I believe that unit growth is one of the best indicators of Mormon growth in the world. You can baptize as many people you want but the people who show up to keep the show (facade) going are the ones who really count and you can't have a ward without people so looking at the change in the number of units in a geographical location is a great way to see how well Mormonism is doing.

So I've been analyzing the data and charts of "unit" (wards & branches) growth on http://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=countries&cnt_res=2&wid=13&cmdfind=Search and its apparent that the church is truly declining in Asia, Europe (both East and West), and most of Latin America. Growth stopped in the late 1990's and began to decline in about the year 2000. I was shocked to realize this is the case with even South America. I knew they haven't been getting baptisms in Europe for decades but they still get tons of baptisms in South America but it appears that the members are no longer "sticking" anymore down there. While they have actually been producing baptisms, the number of wards and branches have actually been SHRINKING in most of these Latin American countries.

The only parts of the world where there is REAL growth appears to be in the Morridor (Utah and its adjacent states), a handful of other states (mostly Southern ones), Mexico, the Philippines, and Africa (ironically). Internationally, they only got the poorest countries, which doesn't fare well down the road.

It looks like this started happening in the 1990's. My home ward in the Midwest grew from a small branch in the 1970's to a huge ward that split in 2000 only to consolidate back a couple years later. They have since plateaued in growth. My parents were "quality" converts back in the early eighties and there was real growth back then with real converts, or "quality" converts, ones who stuck around, fulfilled callings, and kept the show running. But something happened in the 1990's with those types of "converts." Most people in the last 25 years who joined the church in the last 25 years simply aren't the type to stick around or be able take on leadership positions to replace the old stalwarts.

From those of you who spent time out in the "mission field" either as missionaries or as ward members, at what point in time did you start to see "quality" baptisms decline and active members start to leave the church? And please state when and where this was. It looks like this happened for much of the world about the year 2000.

I was involved (in some way) in the baptism of around three dozen people in Mexico in the mid-80s.

By time I left my mission, I knew that virtually all of them were inactive, even the most "golden" convert family.

I never bothered to keep contact with them. I had done my job and didn't want to face the realities of ultimate "defeat."

I was in Iowa around 04-05 and I NEVER saw "quality" converts come into the church. All our baptisms were 9 year olds from inactive families and poor/weird/downtrodden/lonely people. That was a real shelf item for me. The one true church was supposed to grow to fill the world and the "work" was very stagnant in my corner of the vineyard. No amount of hard work or strict obedience seemed to "hasten" anything.

"No amount of hard work or strict obedience seemed to "hasten" anything."

It was no different in 78-80 when I went. Those of us in continental Europe would weep in frustration when getting letters from friends that went to Latin America and such where they'd write about getting 38 baptisms comprised of 5 families last month. That one elder in that one month had more baptisms than our entire mission of 200 would in an entire year, and I can't recall a single complete nuclear family doing so.

And would The Powers That Be comisserate, understand, or even acknowledge how tough things were for us? No. They instead yammered and howled about how we didn't have enough faith. And so those of us who went to such fields which were not, in fact, white and ready to harvest, in addition to having nothing to do were also taught that we were complete failures in every way. Talk about kicking you when you're down.

I was in Maryland in the 90s and early 2000s. Our ward grew and split. There was talk about how our area would eventually grow to support an entire stake. Eventually, the wards shrunk to the point of consolidating into a single ward again.


I'm hesitant to use the phrase "quality baptism" because it carries so much value judgement, but if the definition includes a married couple, children, employed tithe payer and reliable calling holder, then in my nearly 20 years of adult activity in the church, I've seen only two families that were truly "converted" and I think one of them is now inactive.

The church has no place for single people. They only have a place for middle class families, and I doubt there are many of those looking for a church toilets to clean on Saturday Mornings.

I was responsible for 50 baptisms in Korea but doubt many stayed in ------ few with immediate leadership potential, no adult males over 25, and only one family (widow in charge).

You must have served a long time ago because South Korea has been nose diving the last 15 years. It's one the worst for growth right now.

The church is aware of this and trying to game this stat as well, the criteria for wards in many areas are being relaxed. It used to be that wards had to be around 200 active, I believe. Now, the last few wards I attended hovered around 100, and one was a new one created by siphoning off about 15 people from all of the surrounding wards. This creates the illusion of growth in these areas, even though the reality is decline.

The main criteria for a ward is the number of priesthood holders. Even if there's only 100 active members it can still be a ward if there's enough priestood holders to have all the necessary callings. If there's not enough then it has to be a branch or merged with another ward. Most wards in the UK have less than 200 active members, and always have done, so wards are allowed to be that small.

Yes, but leadership likes to keep wards at a certain size, this is usually different based on region, where SLC wards are allowed to be bigger, and Europe wards smaller. This has shifted in recent years to the point where SLC wards are looking like wards I was attending in Germany.

I think they are using male missionaries to hide (beard) this statistic. If you are using a missionary as a BP, should there be a branch?

I don't think so.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2014 06:05PM by gentlestrength.

A few years back, Oaks and Holland were dispatched to Philippines and Chile to get to the bottom of the membership messes there. The church had been over optimistic in creating units there. They ended up disbanding and consolidating a lot of units.

Not only does there need to be a minimum number of members for a new ward or stake, there need to be a minimum number of Melchizedek priesthood holders to run things. But the church baptized a lot of women and children and very few white-collar-American-male clones. And the "convert" kids didn't stick around long enough to rise through the priesthood ranks.

I served in El Salvador in 97/98ish. We were baptising about 350 a month as a mission. I baptized about 40-50 people in 2 years. By the end of my mission all had stopped going except one family. They were still going a few years later. I have no idea if they go today.

I can count on one hand, the number of convert baptisms I've seen from my wards in the last 10 years...the numbers have been abysmal to say the least.

I'm on the east coast, and the only growth we've had in the two wards that meet in our building is from Morridor transplants. We've had about 1 convert that has stuck in the last 3 years (not counting 2 youth baptisms who came from broken, unsupportive homes). We've had at least 3-4 strong, faithful families (mine included) leave the church and become exmormons. We've had plenty of kids grow up, leave the nest, and leave the church as well (young adults in their early 20's). Friends I grew up with in the church are mostly not active.

I unfortunately baptized 18 souls in the South, all are in-active or left the church except for the 9 & 13 year old of newly activated family (they may be in-active, but not sure).

One man, age 20, golden contact, son of a minister that we baptized, learned the truth shortly after I got home and he was so pissed at us for lying to him. Naturally I thought that his father had “anti’d” him…Wow, I was such an idiot.

Looking back, I feel really bad about pushing this religion onto other people. I actually, loved my mission experience (and I mean that, I made good friends, met wonderful people, learned meaningful lessons, including that people, not of the LDS faith, are good and happy), but I wish I could say that that I positively affected other people. I think about the good a force of 80k+ young people could do for the world, the service that could be performed, instead of selling a religion…and it really pisses me off.

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was shocked to
> realize this is the case with even South America.
> I knew they haven't been getting baptisms in
> Europe for decades but they still get tons of
> baptisms in South America but it appears that the
> members are no longer "sticking" anymore down
> there. While they have actually been producing
> baptisms, the number of wards and branches have
> actually been SHRINKING in most of these Latin
> American countries.

Based on what I saw on my mission in Brazil, I don't believe the growth in the 80's and 90's was real. There are wards that have over 1,000 members on the rolls, but 10-15 attend each week. The mission president before my first president was excommunicated for encouraging missionaries to falsify baptismal records. I wouldn't be suprised if a big chunk of the million baptisms in Brazil never even happened. When I was there, most missionaries were baptizing 3-5 for their entire mission...few men, and no families.

> From those of you who spent time out in the
> "mission field" either as missionaries or as ward
> members, at what point in time did you start to
> see "quality" baptisms decline and active members
> start to leave the church? And please state when
> and where this was. It looks like this happened
> for much of the world about the year 2000.

I haven't seen a single "quality" baptism in my 30+ years. I haven't seen a single baptism since I moved to Utah (~15 years). I saw 2-3 baptisms where I grew up, but they didn't stick around. All of my church friends that I grew up with have left the church. My parents' ward is much smaller than it was 20 years ago...even though there have been no splits and half the ward is now Utah transplants.

Maybe they were creating new wards in the 1990's with fewer active members. If the 1990's weren't experiencing true growth, when do you think the last true growth occurred in Brazil? The 80's maybe?

A real catch on the East Coast of Canada would have been for a new convert to actually own a car to get themselves to a sacrament meeting. Most I saw would bum drives off members with no mention of throwing you some gas money once and awhile.

A topic at the first EQM of the month was about this transportation issue and why were the missionaries not helping share the load because there new and modern mission car was always void of riders.

The answer the EQ received from corporate was they would not transport anyone in mission cars due to liability issues and the chance of being sued if there was an accident. So it was ok for the kind hearted members to taxi these people around and own the liability if something happened but not for TSCC. You were on your own if there was an accident and you were carrying these investigators.That was a lively debate but certainly showed everyone at the meeting the pecking order within TSCC.

My wife and I are quite happy to have left the corporation and haven't looked back.

I was in Canada, Montreal 78-80. baptisms were abysmal due to the heavy Catholic presence. One month we decided (or it was decided by the higher ups) that the mission would baptize 78 or so (I can't remember) to coincide with President Kimball's 78th birthday. Well, the push was on. Missionaries were literally grabbing people off the street and baptizing them just to make the mission goal. Mind you, the mission did like 30 baptisms a month up until then. Well, the mission met its goal and then some, but I heard that most of those people never attended or became inactive shortly after.

In my former non-Morridor ward, they called a bunch of people as Ward Missionaries just to help with the all of the driving needs. You see, the missionaries just had an uptick in baptisms as stake leadership adopted a more liberal definition of an "accountable" person. So, the missionaries were able to dunk a lot of people with severe mental health disorders, to go along with the dunking of recently resettled refugees with nearly no English speaking ability. Ward Missionaries (the ward members who were called as such) referred to themselves as Designated Drivers.

In a short while, the driving duties began to impose a heavy burden on the ward members. After a lot of complaining, and several people quitting the calling, the bishop decided to have the ward members "teach them folks some self-reliance." So instead of free rides, ward missionaries were asked to donate to a one-month bus fund for the new converts. A few of the newer converts took the bus, but a few dropped off. After the bus ran out they all stopped coming coming, and the entire ward breathed a giant sigh of relief.

The only converts I ever saw in a U.S. ward were either mentally challenged or a very recent immigrant, or both. Instead of helping people and showing true "Christian" love, or whatever, the ward members only saw them as a giant burden. They were happy to hear about growth in the area, but completely unable to recognize that the growth was actually undesired.

Drilldoc,that is absolutely hilarious-78 new converts for his 78th birthday!!!

Oh we gobbled it up. That was during the time Pres. Kimball issued the blacks could get the priesthood thing. I remember we were out playing hockey with a tennis ball on the lawn in the back with the DL's. We got the message over the phone and we kind of felt guilty that we weren't out teaching the gospel. So we had some diner and went out and played some more hockey.

I just looked at about a dozen countries and they all showed some kind of growth (except Greenland--Greenland!?!?) Anyway, I'll bet the honchos in those countries fudge the numbers any way that makes things look rosy, so the TBM's can say: "See....!".

Hmmmm, sure wish they more data on Iraq, Iran, and North Korea...

I was in Germany 78-80. Other than a few servicemen, we typically had no baptisms in a month. Maybe 1 or 2.

The church has realized that the only growth is internal in the Morridor, hence the push to get the boys and girls out on missions before they can start thinking, get them home, horny as all get out, get them married, and then get them making the next generation. The fact that they have no education, few prospects for jobs, etc., is of no issue to the leaders.

Crathes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>The fact that they have no
> education

....serves the morg's purposes quite well!

I was in Japan from 81 to 83, at the very end of the “Time of Japan” which had been promised at the opening of the Tokyo Temple. The Tokyo South Mission had hundreds of baptisms per month, and even my Fukuoka Mission had more than 100.

Of course, it was all bogus, and they were all inactive. Part way through Elder Kikuchi, the Area Pres, was kicked off to a desk job, and replaced with a white face. Our job after that was to contact inactive people and offer them a chance to have their names taken off the roles. Simply pretend it didn’t happen.

Not surprisingly, I did a lot better at “unconverting” people that the other way, and so I left with a net negative number of baptisms.

i was in northern california. The only people our mission baptized where poor, uneducated people. They would come to church and never be seen again.

Growing up in southern California in the 70's and 80's, at least 3 and perhaps 4 of the 5 bishops I had were converts. They were converted as adults along with their wives and children. It seems as if they were all converted in the late 60's or 70's. One was a psychologist, another was a commercial building contractor, another was a CPA/insurance agent, and the other was a blue collar welder. Almost all of the strongest families in my ward were converts. There has not been one such convert in that ward that I know of since the early 80's. They still have a few baptisms a year. There was a baptism last Saturday. It was the grandson of a elderly woman in the ward who was sent to live with her.

I was in Taipei, Taiwan 2003-2004. Had one "golden" family of 5 join. They probably stayed, but I doubt most of the rest did. We spent a lot of time contacting inactives. Most ward rolls had 75-90% not attending.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2014 11:16PM by keshengjie.