Request Bishop contact on a membership

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BrainClay
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Request Bishop contact on a membership

#1

Post by BrainClay »

I have a couple members that are about to move out of our ward. They have issues that I need to pass along to their next Bishop. I don't know when they will move - it might be next week or in three months. When they do move, I don't know that it will be us that moves their record out - their new ward might first request the membership records.

I have an excellent membership clerk, and he informs me that the only time you can put a request on a membership record for the new bishop to contact the old bishop is when the record is actually moved out of the ward by the old ward. There are two problems with this:

1. If the new ward requests the membership, they'll never know that they should contact the old bishop.
2. Even if we do the move, it's possible that the membership clerk might forget out of habit.

What we really need is a way to tag a membership record this way in advance. I feel that the current process is insufficient and error prone.

I know that every bishop should always contact the old bishop with every new member move in, but that rarely happens.

Is this something that has been considered before, or can we request this as an enhancement to MLS?
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

You may wish to review this thread for some ideas.
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aebrown
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#3

Post by aebrown »

RussellHltn wrote:You may wish to review this thread for some ideas.
Although that thread indeed contains a variety of helpful ideas, the key point is described concisely in the wiki article Move restriction.
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aebrown
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#4

Post by aebrown »

bcpalmer60 wrote:I know that every bishop should always contact the old bishop with every new member move in, but that rarely happens.
I've never heard of such a policy. Although there's certainly nothing wrong with a bishop contacting the bishop in the previous ward, I don't believe that it is a requirement in any handbook or official letter. Such a requirement would be a significant burden in wards with a transient membership, such as student wards.

If that were a requirement, why would there be special procedures when a membership record is moved out to request that the new bishop contact the previous one?
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russellhltn
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#5

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:the key point is described concisely in the wiki article Move restriction.
Darn, I tried searching for it - no luck. :(
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russellhltn
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#6

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:I've never heard of such a policy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a policy of contacting the prior bishop prior to issuing a temple recommend if someone has been in the ward for less then a year? (I'm going by old memory here.)

That might be the Genesis of the statement.
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aebrown
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#7

Post by aebrown »

RussellHltn wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a policy of contacting the prior bishop prior to issuing a temple recommend if someone has been in the ward for less then a year? (I'm going by old memory here.)

That might be the Genesis of the statement.
That is indeed correct (your old memory is quite good :)). Of course, with two-year recommends these days, roughly half of the recommend holders who move into a ward would live in their new ward for a year before their recommend would expire, but for the other half, this would indeed be a requirement.

I suppose it's conceivable that someone took this specific occasional requirement for contacting a previous bishop and morphed it into a requirement to always do so. But although it can be interesting to speculate how people come to assume policies that aren't really policies, it's still only speculation.
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mkmurray
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#8

Post by mkmurray »

Our ward does do this practice of calling previous bishops, but not in adherence to any assumed policy. It's just something that serves us quite practically as we are a fairly transient ward and request many records per month. I can imagine we often request records before the previous ward gets a chance to send them on with the flag saying we need to contact the prior bishop. So we just call anyway at our bishop's request to ensure that nothing confidential or sensitive gets lost in the transition. Of course, if there is something to pass on, we don't take down any information ourselves, but let the prior bishop know that our bishop will soon be getting in touch with him.
russellhltn
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#9

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:I suppose it's conceivable that someone took this specific occasional requirement for contacting a previous bishop and morphed it into a requirement to always do so.
I remember annual (to the nearest quarter) temple recommends, making it a virtual requirement for temple recommend holders. Someone may have found it easier to make the contact sooner instead of later as the old ward's Bishopric could have changed by the time the contact was required.

All in all, it's not a bad idea - but it's only a limited requirement. But as you say, that's just speculation on how that idea came about.
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lajackson
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#10

Post by lajackson »

RussellHltn wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a policy of contacting the prior bishop prior to issuing a temple recommend if someone has been in the ward for less then a year? (I'm going by old memory here.)

The current CHI requires that the bishop check the membership record for information that might affect a member's eligibility to receive a recommend, and also contact the former bishop if the member has not lived in his ward a year.
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