Found it, the demographic review of Church growth study

[Archaea]

by Dr. Daniel Stewart, who was hired by my friend, and a leader in our stake.

http://cumorah.com/lawoftheharvest.html

[Indy Coug]

This is in a nutshell what ails my branch. 100 baptisms in the last 24 months. I can only hope that the new mission president that took over as of today will somehow move out the 10 missionaries from our branch and actually allocate them to the 3 or 4 units in the stake that have exactly zero serving in their areas right now.

Over the past decade, I have visited with many new converts and investigators in many nations about their experiences with the teaching process. While most individuals express respect and appreciation for the missionaries, by far the most common criticism of the teaching process is that many felt pressured or rushed to baptism. Pressure to accept baptism rapidly drives away many honest and sincere people, while leaving most of those who are baptized with serious unresolved issues. The devastation that has been left by accelerated baptism protocols leads one to wonder: what is the hurry? Are we rushing converts to baptism so that they can go inactive faster? Rampant inactivity following accelerated baptism programs is not an anomaly; it is the natural and expected outcome of such approaches. Some speak as if delaying baptism a few weeks to allow better preparation represents a tremendous spiritual tragedy and denial of blessings, while the catastrophically poor retention rates incurred by accelerated baptism practices and the subsequent years of poorly productive reactivation work are regarded as inconsequential or inevitable. After extensive research, I have been unable to ascertain what alleged benefits experienced by the fraction of converts who remain active in spite of accelerated baptism policies can possibly compensate for the nearly immediate loss of the large majority of converts. Time is not a threat to true and life-changing conversion.

Accelerated baptism programs violate the prime rule of therapeutic intervention: “first do no harm.” The few individuals who would perhaps remain active and faithful in spite of brief teaching periods certainly suffer no harm from longer preparation periods and, in most cases, experience considerable benefits. In contrast, many converts who could have been retained with more thorough preparation are lost after being rushed to baptism unprepared. While longer teaching in itself does not guarantee weekly church attendance, daily scripture reading, or good fellowshipping without additional effort, performance in all of these areas is almost uniformly poor when converts are taught and baptized over abbreviated periods. Investigators must never be denied the opportunity to complete the repentance process prior to baptism in order to meet a goal or arbitrary date. Spirituality is not acquired suddenly. Joseph Smith taught “the things of God are of deep import: and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.”[361]

[MikeWaters]

We are having an entire family (i.e. man and woman with children) baptized next week, white and middle class.

First time I have seen this since perhaps I was a kid.

When you see someone baptized into the ward from the fringes of society, and at the time of the announced baptism you have no idea who the person is, it's almost as if you expect to never see that person again a month out from baptism.

When this is what members assume, I think we have a problem on our hands.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

We are having an entire family (i.e. man and woman with children) baptized next week, white and middle class.

First time I have seen this since perhaps I was a kid.

When you see someone baptized into the ward from the fringes of society, and at the time of the announced baptism you have no idea who the person is, it's almost as if you expect to never see that person again a month out from baptism.

When this is what members assume, I think we have a problem on our hands.

Stewart's article and articles on this issue are some the clearest to express the failings of our missionary process. He is a very believing member but one who has focused upon identifying the problems and then to discover some solutions. His article is noteworthy IMHO.

[JohnnyLingo]

In my mission no one got baptized after less than two months. And that was quick.

Something about the people of Madagascar made them very wary and questioning of us missionaries. This was frustrating at the time, but well worth it in the end, I think.