My "LDS Church Growth" Hobby Horse

[malkie]

...
The true joys of being able to sleep in on a Sunday morning, relaxing with the NY Times and or their favorite Sunday read (certainly not scripture) and having more family time in a relaxed setting, unlike what the church alternative offers. Many will never return after experiencing this level of freedom.
...

Folks, don't listen to a word Craig Paxton says: he is clearly an apostate.

[ceeboo]

Interesting to read these numbers.

Utah has 2,126,216 members with an estimated 752,850 attending. 35.41% activity rate.

Is this right! Wow!

That's like 2 out of every 3 people in the State of Utah is a member of the Mormon church?

This can't be! Can it?

[drumdude]

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[Craig Paxton]

...
The true joys of being able to sleep in on a Sunday morning, relaxing with the NY Times and or their favorite Sunday read (certainly not scripture) and having more family time in a relaxed setting, unlike what the church alternative offers. Many will never return after experiencing this level of freedom.
...

Folks, don't listen to a word Craig Paxton says: he is clearly an apostate.

Hey stop trying to make me look so good...

[simon southerton]

Great opening post Simon.

I have long maintained the Church has 30,000 ish active members in the UK based on the assumption of a 20% activity rate (drawn from the leaked area presidency report from quite a few years ago). Interesting to see that the latest Leak shows it is even lower than that. Do you have a link to the 2020 leaked data as I would be interested in taking a look at it?

The other aspect that would be interesting is the profile of the . I strongly suspect that the Church is shifting towards a higher and higher proportion of females and that this shift is behind a number of initiatives to involve females in more leadership adjacent type roles (Area advisors as an example) whilst stopping short of allowing them the priesthood so they could actually take the leadership roles on directly.

Thanks IHAQ.

The leak was published 10 months ago on reddit but I missed it at the time. Peter Bleakley sent it to me. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... _20112020/

I expected attendance to take a big hit in 2020, so I was a bit surprised by the small decrease in attendance in 2020 in the UK. But the 2020 figures are up until March, well before the pandemic hit. Peter Bleakley believes (and I agree) the church will take a massive hit after the pandemic dust settles. Twenty years ago his ward had 150 active. Pre-pandemic it averaged 40 and post pandemic they are sitting at around 15! They have no youth so that saves on leadership callings!!

I don't have any data at hand on attrition rates between male and female, but I heard several years ago active single women outnumber men by about 2 to 1. This is a massive problem, meaning half of the women in the church are completely frustrated when it comes to temple marriage. If they don't find a way to make church life meaningful for these women, they'll head for the exits as well. I have heard they have loosened the criteria for some callings that used to be for couples only, but I don't know the specifics. But I would not be surprised at all if single women are becoming the new "prospective elders" of past generations.

[simon southerton]

The Church has 1,481,530 members in Mexico, with an estimated 227,750 attending, based on the number of units (1843). 15.37% activity rate.

California has 756,507 members with an estimated 170,650 attending. 22.56% activity rate.

Utah has 2,126,216 members with an estimated 752,850 attending. 35.41% activity rate.

Just some quick observations on your estimates.
Mexico
In light of the facts from the UK leak, I think your estimates could be a bit high. I doubt average unit attendance in Mexico would be higher than the UK which is 87. But if we assume it’s the same as the UK then attendance would be 160,341. The Mexico activity rate would be 10.8%. So I think the activity rate in Mexico is probably less than 10%.

California
You are assuming average attendance at each unit is 140. Given the high rate of unit and stake closures in California I would be surprised if it is this high. I would be inclined to think average attendance would be closer to 100 so the activity rate may be well under 20%.

I would tend to agree with your Utah numbers. Average attendance of 140 seems about right for Utah.

[simon southerton]

It is staggering to see how effectively an obscenely rich US corporation can conceal truth from its members. But thankfully, as we have just witnessed, truth has a habit of getting out. We are past peak Mormonism and its warms my cold apostate heart.

Thank you for another well researched and well written contribution to the board. My sentiments exactly.

Symptoms of a shrinking Mormon Church are evident even in Utah. Questions related to ground truthing of Russell M. Nelson's Doors of Death story recently prompted in-depth conversations about the LDS Church with my relatives who live in Southern Utah. They now belong to one of several "fellowship groups" in the area comprised of Mormons and former Mormons who have become disillusioned with the SLC administered version of Mormonism.

They believe that the SLC leadership is in general apostasy and strive, as a group, to return to the teachings and ethos of the LDS Church of the mid 20th century. While they admit to the influence of Denver Snuffer in what they call their "movement", they do not consider themselves "Snufferites", but dedicated participants in an effort to return to what they believe is classical Mormonism.

They hold meetings in members homes, as we did in my rural branch growing up. The disclosure of the 100+ billion dollar holdings of a Church that had earlier asked for their free labor as janitors apparently helped swell the movement's ranks. They believe that their movement is a problem for the Mormon Church in southern Utah and elsewhere and take some pride in that. My relatives are quite outspoken about their disillusionment and disappointment in the SLC LDS Church.

Cheers DrW. Those are very interesting observations re rural Utah.

I think social media is the main problem.The church uses authority to speak to its members, but it's very difficult in today's world to maintain that authority on social media. Its becoming harder to distinguish exmormon from Mormon content. Many people only pick up on it after the message has been delivered. This is especially true with the emerging platforms like TiKTok. This means millenials are hearing about EVERY problem in a very short space of time. They do a bit more research and bam, it's all confirmed.

Having well informed millennials creates a knock on effect for the older generations, many of whom live in Southern Utah. They feel threatened because they hear about all these problems from their kids and grandkids. Some leave the church, but as you say there are many who yearn for their fundamentalist past. This is why the average age of people attending Rodney Meldrum's Heartland conferences is about 75.

It sounds like what we are seeing globally is being reflected within Utah. The church is rotting inwards to its core in Provo. The church is collapsing in the developed world outside of North America. If southern Utah is disillusioned with the SL leadership you can imagine how many non-Utah/US Mormons will feel.

[simon southerton]

To further advance the decline of the church the pandemic has been an accelerant as even many active attending Mormons were able to experience the joy and freedom of a meeting free year for the very first time in their lives. The true joys of being able to sleep in on a Sunday morning, relaxing with the NY Times and or their favorite Sunday read (certainly not scripture) and having more family time in a relaxed setting, unlike what the church alternative offers. Many will never return after experiencing this level of freedom.

So yes, we live in an amazing time. Being able to witness, first hand, the decline of Mormonism before our very eyes. While the corporation has enough funds to sustain itself far into the future, with the whistle blower leaked of $100 Billion stock fund being only the tip of their financial iceberg, (an inside source has told me that it's much closer to the $800 billion mark) the church will continue to survive in some form. But the good news is that families are waking up to the false claims and many are finding life outside of the church to be much more authentic and better than the ill-fitting, uncomfortable, one size fits all life offered by the Mormon church.

I'm convinced the biggest threat of the pandemic was giving the entire membership of the church time to ponder(ise). From my experience, speaking to dozens and dozens of people who have left the church, almost all of them experienced some sort of life event that took them off the treadmill. The church holds its members on a tight leash. But if you have a brief period of a few weeks or months when you are not bogged down with work or church callings, the shelf can become very, very heavy. This was a crucial factor in my departure. While I was the bishop, I was between jobs and had a lot more time on my hands than I normally had.

I would agree that the total assets of the church are worth close to a trillion dollars. The figures I have seen suggest the income generating assets (shares, real estate, businesses etc) total about USD 400 Billion, generating over USD 30 Billion a year. These are incomprehensible numbers.

[simon southerton]

I wouldn't say the picture is all that bleak for the Church. But as Simon points out there are plenty of signs of trouble, if the Church assumes a stance of needing growth.

Overall, my estimates put the to some degree activity membership around 4,289,062. In 2015 that estimate was 4,137,163. An increase of 151,899.

In my 40 years of experience in the church there has never been a time when the church has not projected an image of vibrant growth. So the reality clearly paints a very bleak picture for the church. The only way the church can deal with the problem is to be honest about it. But they don't do honesty and self reflection well.

These are some quotes from my UK friend.
"It’s been mostly relentless decline for 20 years now...for obvious reasons that local and global leaders should have got a grip on long ago. But they are paralysed by their incompetence and fear and having been infantilised for so long they are no longer capable of basic critical self analysis. The problem is the room is now full of a herd of elephants and there is no room left for church members capable of opening their eyes and seeing the elephants!"

The post pandemic church in the UK is teetering. The UK is not an isolated case. It's even worse in many other developed countries.

I think your estimate of total active membership is on the high side. I think it's likely to be closer to 20% now. If it isn't, it soon will be after the pandemic.

[dastardly stem]

Just some quick observations on your estimates.
Mexico
In light of the facts from the UK leak, I think your estimates could be a bit high. I doubt average unit attendance in Mexico would be higher than the UK which is 87. I would expect it to be lower. But if we assume it’s the same as the UK then attendance would be 160,341. The Mexico activity rate would be 10.8%. So I think the activity rate in Mexico is probably less than 10%.

California
You are assuming average attendance at each unit is 140. Given the high rate of unit and stake closures in California I would be surprised if it is this high. I would be inclined to think average attendance would be closer to 100 so the activity rate may be well under 20%.

I would tend to agree with your Utah numbers. Average attendance of 140 seems about right for Utah.

Excellent observations. I too think my estimates are high. I suspected as much last I looked at them and started digging country by country to make adjustments but didn't get that far--state by state in the US might not be a bad move either. Maybe I'll see if I can find more.

I'd expect Mexico to be lower than my estimate. I feel safe going on the high side until I find better leaks. Going high, I think, still paints a tough picture for the church.

In terms of a bleak picture, I see your point. In terms of tradition it is bleak. My contention would be the priority seems to have changed. Wealth building seems to have replaced membership growth as the high priority some time over the past 3 decades. The church doesn't seem concerned. I'd suggest that is because the priority is wealth building at this point. If ever the church financial growth takes hits like the membership growth has the past couple of decades, the church will, I'm sure, dive into panic mode.