This is a post from the comments section of an article written by Joanna Brooks. I thought it was worthy of discussion here.
the church only grows through birth, the desperation of the poor, and the sheltering of the {people with learning difficulties}*.
*Edited to remove a terminology I wasn't comfortable with quoting.
How accurate is this claim in your area?
In response to the question, in my area over the last five years I would say new people to the congregation by baptism (not relocating existing members) is pretty much 90% birth only. The few other people that have joined the Church for some other reason have all gone inactive and did so very quickly once the Missionaries stopped giving them lots of attention. (That may also indicate an issue with the people of the congregation rather than just an issue with the 'quality' of the convert).
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
In our area the converts are typically non-English speakers who are new to the area and the disabled. A while back it seems we even had some missionaries tracting at a group home for women with mental illness. I can't even begin to describe to you the problems the woman they baptized was dealing with. I felt very ill equipt to help, although I tried. I don't believe she had the capacity to be accountable anyway, personally, but since she knew what day it was and could carry on a conversation...The 19/20 year old missionaries felt she was.
When you are tracting during the day I think it is much more likely to come across the poor and the needy. Those without jobs and those who have very little interaction with others. I think giving service and assistance to these people rather than trying to get them baptized would perhaps be more charitable.
We have had one English speaking young family convert a couple years ago and actually went to the temple last year. They are still attending and seem to be 'strong members.'
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden ~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
In the City of Toronto, the majority of converts come from the young immigrant population. The church uses an ESL program (English as a Second Language instruction) to attract immigrants to the church, and since the missionaries teach the ESL course, they build an unwitting teaching pool.
The vast majority of these converts do not stick around. For many Chinese and Muslim immigrants, learning Christianity is a new freedom, almost a rebellion from their previous lives. However, as soon as family discovers what's happening, they disappear into their ethnic community never to be found again (they move around quite a bit, nothing nefarious).
In the affluent suburbs of Toronto, the baptismal rate is dismal, and it is extremely rare to attract a "normal" family - two married parents with kids. More common are the following converts:
1. Elderly single women 2. Single mothers 3. Young unstable men 4. Middle aged couples from low income brackets
Of the group, elderly women tend to stick around. The rest, not so much.
H.
"Others cannot endure their own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level." ~ Ernest Becker "Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." ~ Simone de Beauvoir
I thin North American church growth in general has declined. The LDS church is probably doing better than most and its numbers seems to be just keeping up with population growth in general. I do think the the Jehovah Witnesses church has actually passed the LDS Church for the title of "Fastest Growing Church" but that title should probably be changed to "Slowest Declining Church".
As far a sources for baptism and conversions the LDS church historically has had more success in poor areas/countries & immigrants then in other areas. I am sure this would apply to any religion who proselytes. Part of the reason for the phenomenal growth of the church in the early years was the success they had with the poor in the European missions, especially the British isles. There was an actual fund set up in Salt Lake (Perpetual Emigration Fund or PEF) that paid for some 30,000 converts to come to Utah. When they arrived they were expect to repay the costs of bringing them over.
I suppose if the new converts today were relocated to a far away central location with little or no resources and in debt that the retention rate would skyrocket once again.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
in my my wife's ward not a single family-father,mother, sister,brother converted in over 30 years-the sad,lonely, emotionally unstable/needy single men/women dominate the coversion pool and they chk our once the love bombing subsides!
nothing wrong with that picture because it's true!