On page 74, News of the Church.

During the Feb 2012 Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, President Uchtdork explained that "in Church terms, growth could be defined as 'new members'.....REAL growth, however, is defined as growth in the number of 'active members'.

Clearly this is breaking ground for the inevitable revelation that church numbers are in fact way, way down on what the faithful have been led to believe.

M. Russell Bollocks also said, "growth occurs when personal, lifelong conversion to the gospel results in increased faithfulness of each individual and family." That's Morgspeak for "the numbers we will soon reveal are the faithful and elect. The 7 odd million we used to count as well were actually human garbage that just aren't as good as you so we won't count them anymore".

The article finished with Boyd KKK FudgePacker sinking the boot into the gays again by stating that "the church is made up of families. "Wards and Stakes are incidental."When we talk of families, then we see the real growth in the Church." Oh, BTW, if you're gay you can't marry and can't really be a family so you also don't count. Also, if you're ok as a whole person by yourself and don't want to be married, or haven't found the right partner, you can't be counted as "real growth".

I guarantee they will soon reveal their real numbers by claiming they have changed how they count members and now count only the faithful - i.e "real growth". So they will still call their announcement "growth", and they will be able to hide the numbers of resignations by revealing an even bigger drop when they stop counting the unfaithful.

I have thought about if I will officially remove my name and I guess I will so I can no longer be counted and the records will have to be atleast that teensy tinesy bit more accurate.

I encourage anyone who doesn't attend to have his or her name removed from the records. If you do attend, I encourage you to spy ha ha...

It is too bad the convert-immediately-because-a-missionary-in-my-impoverished-country-offered-to-help-me-or-was-nice-to-me-but-fall-away-almost-right-away converts probably don't even realize they can have their name removed or have access to sites to help them figure out how to do it.

They will still spout off the traditional press figures for the general public and membership, but anyone who has been in leadership can tell you that the number of inactive members far exceeds the number of warm seats on Sunday. Those warm seats are the numbers that determines a wards budget.

Cumorah dot com has pointed out, as have several leadership meetings that I attended over the years that there is a difference between new members and real growth. The number of new members who drop out within in the first half year is alarming, and when you factor in the drop out rate compared to the baptism/birth rate, actual real growth is flatlined.