Considering current events:
Virtually no LDS missionary program anywhere in the world
Birth rate is down in much of the world (no big LDS growth from lots of kids)
Young people (age 30 & under) attend church at a dramatically lower rate than previous generations
Unfortunately, this COVID-19 thing will bump up the death rate in many places
LDS missionary program may never recover to former glory
People will get used to not going to church
Many (especially young people) will embrace "stay-at-home" on Sunday even after the coronavirus crisis is over
Name removal requests keep going up and up

It's obvious to me that LDS membership is virtually guaranteed to go down in the coming years.

The Brethren will quite likely just stop announcing membership numbers and so there will never be an official tally of 20 million or whatever. I think it peaked at about 16 million.

They obviously don't want to report membership of only 10 million a decade or so from now.

Downhill from here like a
Rough Stone Rolling!

Phil Zuckerman, Ph.D., of Psychology Today expressed skepticism of how the Mormon Church reports growth in membership, noting that while church membership was reported to be rising, separate analysis conducted by journalist Jana Riess showed that reports of Mormon retention, religious participation, teachings and belief have been declining since 2007.

LDS membership hit 2 million in the 60s.

While it's grown a lot since then, the growth rate has really been in steady decline for about 20 years. And it's not a stretch to say that activity rate has declined a lot in the past 2 decades.

What a coincidence! The internet has been widely available for 2 decades, and people can research all kinds of Mormon history, and connect with doubting Mormons and find out why vast numbers are quitting.

Satan's tool - the internet - started the decline, and it's seriously downhill from here

Won't go out of business for a long time due to the vast billions - or trillions - or gazzillions saved up . . . .

From 1950 to 2013, annual LDS growth was always 2% to 8%.
Below 2% since 2014.
For 32 of those years, annual growth was 4% or higher, but the last time it was 4%+ was way back in 1991.
Even without COVID-19, and even with massive numbers of missionaries through 2019, growth rate stagnant at 1% or so.

Now that things are crazy, and missionaries are called home, there is no such thing as "growth rate" which will certainly be replaced by "rate of decline."

I don't think you'll get any accurate numbers out of the SLC Brethren.

I like to imagine that I would have not joined if I had better information at the time.

Retention in the LDS church has always been abysmal. It has always only been a third of all the members world-wide. The rest either don't come, or have made themselves too scarce to be found. (Of course, missionaries are very often at fault because of being fine with baptising whomever, even if they never came to church. Let's not forget the infamous Japanese baptisms and the so-called "baseball baptisms.) I'd bet that today the retention is only about one quarter of all listed members. That's okay with the church, too. They don't seem to mind the fact that there are only about 4 million Mormons world-wide that attend church. It's the 16 million member claim that is important. Does church leadership mind consolidating wards, stakes, and missions? Engh. Too hard to read, but it seems the leadership is not too alarmed.

Since 16 million is a phony number anyway why would things change?

AGREE!

sorta like they discontinued even the barest of financial reporting a long time ago (50's).


They think keeping the Sheeple in the blind is the best way for them to keep the shit ship afloat.

The numbers have been fake for decades. If McDonald's counted customers the way LDS Inc counts "members", they would count every person who has ever had a meal at McDonald's as a "current customer".

Which is, of course, absurd. And deeply dishonest.

I wonder if ppl really 'age out' or die in church membership numbers...

Knowing the numbers is not necessary for your salvation and exaltation.

There's no obligation to announce membership numbers. They've only done it to brag and to make members feel like they're part of a thriving clan. When a particular stat ceases to serve those purposes, they drop it from the list.

On the other hand, they really should be obliged to give a detailed financial accounting at least annually.

Love this site for detailed member statistics. http://www.fullerconsideration.com/membership.php

('sincerely') Ask a GA how the members are expected to have any confidence in what they're told.

Don't let them obfuscate or dodge the question.

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2020/4/4/21208248/lds-general-conference-april-2020-mormon-statistics-member-count-how-many


The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had 16,565,036 members around the world as of Dec. 31, 2019, up from 16,313,735 at the end of 2018.

The church had a net increase of 251,301 members.

94,266 new children of record during 2019
248,835 converts baptized in 2019

Tell us how many paid a full tithe!

Tell us how many paid zero in tithing. That'd be an excellent number to know!!

So... 1.5% growth rate.. still anemic..but stable now..it's been consistently around 1.5% the last few years.

adding the 94.2K (new children of record) + 248.8K (convert baptisms) you get 343.3K new additions to the Church

which means that only 91.8K left through death or request to have their names removed.

Of course, only TBMs trust their numbers.

1.5% lately, does anyone have the % growth from the 60's?

I wonder where these 16 million members supposedly live? Utah only has a total population of 3m (correct?). Where else in the US would there be large concentrations of Mormons? Where else in the world?

Perhaps ID & AZ & CA (more mormons than UT?) answer that Q;
does anyone know the number for Cali?