“We are experiencing a combined growth of converts and natural increase
of some 400,000 a year. Every single year that is the equivalent
of 160 new stakes of 2500 people each.” July 1999 Ensign
Speech by President Gordon B. Hinckley at BYU on November 6, 1998
The Church did exhibit rapid growth through the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and Church public relations capitalized on that growth through the national media. Most members today still believe that the LDS Church is one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing church in the World. That the Church is growing so rapidly is an off-repeated indication to many members that the Church must be true.
This essay will show that despite all the media coverage that continues to tag on the line “fastest growing Church”, actual Church growth/activity has stagnated. Only a few times has the Church come close to a combined growth of 400,000 in a year as President Hinckley stated. In 1999, the (biggest year so far), combined Church growth, which includes converts and child baptisms minus deaths, hit 398,745 total members. In 2009, the last year in which Church statistics are available, the total hit 316,345 new members. (1989 was an adjustment year and was not used)
The Church does not give out statistics for the number of deaths, excommunications and resignations each year, so when the Church says they are at 13,800,000 plus members there is no way to check the accuracy of that number. In Fact there is no way for even the Church to know how many members they have. Thousands are lost from Church contact every year for various reasons. The Church has 3 locations; one here in St. George and two up North (SLC and American Fork) where local members are called on missions to do nothing but try and locate lost members. Where members are not found they are left on the membership rolls until age 110. There are thousands each year that formally resign from the Church, but we do not see this number either, resignations are not dropped from the LDS Church data base at all, but just switched over to a different file with a notation. What is not clear is whether or not resigned members are still counted in the total membership.
Activity rates worldwide runs about 30% on average, a little higher in the US and Canada but lower in much of the rest of the world. Active membership in the Church is closer to 4,000,000 with approx. 10,000,000 members in various stages of inactivity and just plain lost. With all that said, the best way to track Church growth and activity is in the creation of net new Stakes and not the total membership number. Notice I used the word net new Stakes. That is because every year Stakes are also dissolved. The year that President Hinckley’s remarks were printed in the Ensign alluding to 160 stakes a year, (1999) the Church created just 37 net new stakes. The statistics for net new Stakes in the last 12 years are as follows:
As you can see the number of net new stakes is nowhere close to 160 stakes a year. The reason net new stakes is a much better barometer of Church growth and activity is because it takes a certain amount of Melchezidec Priesthood leadership plus activity for a stake to function. New stake creation has slowed to around 1.39% a year. (Last twelve years on an annualized basis) These statistics can be found on the official LDS Church website by going to their April conference talks where church membership statistics are given in the morning session. Also if you want more information you can go to the Church Almanac that is published by Deseret News each year. The creation of net Church Stakes has gone from approx. 5% growth in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s to slightly over 1% today.
For comparison, world population growth is 1.15% a year and natural growth in the United States is about 1% a year. By any measurement the Church is barely keeping up with the world’s natural population increase. There are a few reasons for this. The first reason is demographics. Mormon couples are postponing child bearing and are not having as many children. A second reason is the gospel is appealing to fewer people in the mission field. And third, members are leaving the Church at an accelerated rate due to the free flow of information on the Internet. The Internet provides easy access to Church and non-Church primary documents, that once examined, makes the Church’s official story difficult to believe. This information has existed in various forms by way of diaries, newspapers, books, research articles, etc, but has not been very accessible to the average member. Now members are able to access vast amounts of information in the privacy of their home and maintain complete anonymity.
Members leaving for doctrinal and/or social reasons include returned missionaries, (thousands) Bishops, Stake Presidents, Mission Presidents and in 2007 a Temple President. (Oklahoma City) Not only are members resigning from the Church in increasing numbers, but also more and more members are becoming closet doubters, what we call cafeteria Mormons. Cafeteria Mormons, because of family relationships are part of the Mormon culture but they pick and chose their activity level by turning down callings, skipping meetings, not going to the Temple or paying tithing, etc. Activity levels for cafeteria Mormons in most cases ratchet down every time they move to a different city, Stake, or Ward until they drop out altogether. This lower or non-existing activity level is why the percentage of net new Stakes created vastly trails behind the percentage the Church claims as net new members. by BEAR
Appendix A, B & C taken from the Church’s own publications highlight these trends. Appendix A covers the entire membership and stake growth of the Church for the last 39 years. (From Church Conference Reports) Appendix B covers net stake creation for the past 9 years in different geographical areas of the World. (From Church Almanacs) Appendix C covers two area of interest, California and Chile. (Also from Church Almanacs)
