Challenges to Sustained Church Membership and Growth

[Anonymous]

curt wrote:

Quote:

“From 1985 to 1995 the Church membership grew from 5.9 million to 9.3 million or about a 58% increase. By comparison from 1999 to 2009 the membership grew from 10.75 million to 13.82 million or an increase of about 29%. So while it is technically true that the Church is still growing the rate of growth has slowed significantly from the way it was before.”

I find these statistics to be completely unbelievable. Would like a source. Growth of that kind in any organization would be so phenomenal as to break records. I don’t buy it.

I got these numbers from a Wikipedia page on LDS Church membership history. According to this the Church membership has been consistently increasing by over 200 thousand each year (587,234 in 1989). This doesn’t surprise me at all because all it really means is that new converts and children raised in the Church have been more than enough to make up for any losses and these additional members will continue to be counted unless they officially resign which many inactive members will not bother to do.

This growth is actually not that unusual or impressive compared to other fast-growing churches such as the Assembly of God, 7th Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses especially considering that the LDS Church has typically had about 50 thousand full-time missionaries trying to convert new members. The Assemblies of God have supposedly grown to about 60 million followers since 1914. There was an article about this a few years ago in the Salt Lake Tribune saying the LDS Church is not really the fastest growing church the way many have claimed and that it has had difficulty keeping active members.

[Anonymous]

and those other religions face activity issues that are exactly like ours.

For example, in one report I read, the Assemblies of God numbers include African peoples who attended a revival, accepted Jesus and signed as members of the AoG. They aren’t tracked in any way as far as “activity level” – but they are on the “membership roles” as AoG members.

Frankly, this is an area I’ve studied more than most, and the LDS Church does an amazing job of acknowledging, admitting and “publishing” activity levels within its membership. Relatively few other Christian denominations do – or they set activity levels so loosely that they are essentially meaningless. (like attending at least one service annually, in some cases, or self-identifying as a member regardless of attendance) I posted something at Mormon Matters a while ago about an article discussing this issue within the Southern Baptist Convention – and the effort of some ministers to force the SBC to adjust its published numebrs to be more in line with the way that the LDS Church does it (although they would never admit that’s what they wanted).

[Anonymous]

You know, I’d like to tell you a true story:

There was a young Brazillian-Immigrant, Single-Mother convert who joined the Church. Every Sunday, the Missionaries would pick her up for Church, escort her into the chapel and sit with her through Sacrament meeting and Sunday School. Sister Missionaries sat with her during Relief Society. This went on for several weeks while she was investigating and for many weeks after she joined the church. One Sunday, the missionaries where transferred and she was left alone and expected to bring herself to church.

We had met this young lady through my husband’s brother who dated her and eventually married her and she became my sister-in-law, living about 25 miles from us. One Sunday, her husband was away on a business trip and couldn’t take her to church. She called my husband and said she needed a ride to church (the church was two blocks away) and that she couldn’t attend unless she was escorted by a Priesthood Leader. My husband started driving the 25 miles each Sunday to pick her up and take her to church. (Just incidentally, they began to develop a relationship which ultimately led to the end of my marriage). It was so innocent and all started with him just driving her to church and spending time with her as sort of a fellow shipping effort.

I started to contemplate some of the differences in the early Mormon converts and “some” of the converts of today. The early converts would often travel across the Atlantic Ocean alone and even walk across the plains to be with the Saints. I had a great Aunt who was baptized in ice water in Denmark, traveled to England, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and then walked across the plains to Salt Lake City – yea, it was hard. Now, surely there ARE some converts today who are willing to walk for days to get to church, spend weeks traveling to the Temple, etc. etc., but I know far too many women like my sister-in-law. It is sad to say and forgive me, but I see new converts who don’t make the effort to walk a few blocks to church. They expect the missionaries to baby them.

Now contrast this to the Quaker Church: you are expect to get yourself to church each Sunday. You are instructed to arrive 10-15 minutes early. If you are late, they lock the doors – take about teaching promptness and punctuality. They will NOT pick you up for church, they expect you to take the initiative yourself. You are NOT going to be babied.

There was such a contrast in the two churches, the Quaker church being much more like the early LDS Church. Christ commanded that we follow him, he didn’t chase after us. The Quaker Church will NOT allow anyone to convert until they have proven that they are committed enough to get themselves to church on time each Sunday. I might suggest that this would be a good policy for the LDS Church to consider. How committed are these new converts? Can they take the initiative to get themselves to church without missionary assistance each week? I’m not saying that missionaries shouldn’t take time for the first few weeks, but you just can’t baby people forever.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Fwiw, Hawk’s suggestions actually are being implemented at the top. Receiving and living by personal revelation has been one of the major themes of General Conference for at least the last three conferences – and I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard someone at General Conference even hint that prophets are infallible.

I dunno. I don’t mean to challenge or be argumentative, but I think this is misleading. Perhaps personal revelation has been one of the major themes of the last three GCs. But obedience is always a major theme at GC, as is testimony of our prophet (not claiming infallibility but nonetheless testifying of their authority), as is men praising women, as is doing our duty, as is pornography. And, if I had to pick the biggest topic of the last several GCs it would be missionary work. In fact, I think this is the main focus of the church right now. At least where I have lived for the past 5 years (that’s 3 different places, including Utah, California, and Michigan) it has occupied the bulk of nearly every ward, stake, and general conference (except perhaps this most recent one in which Jesus and the resurrection were clearly the main topic).

So I would have to say that overall, IMHO, the church’s response to “slower” conversion rates has been to make changes to, and increase efforts in, the missionary program (including our role in that work as members).

But perhaps this is all in the “eye of the beholder.”

[Anonymous]

MWallace57 wrote:

I started to contemplate some of the differences in the early Mormon converts and “some” of the converts of today…The Quaker Church will NOT allow anyone to convert until they have proven that they are committed enough to get themselves to church on time each Sunday. I might suggest that this would be a good policy for the LDS Church to consider. How committed are these new converts? Can they take the initiative to get themselves to church without missionary assistance each week? I’m not saying that missionaries shouldn’t take time for the first few weeks, but you just can’t baby people forever.

I agree that it is fairly pointless to baptize as many people as possible mostly for the sake of numbers. This is not real growth if the number of functioning wards and branches are not increasing at nearly the same rate. They built a large number of new temples since 1995 but has the overall temple attendance really gone up in proportion? I doubt it. My guess is that it never was the distance keeping members away from the temple as much as the interview requirements.

Sure people need some initiative to keep going to church but one problem with trying to go back to the early days of the Church is that now people have easy access to more information including anti-Mormon propaganda on the internet. Being too harsh nowadays will probably only decrease the overall conversions and retention of members. I guess you could claim that maybe this would increase the quality of the remaining members but I’m not so sure about that.

[Anonymous]

Euhemerus wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

Fwiw, Hawk’s suggestions actually are being implemented at the top. Receiving and living by personal revelation has been one of the major themes of General Conference for at least the last three conferences – and I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard someone at General Conference even hint that prophets are infallible.

I dunno. I don’t mean to challenge or be argumentative, but I think this is misleading. Perhaps personal revelation has been one of the major themes of the last three GCs. But obedience is always a major theme at GC, as is testimony of our prophet (not claiming infallibility but nonetheless testifying of their authority)

…So I would have to say that overall, IMHO, the church’s response to “slower” conversion rates has been to make changes to, and increase efforts in, the missionary program (including our role in that work as members).

In Conference, they were talking about “permissiveness” as if this is the worst thing in the world. I hope they are not trying to imply that having a tolerant and realistic attitude towards different beliefs or values is wrong. Personally, I think Evangelical-lite churches geared around cafeteria Christians are the wave of the future and trying to insist that God will condemn you over various formalities and supposed sins that look like non-sins (coffee?) is not going to work very well over the long run.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I hope they are not trying to imply that having a tolerant and realistic attitude towards different beliefs or values is wrong.

They aren’t. That message also has been crystal clear in the past few years.

[Anonymous]

Eu, I agree that there has been a major change in missionary work – but “Preach My Gospel” couldn’t be clearer about the need to move away from judging success numerically – and so was the talk this past week that said the Church always will be a tiny minority of the total world-wide population.

[Anonymous]

I supped with missionaries last evening. My son couldn’t get home from work and DIL called and asked me to eat at her house. Something about a married woman with two young children couldn’t be alone with the elders. It was interesting. In talking about missionary labor, they both postulated missions were for missionaries, to teach them love and obedience to the church. I had to agree. I told them of my mission, very labor intensive, with Navajo families half a century ago. We spent most of our time; burying the death, getting the sick to hospitals (two companions delivered babies), helping with crops, cattle & sheep. We attended rodeos, since if there was one within fifty miles, every hogan was empty & the athletic loving Navajos were in attendance at the same. The missionaries both lamented they would have loved to serve such a mission. Times change though, in business it’s called “Institutionalization.” I also told them we ran the scout troops, taught dancing & swimming to our branch kids. Our mission president was a Arizona rancher (obviously), and one of a kind as to rules. They were green with envy. By the way, I never knew a missionary who went home early.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

My guess is that it never was the distance keeping members away from the temple as much as the interview requirements.

Of course, interview requirements are the largest impediment to many members attending the temple. That’s a given, imo – and the total number of members attending at least once every year or two won’t change much in the US just by building more temples a little closer to them.

Otoh, it makes all the difference in the world for those who used to have to travel for a week and now can attend in a day or two total travel time. Suddenly a once-in-a-lifetime thing can be an annual thing – and that is significant.

Also, I’ve lived 30 minutes from a temple, 10 hours from a temple, 5 hours from a temple, 6-10 hours from a temple (depending on traffic), 2 hours from a temple and, now, 1 hour from a temple. For MANY very active members like myself, distance makes a HUGE difference in how often they attend.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

My guess is that it never was the distance keeping members away from the temple as much as the interview requirements.

Otoh, it makes all the difference in the world for those who used to have to travel for a week and now can attend in a day or two total travel time. Suddenly a once-in-a-lifetime thing can be an annual thing – and that is significant.

Also, I’ve lived 30 minutes from a temple, 10 hours from a temple, 5 hours from a temple, 6-10 hours from a temple (depending on traffic), 2 hours from a temple and, now, 1 hour from a temple. For MANY very active members like myself, distance makes a HUGE difference in how often they attend.

Sure these new temples make it more convenient for active members to attend more often and it was a nice gesture by the Church to build them if that’s one of the reasons they did it. The main reason I brought this idea up is that members see all these new temples being built and it gives the illusion that the Church is growing more than ever when that’s not really the case. In fact, the relative growth was actually higher before they started building all these temples. I’m not trying to claim the new temples were a bad idea but it looks like a fairly big change in strategy from what they were doing before so I wonder what prompted this change.

[Anonymous]

DA, why does it have to be anything different than what they actually said – to bring the temples closer to the members, so more members could attend and do so more often? Why can’t it be that they who make those decisions, especially Pres. Hinckley who was the apparent catalyst for the decision, sincerely believe it is a blessing to have a temple close (or, at least, closer) to the homes of the membership?

I ask that very seriously. Why can’t it be that simple?

[Anonymous]

Temples have changed so much in my half century of membership. There are temples now that occupy a few floors in a skyscraper, that are put in old buildings built for other purposes. We have temples which are smaller than my stake president’s home and some occupy a postage stamp lot. A temple burnt a few years ago. I grew up in the era of twelve temples. It lasted for quite a season. It was a simpler time, everything is more complex now. Before people sacrificed to get to a temple, some going just once in their lives because of the cost. The ancients sacrificed to build their temples (see Old Testament). How many have viewed photos of the Fundamentalist LDS temple in El Dorado, Texas? They sacrificed to built it, had it busted into by state police and have now abandoned it. An interesting subject.

[Anonymous]

George wrote:

…I told them of my mission, very labor intensive, with Navajo families half a century ago. We spent most of our time; burying the death, getting the sick to hospitals (two companions delivered babies), helping with crops, cattle & sheep. We attended rodeos, since if there was one within fifty miles, every hogan was empty & the athletic loving Navajos were in attendance at the same. The missionaries both lamented they would have loved to serve such a mission. Times change though, in business it’s called “Institutionalization.” I also told them we ran the scout troops, taught dancing & swimming to our branch kids. Our mission president was a Arizona rancher (obviously), and one of a kind as to rules. They were green with envy. By the way, I never knew a missionary who went home early.

I’m green with envy. I spent two years in the ghettos of Brooklyn – literally went 11 months in one area that covered 16 by 8 blocks. Perhaps we should start a thread and tell horror stories of the missionfield.

That temple in the “skyscraper” in New York City was a chapel/visitor center when I was there. The building and property is worth hundreds of millions of dollars – if not in the billions, sits right there on Columbus Circle. I think there was a great deal of politics and PR involved — and it probably worked. Pretty interesting to drive down Broadway street and see the angel Moroni among all the billboards and lights. The proximity to a temple never did, has not, and will not be a factor in how often I attend. I don’t know, perhaps Ray is correct that it is just that simple that they want the temples closer to members. Perhaps. My cynicism rarely allows me to view things like that.

Old-Timer wrote:

I ask that very seriously. Why can’t it be that simple?

I guess it could be, it very well could be, but people like us just won’t accept it until we have hashed it to death and made up our own minds. Thanks for the website where we can do so.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

DA, why does it have to be anything different than what they actually said – to bring the temples closer to the members, so more members could attend and do so more often? Why can’t it be that they who make those decisions, especially Pres. Hinckley who was the apparent catalyst for the decision, sincerely believe it is a blessing to have a temple close (or, at least, closer) to the homes of the membership?

I ask that very seriously. Why can’t it be that simple?

I’m not saying it can’t be that simple, but I guess I’m just a die-hard cynic and sometimes the Church looks too much like a business-oriented corporation to me. So when I see more temples, I suspect ulterior motives like maybe it’s mostly an advertising campaign where they are trying to promote the LDS brand name. I guess there’s not really anything wrong with that if they honestly believe in their product but my concern is that many members who weren’t so sure about the temple or other core doctrines have fallen through the cracks and will continue to do so in large numbers. Is it really necessary to have so many disenfranchised members who don’t really feel like they belong?

I understand the idea some have that the Church should be exclusive because we are trying to gather the elect and separate the wheat from the tares and not everyone will be saved (Matthew 7:13-14) so we might as well expect the Church to be a small minority. However, I don’t really buy this explanation because we are getting to the point where some so-called apostates only sin was reading the scriptures or listening in church and thinking that some of this doesn’t quite make sense. To me this says that there’s just not enough wiggle-room in the Church to accommodate reasonable differences of opinion. Personally I think they should pray for some new revelations because some of the same old policies and doctrines just aren’t working quite as well as they used to.

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