Non members

[davesudweeks]

We have a young woman whose parents are in active. She’s our front line of communicating to her. They would be willing to sign a form to give her a “ membership code#” but not baptism. Is there some kind of number they can get without being baptized so that they can be added.

Well, that's an interesting situation with active parents but not allowing baptism. I'm guessing it's a guardianship, foster parenting, or pending adoption situation. That adds an additional complication because if they are not her parents, that would limit what the church systems allow them to do. Last I knew, church membership only had "parents" and not "legal guardianship" fields for a child's membership record.

There is nothing the ward can do to get her a MRN. I'd suggest having the bishop call support to see if there's any magic that Church Headquarters can do. I'm doubtful, but that's your best shot.

I read their post as the parents are "inactive" (written in the post as "in active") which could explain why they don't want their daughter baptized at this time in her life. But it does appear that not being a member of the church is a hard-stop in participating in the Gospel Living app at the present time. It would be good training for her class presidency to council together on how to include this young woman when she doesn't have access to the Gospel Living app right now.

[russellhltn]

I read their post as the parents are "inactive" (written in the post as "in active") which could explain why they don't want their daughter baptized at this time in her life.

That does explain a lot. I only saw "active". Thanks.

Including non-members was something promised years ago, but so far hasn't come about.

[jelmopalmer]

My ward is now at the point of being ready to jump headlong into adopting Circles as the official community tool. This issue could be the show stopper. Has anyone tried establishing a non-member record and then establishing the login? It would save me a little time and headache if someone had already stepped in that puddle OR used that solution... Thoughts?

[russellhltn]

Has anyone tried establishing a non-member record and then establishing the login?

You can create a non-member account, but there's no way to associate them with a ward.

The closest thing you can have to a non-member listed in the ward records is as a spouse to a member. But even then I don't think there's a way to link them to a church account.

[no5370]

[ Adding a new feature will only be considered if ] feedback is given through the app and those who supervise the developers assign them to make a change.

Providing feedback via the app appears to be the best solution. Please spread the word about this to flood the software development supervisors with feedback requesting this feature. So tell your friends to post feedback via the Gospel Living app. Sadly, my Stake also refuses to adopt Gospel Living because we don't want to cut non-members out of the conversation.

[davesudweeks]

[ Adding a new feature will only be considered if ] feedback is given through the app and those who supervise the developers assign them to make a change.

Providing feedback via the app appears to be the best solution. Please spread the word about this to flood the software development supervisors with feedback requesting this feature. So tell your friends to post feedback via the Gospel Living app. Sadly, my Stake also refuses to adopt Gospel Living because we don't want to cut non-members out of the conversation.

Personally, I think the church is well aware of this desire and the usefulness it can provide. However, privacy issues are not a trivial mountain to climb. Add to that the myriad of individual privacy laws scattered across the many countries in the world and I imagine this is a huge challenge where mistakes can have legal ramifications. The church did state they wanted to incorporate the ability to add nonmembers to the Gospel Living App - the fact it hasn't happened yet is likely not because they don't want to...

[russellhltn]

So tell your friends to post feedback via the Gospel Living app.

The church is not a democracy. The developers do not serve the members, but develop according to the requests of the high level church leaders. The legal department has a great deal of influence.

I don't know if the problem is legal or leadership priorities, but for whatever reason it hasn't happened after many years of promising it. But including non-members raises a number of non-trivial concerns.