Latest Mormon infographic on Social Media, this is on Twitter right now

https://twitter.com/mormonnewsroom/status/368034377709527042

If the graphic isn't available to you of you don't have Twitter you can find it on the bottom of this article. The time frame is hilarious and of course, fabricated to demonstrate growth in a religion that claims 14.7 million members while evidence is quite strong there are between 3 to 5 million members.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-missionary-life

Can a PR machine with a lot of money be put into disrepute by Social Media. I believe so, do not let membership numbers and other misinformation go unchallenged in the media. Social Media has at least the ability to speak to power effectively without a lot of money, these tools are being corrupted by money. Google, Facebook, and others now are showing loyalty and preference to paying customers. The Mormon church will always be a paying customer when it comes to Truth.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2013 01:35PM by gentlestrength.

You forgot the link.

That said, we're still in the surge, let's see the updated infographic in 2 years.

I like that everyone is mentioning how awful the graphic is. Didn't they covenant not speak evil?

My take: The influx of new male missionaries will be temporary, and within a year or two the levels will drop back to approximately where they were. The real change will be in female missionaries. I suspect the current numbers will fall back some, but the increase will be more or less permanent. Reducing the age at which women serve has made missions more of a rite of passage for them, just as it always has been for young Mormon men.

Of course, the numbers don't really matter. We'll continue to see stagnation and decline in areas with Internet access, and decent growth where the Internet hasn't penetrated much.

I'm pretty sure it'll peak out close to 100,000 before tapering off somewhere back near 70,000. With more Sisters serving on an ongoing basis they'll be able to maintain at or around that level.

Aah there we go. The fact that the church represents it as a wave means they know damn well it will shrink back down.

Let's see a graph comparing the number of missionaries over, say, the past thirty years versus the claimed growth in church membership. Funny how the number of missionaries hasn't kept pace with membership, meaning a smaller percentage of Mormons are serving missions.

It's because missionaries these days touch themselves. Back in mah day, when we walked to and from school in uphill snow, we had proper righteous youth. Everybody feel bad now, because I'm more righteous.

The funny thing is if you extrapolate it out from the 58,500 reported for Sep of 2012 one month before the age reduction started, status quo would be 87,750 in Sep of 2013. That is computed using only the one year reduction for the males only and doesn't take into account the two year reduction for females.

So it appears there is a slightly larger than 10% reduction in age adjusted numbers of missionaries entering the fray in the past year.

Now that's some hard core number crunching. I think they are frothing up the numbers very heavily as best they can.

Those of us who can do analysis too are watching and commenting, these numbers are fabricated and do not show a healthy organization.

Very interested to begin to see what happens when the 19 year-old sister missionaries return. That will be a core consideration, do they proceed to temple marriage, school, career--where do Mormonism and temple marriage fit into that equation for a 21 year-old returned sister missionary? Was she paying attention in the mission field, or just drinking the Kool-Aid?

You lose the BIC baby makers, you are in major trouble. Generational decline.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2013 05:17PM by gentlestrength.

The funniest thing about the missionary surge is that there is no demand for it! The market has been over saturated with Mormonism for decades.

This is ridiculous. They changed the conditions so much that there is no basis for comparing the numbers. If they released figures broken down by age and sex there would be information that could be gained.

They have simply enlarged the pool of female missionaries (and placed pressure on them to go on a mission), and by lowering the age they have two age cohorts going at the same time. How could they not get an increase in numbers.

After the surge, numbers will shrink, and the impact of mission work/experience/maturity on the young women will probably reduce their likelihood of early motherhood.

...the church will deny it hyped the numbers today.

The funny thing is that for all the numbers hyping (14 million members, the recent missionary surge, etc.), nobody cares. The only people who care? The church itself, puffed of self-importance, and the members, because the church tells them to care.

Again, I can't help but draw parallels to North Korea.

Just wait til it dies down around end 2014, early 2015. If you consider the roughly year to two rear shift in after, that represents a potential of up to 100% increase temporarily (everyone who would have gone later will go now). That puts a max cap at around 120k. They likely won't hit that, but into next year the numbers will start to decline again because the first "cohort" (well put, BTW) will start coming home. They will probably be picking up extra females due to the age change that they wouldn't normally have, and they will probably lose more at the MTC because they are younger. So the numbers will probably stabilize close to the 60k number they had before.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2013 06:50PM by newatthis.

Isn't it interesting that so far they have only trumpeted the surge in signups, but have said nothing about results? The leading edge of this wave are already out in the field and past their breaking-in period, so by now they should have conversion numbers to throw out if the surge is working from a conversion perspective.

The very first thing I noticed is how counter-intuitive the info-graphic actually is. At first I was reading it kind of like a bar graph, but then I realized that the largest 'bars' represented the smallest numbers. The visual aspect paints a contrary picture to the 'data' aspect. Not a very well designed info-graphic.

Anyhow, it's too bad we won't ever get to see a cool picture from the church illustrating the 'wave' of members who are 'Choosing' to high-tail it out of Mormonism.

Exactly.

WTF--looks like a Fox News Chiron.