I'm not sure why they used old numbers to show statistics like this. Apparently they lost several missions, but gained several stakes and wards in the past 3 years.
Well if about 200 or so people go to each ward, then that's over 5 million members. I'm not sure that's a good number to go by for the amount of people per ward. But it's definitely not 14 million! Just my 2 cents.
I'm pretty sure the 14 million includes everybody who has ever been baptised or put "on record" by being the child of somebody who has been baptised and under 8 years old.
There are three major problems that stand out to me:
1) Why should a child under 8 be considered for statistics when there is no way of knowing whether they will ever be baptised in the future, and may indeed already be "inactive" if their parents do not attend church.
2) At what age do you take inactive members off the records, when you don't have any contact with them, on the assumption they may no longer be with us? Do Mormons keep them on record until they are 110 years old?
3) Most importantly, why should somebody who doesn't attend Mormon meetings be considered a Mormon for membership purposes? The vast majority of the 14 million members they claim do not attend church. A large proportion of these haven't had any contact with TSCC for years! Just because somebody doesn't formally request "name removal" doesn't mean they consider themselves to be "members".
I agree with your three points. It is my impression that out of the 14 million members, maybe 3-4 million are at least semi-active or active with the rest totally removed.
I am not sure they ever take anyone off the records until they die.
Years ago, I was asked to go visit an inactive member--did not know who they were--no one seemed to know them. When I checked on them, they had died two years earlier but they were still on the records.
"I'm not sure why they used old numbers to show statistics like this. Apparently they lost several missions, but gained several stakes and wards in the past 3 years."
It's probably just splitting wards and stakes up. The local ward my TBM fam goes to just split in to 2 wards. They both meet in the same building, at different times. I asked if they were running out of room in the chapel, and was told "no, but not everyone was getting an opprotunity to serve in callings and receive the blessings..."