I remember when the chapel would fill to the over flow and then the gym and finally onto the stage. Of course this was in the 1970's when church was fun and teachings were out of this world (literall). Ward membership was in the 850 range.
Today - a ward is lucky to have 100 maybe 120. Of course church is now boring, nothing new and the same lessons week after week.
Yes! There have been some reports that in some areas it's reaching a tipping point where people are getting so burned out even that last hold outs are leaving.
Brand managers know that everything has a lifespan and plan accordingly. Even Ivory Soap will eventually be gone one day but its brand manager knows when and what to introduce in new and different products to earn more and extend the brand life span. If the church is dying it's because the owners of the checkbook are preparing to cash out.
When the fossils bail itll be with a golden parachute thatll have em farting through silk and land right square on a yacht...course theres every chance they already do that...just out of sight of the little shareholders...royalty will be just fine forever...security will just escort the little malcontents to the castle wall...and throw them in the moat
Our ward's attendance is in decline also. There are many empty seats even with the overflow closed. We are also experiencing the problems with the few remaining members having too much to do.
My TBM BIL is so excited, the Stake he lives in took 3 Wards and turned them into one big Ward. Now they have enough members to fill all the callings and functions necessary to run a Ward. Truly the Lord God of LDS InC lives.
I asked my TBM BIL what will happen when the new Ward shrinks to less than 100 attending like his previous Ward did. He looked at me with a What you saying Willis type of look. He said "Why would that happen?
ward in the middle of the morridor. Attendance has been down for the last month. with one exception where a baby was blessed.
yesterday, didn't even have enough to fill all the seats in the chapel, but everyone spread out enough to make it look full.
very few youth still attend. most disappear after the 1st hour.
However, this seems to be the typical summer schedule. everyone leaves on vacation...
I did have an interesting discussion with the YM president who is extremely frustrated and burned out. All of the service assignments keep getting pushed to the ym. but he can't get any to attend. the schedule keeps getting filled with "make work" type events to the point that things are schedule on top of each other. its become a quantity vs quality thing. Multiple poorly planned and executed events...
I used to travel a lot. I was gone every week all week long. The Bishop wanted to give me a calling where I was supposed to transfer names from micro film to computer. I was suppose to commit to working 15 to 20 hours a week. I told the Bishop I was not home enough to make that kind of commitment. He said they wanted me to do this while I was in my hotel room each night. He went on to say they (Bishopric) were concerned that I might commit sin, so they came up with this calling to keep me busy every night. Another calling to keep you busy. I told the Bishop my laptop belonged to the company I worked for and I was not allowed to put software on it. I lied.
This was the first crack that something was wrong.
I drove by the Spring Creek, Springville stake center building multiple times on Sunday, at different times of the day, so during the meeting schedules of several wards.
Car park was pretty empty. I know it is a stake center sized parking lot, but there wasn't a lot of cars there. It looked busier at one point, but then I realised that was when 2 wards were meeting in the building at the same time, or likely just switching out as several vehicles were leaving.
A few people do walk to the building of course. The weather was nice enough for a walk.