200 year fad

[_capt jack]

Jason:

My experience with the Mormonism in the developing world comes from having a Latin American mother, wife, and in-laws. From serving a two-year mission there, and from a job I had for the better part of a decade that involved my traveling to nearly every country in the region. While "downrange", I attended church and spoke with the leadership. I speak weekly with family in Chile, and monthly with family members in two provinces in Argentina. One relative is on the stake high council, another spent 10 years in a bishopric. They are the source of my information for my statement that less than 1% with no connection to Mormonism stick around.

The stats you quote about 20-30% retention of new converts in the developing world come straight from cumorah.com. I disagree strongly with them, at least as far as Latin America is concerned, as 30% retention would yield much better results than the less than 25% self-id rates in the countries I mentioned earlier.

[_Jason Bourne]

Jason:

My experience with the Mormonism in the developing world comes from having a Latin American mother, wife, and in-laws. From serving a two-year mission there, and from a job I had for the better part of a decade that involved my traveling to nearly every country in the region. While "downrange", I attended church and spoke with the leadership. I speak weekly with family in Chile, and monthly with family members in two provinces in Argentina. One relative is on the stake high council, another spent 10 years in a bishopric. They are the source of my information for my statement that less than 1% with no connection to Mormonism stick around.

The stats you quote about 20-30% retention of new converts in the developing world come straight from cumorah.com. I disagree strongly with them, at least as far as Latin America is concerned, as 30% retention would yield much better results than the less than 25% self-id rates in the countries I mentioned earlier.

Ok

Thanks

[_Mercury]

Jason:

My experience with the Mormonism in the developing world comes from having a Latin American mother, wife, and in-laws. From serving a two-year mission there, and from a job I had for the better part of a decade that involved my traveling to nearly every country in the region. While "downrange", I attended church and spoke with the leadership. I speak weekly with family in Chile, and monthly with family members in two provinces in Argentina. One relative is on the stake high council, another spent 10 years in a bishopric. They are the source of my information for my statement that less than 1% with no connection to Mormonism stick around.

The stats you quote about 20-30% retention of new converts in the developing world come straight from cumorah.com. I disagree strongly with them, at least as far as Latin America is concerned, as 30% retention would yield much better results than the less than 25% self-id rates in the countries I mentioned earlier.

Ok

Thanks

Jason, what is your snarly comment on the reliability of Jacks claim?

[_Jason Bourne]

Jason:

My experience with the Mormonism in the developing world comes from having a Latin American mother, wife, and in-laws. From serving a two-year mission there, and from a job I had for the better part of a decade that involved my traveling to nearly every country in the region. While "downrange", I attended church and spoke with the leadership. I speak weekly with family in Chile, and monthly with family members in two provinces in Argentina. One relative is on the stake high council, another spent 10 years in a bishopric. They are the source of my information for my statement that less than 1% with no connection to Mormonism stick around.

The stats you quote about 20-30% retention of new converts in the developing world come straight from cumorah.com. I disagree strongly with them, at least as far as Latin America is concerned, as 30% retention would yield much better results than the less than 25% self-id rates in the countries I mentioned earlier.

Ok

Thanks

Jason, what is your snarly comment on the reliability of Jacks claim?

I am not sure what you are referring to.

[_capt jack]

John Dehlin recently posted a videocast of a talk by Ted Lyon, former mission president in Chile, former MTC president in Chile, former head of the Spanish and Portugese Dept at BYU, and current temple president of the Santiago Chile temple.

The talk can be seen here; in it, Lyons backs up nearly everything I posted earlier.

[_harmony]

The Church still nets almost a million members every three years. That is growth.

Jason, they aren't netting a million members every three years. There are a million adult baptisms or baby blessings, but there aren't a million new, active, productive members joining the church every three years.

They can't even get 25% self-id rates in census counts in the "Big 3" in Latin America: Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. If they ever get serious about eliminating from the rolls Mormons who don't even know they're Mormons, they'll lose over a million in those three countries alone. If similar self-id rates exist across Latin America--and I think they do--a purge of church rolls in the rest of hemisphere would wipe another million from the books.

The church is never going to purge the records in an effort to make them accurately depict membership numbers. It isn't in their interest to do so. Were they to do that, they'd lose the confidence of a signifiant percentage of the membership that depends on those numbers to believe they are in the right church.

Indeed, it is all about the numbers, and unfortunately accurately reporting those numbers is not one of the church's strengths. Just like we need an accurate accounting of the finances, with the books on the table and nothing hidden, we need an accurate accounting of the membership numbers. Not gonna happen though. The leaders have too much to lose for that to happen.

[_karl61]

I don't know what the numbers look like but I don't see an american college graduate with a computer and google converting. The first twenty responses from google give lightplanet and other sites - which give information that raises questions that missionaries don't have answers to, especially missionaries from fourth and fifth generation Mormon famlies who believe Joseph Smith was married only to Emma and Brigham had all the wives.

[_The Nehor]

The church is never going to purge the records in an effort to make them accurately depict membership numbers. It isn't in their interest to do so. Were they to do that, they'd lose the confidence of a signifiant percentage of the membership that depends on those numbers to believe they are in the right church.

Indeed, it is all about the numbers, and unfortunately accurately reporting those numbers is not one of the church's strengths. Just like we need an accurate accounting of the finances, with the books on the table and nothing hidden, we need an accurate accounting of the membership numbers. Not gonna happen though. The leaders have too much to lose for that to happen.

If President Hinckley were to stand up tomorrow and report that they created a new Membership tracking system (sending Scratch into a paranoid frenzy about what it entails) and that under the new standards our membership numbers are down a few million do you really think there would be a large-scale exodus from the Church?

[_Gazelam]

At what level of ordinance adherence should a member be officially counted?

Do we count the frquency of their prayers? Do they actually have to show up in church a certain number of times a month? Year?

Do we count how often they state they read the scriptures?

What should we fall back on as a line in the sand for membership status?

[Guest]

At what level of ordinance adherence should a member be officially counted?

Hey, great question, Gaz.

Since temples are available to nearly all significant numbers of members through-out the world, it would be an HONEST COUNT to be apprised of how many MEMBERS HOLD a VALID TEMPLE RECOMMEND. And since entrance is done electronically, to know the FREQUENCY OF ATTENDANCE.

The Mormon church has these numbers - good luck getting this information.

Any other numbers to me have little significance.

These are the numbers that would reveal the level commitment necessary to keep the church viable - at least in the short term.

These numbers represent the full tithe payers, say they don't look at porn on the internet, drink, drugs, sleep around. These are the ones that at least say they sustain the current prophet and accept Joseph Smith. I would venture to say that in some wards, this small group of TR holders is comprised of the leadership.