Church Opens More Missions

[Res Ipsa]

56,000 to 72,000 missionaries in two years. 36 new missions. The gospel being preached to more and more nations.

Am I recalling correctly that there was a recent change in reassigning service missionaries to regular proselyting missions? It certainly is an unusual jump that would be pretty hard to explain without something going on behind the scenes. A redefinition of service missionaries would probably be about right to account for the jump.

The jump is accounted for by the prior drop caused by COVID. 2019: 167,000. 2023: 72,000. MG 2.0 is cherry picking to exaggerate the growth.

[Dwight]

2014 85,000 missionaries in 406 missions. 2024 projected 72,000 in 430 missions. Granted that was peak Monson’s trick of lowering the age, but the average missionaries per mission is going from 209 to 167. I didn’t look at the list carefully, but since these are just being formed from existing missions it doesn’t seem to be covering new ground. This is being proud of having more middle managers.

[Marcus]

I have yet to see any source verifying the 72,000 in 2023. Has anyone seen an actual source?

[Res Ipsa]

I have yet to see any source verifying the 72,000 in 2023. Has anyone seen an actual source?

Per the DN article: "The total number of missionaries as of Wednesday was 72,721, Elder Cook said." Cook is the head of the Missionary Committee.

ETA: Please check my math, but 72K at the end of 2023 would be a 7.4% increase over the 2019 total of 67K. Divide the 7.4% by the number of years (4), and the overall rate of increase is less than 2%. And that's after a specific call from the prophet for more folks to serve missions in April 2022. That rate of increase under those circumstances doesn't sound implausible to me. In response to a call from the prophet, I'd expect a surge in total missionary numbers. A few more years will tell us whether this is a spike or some kind of change in trend.

[malkie]

Data copied from the church statistical reports:



It's almost like the Mythical Man-month. In effect, adding more bodies mays not allow the organization to maintain the same effectiveness of each body.

[Res Ipsa]

Data copied from the church statistical reports:



It's almost like the Mythical Man-month. In effect, adding more bodies mays not allow the organization to maintain the same effectiveness of each body.

Yep. It all depends on where missionaries are added. if they surge in Africa, the overall baptism per missionary is likely to rise. But the well-documented retention problems will come into play. It might just be Latin America in the '70s and '80s all over again.

I took a look at some statistics on wards by state. Washington and California are closing a surprising (to me) number of wards. It might be an artifact of movement by conservatives to red states.

[I Have Questions]

From the OP deseret news link:

The church has 16,000 more missionaries than it did two years ago, an increase of more than 28%

https://www.deseret.com/2023/11/1/23942 ... re-in-2024

That’s simply explainable by the impact of the pandemic. As another poster pointed out, the underlying trend over time simply ain’t great. In fact the number is still lower than it was in 2013 and 2014 when the Church was lauding the increases brought on by Monson’s missionary age change. This desperate lauding of any positive number they can get their hands on is a tiresomely repetitive. Remember Holland lauding that the missionary force was heading to 100,000 according to forecasts?

Has there been an increase of more than 28% in the number of convert baptisms? If not, what does that tell us about the effectiveness of the Church’s missionary programme?

[Marcus]

Oct genl conf:

we have more than 71,000 missionaries serving in 414 missions.17
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... n?lang=eng

And footnote 17?

Received via email from the Missionary Department, Sept. 14, 2023.

And 6 weeks later, more than 72,000.

1000/71000 = approx 1.5% in 1.5 Months, or about 12% yearly.

This latest figure of over 72,000, based on unverified numbers, gives an increase of 1.5% over the last announced number, 6 weeks earlier, and is difficult to reconcile with the suggested previous yearly increase of about 2%.

It could be a spike, but given the reputation of this group, and the 'coincidence' of numbers exactly matching their expectations, especially when past announcements of expectations have been notoriously unreliable, it's very difficult to trust this number of over 72,000.

[Res Ipsa]

From the OP deseret news link:

The church has 16,000 more missionaries than it did two years ago, an increase of more than 28%

https://www.deseret.com/2023/11/1/23942 ... re-in-2024

That’s simply explainable by the impact of the pandemic. As another poster pointed out, the underlying trend over time simply ain’t great. In fact the number is still lower than it was in 2013 and 2014 when the Church was lauding the increases brought on by Monson’s missionary age change. This desperate lauding of any positive number they can get their hands on is a tiresomely repetitive. Remember Holland lauding that the missionary force was heading to 100,000 according to forecasts?

Has there been an increase of more than 28% in the number of convert baptisms? If not, what does that tell us about the effectiveness of the Church’s missionary programme?

Good point on 2013 and 2014. The number in 2014 was around 85,000. So, if we cherry pick like the church does, the number of full-time missionaries fell by 13,000 over the last decade.

I’m still thinking that the main function of the missionary program is retention, not conversion.

[Res Ipsa]

Oct genl conf:

we have more than 71,000 missionaries serving in 414 missions.17
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... n?lang=eng

And footnote 17?

Received via email from the Missionary Department, Sept. 14, 2023.

And 6 weeks later, more than 72,000.

1000/71000 = approx 1.5% in 1.5 Months, or about 12% yearly.

This latest figure of over 72,000, based on unverified numbers, gives an increase of 1.5% over the last announced number, 6 weeks earlier, and is difficult to reconcile with the suggested previous yearly increase of about 2%.

It could be a spike, but given the reputation of this group, and the 'coincidence' of numbers exactly matching their expectations, especially when past announcements of expectations have been notoriously unreliable, it's very difficult to trust this number of over 72,000.

The Deseret News article mentions a surge in applications for senior missionaries. The churches post says the opening of the new missions is caused by the increase in missionaries. The new missions will be implemented next July. Put all that together, and I think it’s reasonable to conclude that there is a backlog of mission applications. I think it would be pretty easy to juice the number by reducing the backlog.

I also noticed that the church’s announcement understated the total for 2022. It described the total as including youth service missionaries, but it actually didn’t. Given that the church often doesn’t clarify exactly what a total represents, it’s possible that there’s an apples to apples problem.

It’s not hard to be transparent. These guys don’t try very hard.