LDS Church Growth

In today’s Mormon dilemma we’re taking a look at the LDS Church’s growth rate and their claim of having more than 14 million members.

Whenever I do research on statistical info about the Church I refuse to only go to one source for my articles. Long ago I was a wanna-be journalist and can remember in high school and college my professors and teachers always pounding this into our heads; if you’re only presenting one side then you’re not presenting truth.

So here is some statistical information of how the LDS Church skews its numbers.  Along with their info are just some of the other links I found on the net while cruisin’ around looking for the best info for you!  If you feel you have other articles that should be included, please, send it to me and I’ll update this article!

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/the-time-shall-come?lang=eng

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2890645

http://usreligionstatistics.info/index.html

http://www.mormoninformation.com/stats.htm

http://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=law_harvest&chapter_id=7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_history

In a nutshell, the Church presents a picture that is disingenuous. It’d be pretty hard to swallow they have 14 million members when the truth is the Church counts you as a member until you’ve turned 110 years old whether you’re dead or not. And while they did send me my letter recognizing that I wanted my name removed from the Church, there’s no way to verify if they removed it from their roles reflecting my termination.

According to the Church, membership slowed down to a snail’s pace from 2.37% in 2009 to 2.22% for 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_history

And when it comes to activity rate, well that’s another story all together. The Church in North America has faced some dismal times in the past decade or so. Active membership in the Church only means you’ve gone to church one or more times in the past year and in North America they only have a 40-50% activity rate. (See cumorah.com – link above) Retention is a huge problem for the Church both in and outside of North America. In South American countries the activity rate is roughly 25—35% and most people in both North and South America who join the Church are not active after one year in the Church.

There are some websites claiming 30,000 Mormons a year are leaving and as this number may sound grandiose it is reasonable when taking everything into consideration with the Church’s  worldwide numbers this estimate is probably well below the true numbers of people who leave on a yearly basis.