaries serving in the Morrisville area reports how they are actually doing it:

And we HAVE been doing that. Our retention rate has shot through the roof. When I came into the mission we were looking at a high high week having 15% retention. Mission-wide we are now looking at over 70% retention of converts baptized in the last 6 months. One amazing fact shows the inner city ward of Logan with 100% retention for the past two weeks! To people who never thought it could be done, it has.

The solution to the problem was the members. The active members of the church are now playing a critical and very involved role in missionary work. I love it! Working with active members is KEY! If we don’t have member and leader support you will never have converts retained so what’s the point of baptizing? Our ward in particular is doing incredible. Last week we had over 15 members come teaching with us. And a couple families invite us to there homes, not just to have dinner. But for a lesson and to discuss how they can be more involved doing missionary work. We go into their homes and set up Family Mission Plans and help them set goals with dates so they can see the miracles and feel the missionary spirit in their homes! I LOVE IT!

I like their involvement of members which is the way to increase convert retention. You have to have ward mission leaders and members engaged with the missionaries to achieve such results. I checked out President Murray's blog but couldn't find anything about the process which was a little disappointing.