I'm always fascinated by posts on this board that discuss how TSCC is growing/stagnating/shrinking in certain areas. We know TSCC's growth claims are bogus, but sometimes I wonder if exmos exaggerate the decline.

I was thinking about it the other day, and it seems that Colorado would serve as a good indicator of how well TSCC really is doing. Denver wasn’t hit as hard by the recession, and the whole metro area is currently booming with jobs and move-ins. On top of that, it’s still close to the Morridor. In my mind, if TSCC was having any kind of meaningful growth, you’d see some of that played out in CO.

Are there any board members (maybe closet exmos) who have an idea of how TSCC has been doing in CO the last 10 years? Are there new wards or ward consolidation? How well attended is the Denver temple? Does anyone know of any new meetinghouses constructed in the last ten years?

Hello? Colorado? check in, Colorado.

I moved from Boulder 3 years ago, so maybe things have changed...but seemed to me it was ok. I was actually barely in Boulder, closer to Louisville, a suburb outside Boulder and about 25 min. NW of Denver. But I had friends all over Denver and suburbs that had thriving wards/stakes. I have heard a lot of people leaving. So....I guess i don't have much to tell ya!

She's a temple worker and I assume that it's reasonably busy, because she's up there every weekend.

The only new chapel I know of built in Colorado Springs is the one off of Garden of the Gods- My childhood ward, which was in the Broadmoor area, split into two. Now the Broadmoor nouveau riche Mormons don't have sully themselves by attending the same ward as the Manitoids and Westsiders, lol.

The only chapel I've seen is in Hesperus, on the way to Durango. t looks like it's been built in the last decade. I know there's a branch/ward in Durango, but the entire time I've lived in the corners, I haven't seen a single one there or further north in Telluride. No mishies, either.

TSCC seems to be focusing on NW NM and NE AZ, aka the Navajo Rez. I see mishies and pass by the local wards almost every day.

I just moved to Greeley, CO (northern Colorado). I have no idea yet but would certainly be interested in what is said.

I suppose you're closer to the Ft. Collins temple, rather than the Denver one.

It isn't the feed lot smell that bothers me...it's the proximity to a new temple that stinks!

They're building a new chapel (stake-center sized?) in Windsor. I don't have the data to say if that's motivated by growth in the number of members, or motivated by business decisions at the top.

(Windsor is a small-ish town partway between Greeley and Ft. Collins.)

Last I looked (wife and I are in Utah visiting my parents) the chapel was nearly done.

I have a Mormon sister who lives in Greeley.

Now that my "LDS Tools" App on my android phone has been updated to reflect my current Greeley Ward/Stake, I see two Bagley families. By the way, how are you (if you are) related to Will and Pat?

I'm just curious. Feel free to ignore me if this is too intrusive and accept my apology for intruding!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 05:56PM by moose.

In my opinion one of the few areas of the world where the church IS growing is the inter-mountain west (the heartland of Mormonism) which includes Colorado. And this growth is primarily due to the Mormon birth rate (not converts) and closely knit BIC/pioneer families.

I also believe congregational unit growth is a fairly accurate measure of the true growth of Mormonism. The link below shows CO with a healthy increase in wards/branches.

http://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=countries&cnt_res=2&wid=231&wid_state=267&cmdfind=Search

Shitty.....
Including in my neck of the woods; Houston.
No exaggeration needed.

Houston has a temple!

Ive been here for 14 years. The only "growth" I see in Colorado Springs is move-ins from other parts of the country. As a military town, this happens often. As a matter of fact, I am in one of the larger wards in northern Colorado Springs, although I resigned almost 3 years ago now - WOW how time flies - and I would bet that the number of adult convert baptisms in this ward in 14 years is about 10 -15. Additionally, there have been four entire families resign from the church from this same ward in the last three years. So from that metric, they are upside-down.

I believe Denver gets a lot of Utah transplants. I don't live there now, but I used to and ALL growth was from Utah move-ins. I never saw a convert baptism during my time there. I attended the Denver temple several times and I never saw more than a dozen or so people in a session...every other seat in the first row and a half.

BTW, this was in the suburbs south of Denver. I know there's been recent unit growth even further south, but this was mostly from people just moving down from Littleton, Highlands Ranch, etc...

I live in Denver but am no longer a member. However, my sister and her husband live in the southern suburbs of Denver and based on my interactions with them (attending baptisms of nieces/nephews etc) it would seem the church isn't growing much. Few people at the meetings. I've heard my brother in law (I believe he is the elder's quorum president) complain about how difficult it is to get people to participate (teaching lessons, cleaning the chapel, helping with moves, etc). Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I hope the LDS church isn't growing here.

I am currently "serving" as ward membership clerk in one of the wards in the Co. Springs North Stake. I have been in the calling for 4 1/2 years now, and from what I can see, the "growth" is only in the form of youth baptisms (kids turning 8) and families that move in. Co. Springs is a VERY transient community (we have 3 major military bases here), so people are always coming and going.

But it isn't really "new blood." In fact, I looked at the records and discovered that in my ward, only 1 convert in the past 5 years is still active (and she is only kinda, sorta, active). Everyone else is OUT (seed that fell in the rocks and never bloomed into the fine TBM's that the LARD wants).

In addition, I know for a FACT that temple attendance (from my stake) is down dramatically (the current SP is worried about it), while divorces are up. One thing I love about my calling is I don't have to attend the stupid classes. But from walking the halls it seems that nobody else does either. It feels like I'm attending a really boring karaoke bar where everyone is just watching the time so they can leave.

A marvelous work and a wonder!!!

@CoSpringsWardClerk - if you ever like to chat - I'd love to...you could email me at mconner@cshp.net

I live in Highlands Ranch (South Denver Metro area). In the seven years we've lived here, we've gone from 10 wards in the Highlands Ranch stake to 11. This growth is due to new move-ins. The Parker stake (southeast of Denver) split into two stakes a few years ago, but that is also due to new move-ins--a lot of new housing developments in the Parker area.

There is not a huge influx of converts, but neither is there a mass exodus of people leaving the Church. I was active until about a year and a half ago, and I served in leadership positions at both the ward and stake levels during my time here, so I am somewhat familiar with baptisms as well as people leaving the Church for doctrinal or other reasons. I would estimate that each ward in Highlands Ranch averages around 2-3 convert baptisms a year. I would estimate that the rate of people leaving the Church is maybe 3-4 per ward per year.

I think the Church is no longer growing as a percentage of overall population in Colorado, the US, or the world in general, except maybe Africa (see below statistics). But I think the decline of Church membership will be very gradual. There are some people (I fall into this category) who need to know that their faith is anchored in truth, so when we learn the truth about the Church, we leave (though even in my case, it took a few years of closeted disbelief before I stopped attending church and resigned my membership). For others, the desire to believe what they grew up believing is too great, and they either avoid learning anything negative about the Church, or they reconcile the difficult truths in their minds, and continue believing. For others, they lose some or all of their belief in the dogma, but continue attending for social or other reasons. I believe the latter two groups are both larger than the first, which is why I believe that the decline of Church membership will be very gradual.

From cumorah.com, here are the average annual growth rates of Church units since 2010:

Africa: 9.4%
Asia: 0.9%
Central America/Carribean: -0.3%
Europe: -0.9%
North America: 0.5%
Oceania: 1.3%
South America: 0.1%

World population growth rate during that time: 1.1%

I no longer live in Colorado, but I lived in Highlands Ranch for several years. I might know you. I only remember one convert baptism in the years I lived there -- a 17 year old boy that only stayed for a few weeks.

I've been back to visit and the ward is MUCH smaller than it used to be. I don't know anyone from my time there that has left the church though...except some of the youth that were never super active. I know several families that moved to the Castle Rock area, and many grown kids that have gone off to college and then moved all over the country. It doesn't look like they've been replaced by new move-ins.

Do you have any SM attendance stats for the area?

Greely is Colorado's Ogden



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2014 02:45PM by london.

My family lived just outside of Vail for 2 years - 2001-2003 (so, a while ago ...). After being there a year and a half, I found out one of the teachers at my son's elementary school was mormon. I was stunned. I knew of NO OTHER Mormons - no chapels - nothing. Very different from home (AZ). So, my experience in the mountains in the early 2000's is there were exactly three of them.

Of course, me being a nevermo is an asterisk, as I was not seeking out any services to attend. However, the influence of the mormon church was noticeably, quite visibly, absent.

Live in Longmont, which is a few miles North of Boulder. Family has been out for a little over 4 years so I'm not very current. We were active here for about 10 years before leaving & the convert rate was about zero. Any growth came from move-ins and member family baptisms.

I am in NE Colorado Springs, and my brother in law is a bishop in an east stake ward. From what I understand, there haven't been any converts in his ward since he has been bishop (over five years). I live in a high turn over neighborhood, since we have a high military concentration and most of the larger, move than four bedroom, homes are always sold to Utahans moving here. So glad my neighbors took their house off the market after having a Utah family back out of the contract. They couldn't get financing after putting down a 5K non refundable deposit. YAY!

I'm in Glenwood Springs. I see the two mishies occasionally on their bikes or walking around. I have yet to see them talking to anyone.

I lived here years ago and was neighbors with a Mormon family. He was arrested for child molestation. His Mormon buddies went on the stand to testify what a fine guy he was. He went to prison anyway.

Seems like there's virtually no Mormon influence here, which I like.

I grew up in Colorado Springs. I haven't lived there since 2002, but I grew up in a Colorado Springs Stake ward with a group of 6 girls. We were together from age 8 until we graduated high school. Of the 7 of us, 6 of us have left the church, and the one who remains is closely related to GAs. The class two years behind us had 8 kids in it, and of the 5 I have kept in touch with, 4 have left the church as adults.

I would say that's a pretty good indicator of how the church is doing in COS =)

Remember those two missies that gave Leonard a bath in the baptismal font in Colorado? Colorado is growing the fields are white and ready to harvest

As a Colorado transplant from Utah, and an exmo, I honestly don't know about the morg in this state. Surprisingly, in the three years I've lived here, the first time I even saw any missionaries was about two weeks ago up in Castle Rock. As for members? Haven't met any.

But I've gotten used to the "Are you mormon?" questions every time I tell someone I'm from Utah. Early on after we moved here, I used to get bugged when someone asked me that question. Now, I just expect and anticipate it.

And watch... I'll finally meet some mormons this week, just because I posted here that I haven't seen any in Colorado.

I am also a transplant to CO from Utah. I've been here since 1997 and have met two or three TBMs while here. I do know that the ward house in Boulder has had no growth at all, no new church buildings, no improvements on the current one either, membership numbers are down.

But you have to remember that we have two bad things going here that hurts CULTers (I mentioned both of these in an earlier thread today): 1) Coors Field - one look at the word Coors and it causes instant alcoholism and 2) Pepsi Center - yet another substance abuse advertisement in the form of a very large and in your face building! How dare CO do that? Are they trying to get people to drink beer and pepsi? The CULT couldn't have the Clydesdales in their precious suck dick parade because seeing those magnificent horses would cause instant alcoholics.

Like toto, I was asked constantly (when saying I was from Utah) about being a Culter and I just learned to respond this way...
Asker - "Where are you from?"
Me - "Utah and NO."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 08:08PM by verilyverily.