There are a lot of smart and educated folks here, I'm interested in your thoughts here.

While I'm long 'gone' so to speak, I have a few TBMs I talk with regularly. Recently we argued this out over a meal. My take... the Church is diversifying it's financial holdings and making massive investments in real estate, temple building, etc because, it's heading toward a cliff. Here's why;

1) During General Conference, buried in the official statistics that make up the LDS Church’s annual report, we learned that the LDS Church grew by 261,862 people in 2015, a 1.7% annual increase.

2) This represents the slowest growth in any year since 1937 (when it was 0.93%)

3) Annual membership growth has steadily declined in the last 25 years. It used to be 4-5% a year, and now it’s only 1.7%.

4) Activity and 'retention' rates of 20-30 year old LDS people are declining rapidly, in fact, <25% 'raised' in the faith are involved or even semi-active. The trend is down and fast.

5) Conversion/baptismal rates are declining and have been doing so rapidly, especially among educated or semi-educated people in Europe and N. America. They're not even keeping up with the increasing death rate of active members.

6) Estimates put nearly 60% of the ACTIVE tithe paying membership at 55+ years of age. Those who "do" are getting old fast.

7) 20-30 years from now, the huge population of tithe paying active members will have retired, died or become largely dependent upon others for their care.

8) With a diminishing generation of higher end tithe payers, diminishing active retained members and increases in member population occurring mostly in poor countries, the church has a financial nightmare around the corner.

What have I missed??

You have put together a very good overview of the near stagnation as far as membership growth is concerned. But let me play devil's advocate for a moment.

Why do the things that you listed lead to your conclusion that they are the reason the church is diversifying? In my mind, the things you listed would cause the church to withdraw or reduce its commercial activities, not increase them. From the outside, it almost looks like the GAs are very optimistic about the future.

Of course, it could be that they believe their own rhetoric about how fast the church is growing, etc., and are blinded to the possibility of a future train wreck.

Ohh, ohh, can I?

Currently they rely on tithing as the largest, by far, source of revenue. Since they fear that this revenue is declining they need to diversify.

Temples and temple attendance are perfect ways to extort tithing (revenue) and since they don't have debt on these structures, and they cover the overhead with volunteers they get a damn good return.

Real property (masquerading as church buildings, welfare farms, apartment buildings, retail space, and the like) are much more secure than cash. As well as generating revenue, albeit with a higher COGS than temples.

And so forth and so on.

I think you are right about the panic in future tithing revenue decline and the temple recommend extortion tactics. The big push in my stake right now is calling in every member whose temple recommends are expired to see what the problem is and try to get their recommend active again (aka. get them paying tithing again).. and yes, I was called in. I went thinking I was being released from a calling, but got ambushed with the "I see your recommend as been expired for a number of years, can I ask why?" conversation.

Since you're posting here, I guess you were not actually interested in re-upping your TR?

kingbrigham Wrote:
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> Of course, it could be that they believe their own
> rhetoric about how fast the church is growing,
> etc., and are blinded to the possibility of a
> future train wreck.

This would be my take. They've been telling the lie about the fastest growing church for so long that's its become the truth for them. The Q-15 are also surrounded by adoring fans who tell the old farts what they want to hear.

I also feel that the temple building is being used to promote a growing and healthy IMAGE for the old tithe payers to think that all is well. Hey, it probably gives a 75 year-old TBM man a hard-on to think there's now a temple in the shadow of St. Peter's! (that was the headline in today's Salt Lake Trib.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/5381183-155/in-the-shadow-of-the-vatican


The problem with all the buildings is eventually, the cost of maintaining the structures, mechanical innards, etc keeps requiring more and more money.

Mormon diversification continues though huge subdivision building plans in Florida, and tons of other shit we don't know about due to the church's secrecy about its finances.

In time, Mormonism may look financially healthy from the outside (due to its investments), but the reality may be that it has few active tithe-paying members. The seventy-five year old's Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2017 07:48PM by BYU Boner.

I think a few of you hit the nail on the head. The big 'push' at least the last few years is on 'activation' so to speak. It's all about the pay to play aspect of the "faithful member."

You want the blessings of the temple... blah blah blah, then let's get you 'worthy'. That includes the mortifying face to face with the Bishop delving into one's financials, extracting their 10% etc every December.

But, even with that said, if they don't stem the rising tide of defection among the younger, dare I say Millenials and even Gen Xers, I still don't see them sustaining the huge expenses to drive the organization through and beyond the next 20 or 30, at least not at this pace.