Temporary Membership Records

We have several excommunicated members in our Ward that are working through the repentance process. In order to be able to assign them Home Teachers that can minister to them we create temporary membership records in MLS. These temp records do not show up in the HT'ing assignments in the enhanced LCR on lds.org. Is this a bug/feature or am I missing a config. setting somewhere? I am trying to complete as much as I can on-line, but with this gap, I still have to spend time at Clerk's Office to print complete HT'ing assignments.

Non-member records created in MLS do not get transmitted. So they won't shown in the on-line HT/VT system. You'll have to look and see if there's a way to create the records in LCR.

I don't think it's possible to create temporary or nonmember records in Leader and Clerk Resources.

I wonder if they're excommunicated if you can create an out-of-unit record?

mevans wrote:I wonder if they're excommunicated if you can create an out-of-unit record?

You can try, but I have a feeling the MRN will come back as invalid.

What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

scgallafent wrote:What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

I gotta say, I have mixed feelings about that. Given Alma 6:3, I've always been uncomfortable about giving an outward appearance of "being numbered with the saints" when they are not. So that part of me is happy.

But the "policy" part of me is curious about what that means for excommunicated spouses. Back when the directory started displaying spouses from the marriage record, we were told it was to protect privacy. If this signals a change, then what happens in that case? If the non-member spouse disappears, there's going to be a lot of unhappy sisters who now appear on the directory as if they are single. But if those spouses remain, then it would appear we have a different policy for married excommunicated members than for single ones.

scgallafent wrote:What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

Aside from the issue of excommunicated members, note that it is currently possible in MLS to assign callings to nonmembers. In our ward we have a nonmember (spouse of a member) who is very active in the scouting program and has held several callings over the years. Indeed, Handbook 2, section 19.1.1 specifically states that nonmembers may be called to serve in certain callings. This "conscious decision" to eliminate nonmember records doesn't seem to be consistent with the Handbook. Or is there some other way to record these Handbook-authorized callings for nonmembers in LCR that I'm missing?

Not being able to record a non-member spouse would make it more difficult to minister to the family. At the very least, it helps you remember the spouse's name. The same can go with non-member children who are over 8 who may attend church, but need to be added after age 8. As also has been mentioned, there are callings that non-members can hold.

I agree that adding non-member records opens a can of worms, so it needs to be thought out well. Just getting rid of them seems to miss the point of why they existed.

Wouldn't creating temporary records for excommunicated members just confuse the counting of HT? Are visits to excommunicated members counted in the quarterly reports? I would have assumed that not.

It is good that they have home teachers, but is it really necessary to make things so formally. One can assign someone to visit them, even though they are not in the official list.

nikk3hi3tala wrote:Wouldn't creating temporary records for excommunicated members just confuse the counting of HT? Are visits to excommunicated members counted in the quarterly reports? I would have assumed that not.

I believe MLS took that into account in calculating the quarterly report from the HT/VT visits.

I haven't created any temporary records yet, so I don't know if there are any limitations, such as whether the person can be home taught. We shouldn't count any temporary records in reports.

scgallafent wrote:What you're trying to do will not be supported. LCR will not support the creation of non-member records and we will be phasing this capability out of MLS. This is a conscious decision, partly related to privacy issues.

With regards to privacy, we do use this process for all ex-com'd members only those who request it and are being fellow-shipped as part of the repentance process. There needs to be some non one-off process to track the ministry of these folks and allow my High Priests -whose stewardship it is to "rescue the one" to be more successful. When we have to manage things outside of the standard methods for insuring that all are accounted for, people get lost and frustration ensues on both parties.

This seems like something that could be tracked on the missionary progress report. I've never dealt with an excommunicated member, but aren't they taught by the missionaries, etc. as if they were an investigator?

sbradshaw wrote:This seems like something that could be tracked on the missionary progress report. I've never dealt with an excommunicated member, but aren't they taught by the missionaries, etc. as if they were an investigator?

No. An excommunicated member is the responsibility of the bishop and stake president. The missionaries are not normally involved at all.

And when a member is prepared and ready to be readmitted by baptism, it is not a convert baptism and is not tracked as part of missionary work.

instofstrtgcthgt wrote:
With regards to privacy, we do use this process for all ex-com'd members only those who request it and are being fellow-shipped as part of the repentance process. There needs to be some non one-off process to track the ministry of these folks and allow my High Priests -whose stewardship it is to "rescue the one" to be more successful. When we have to manage things outside of the standard methods for insuring that all are accounted for, people get lost and frustration ensues on both parties.

It seems like such a rare situation that its OK for it not to be included with the rest of the "standard methods". When people are sent on a "special mission", they usually remember it well without needing to see it on the printed piece of paper in front of them. If a leader gives someone an assignment to help out and minister to such a member on the path back from excommunication, the leader can handwrite it on the sheet with a pen.

I doubt the system would let you create an "out of unit" record for an excommunicated member. Yes, church headquarters keeps track of these people, but I doubt the business rules would let you create the out of unit record in this situation, as the person is no longer a church member.