The days of a seemingly endless march toward worldwide growth may be over for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with total active membership likely to peak at or just below 6 million should current trends continue, according to a new study published in the inaugural issue of the Journal of the Mormon Social Science Association.
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/01 ... ch-growth/
The article, written by The Cumorah Project’s David Stewart, represents a stark contrast to previous projections dating back to the 1980s and ‘90s. Back then, sociologists calculated from available data at the time that the Utah-based faith was well on its way to becoming a major world religion with anywhere from 36 million to 121 million members by 2020.
Didn’t happen.
However, the independent researcher is adamant that this trend of deceleration is, at least in part, reversible. By highlighting the proselytizing success of the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, Stewart argues that the church could reap much more from its own missionary efforts by jettisoning outdated practices concerned more with short-term quotas than “durable” long-term growth.
The church declined to comment on Stewart’s article.
The Church cannot bring itself to openly talk about activity levels.
Stewart’s current projections for Latter-day Saint membership in coming years and decades include:
• Growth through 2040 in total active Latter-day Saints and, by extension, the number of congregations, will likely fall below 1% annually, with possible net losses over the long term. Main drivers of this trend include smaller families, decreased retention among children born into the church and a general slowdown in the number of conversions.
• The number of active U.S. members will likely peak in the next few years, followed by a drop.
• Net losses in the tally of European congregations are “all but certain” as the trickle of converts fails to compensate for decreased activity rates among existing members.
• In Latin America, the number of congregations will remain relatively stable with the possibility of a net loss as new converts merely replace members lost to inactivity.
• The list of congregations will continue to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, potentially to the point of offsetting setbacks elsewhere in the world.
The stone rolls forth...
What sets Stewart’s analysis apart from recent examinations of the subject is the comparisons it draws with other U.S.-based, proselytizing-heavy Christian faiths, said Jana Riess, a Religion News Service columnist and managing editor of the new journal that published the study.
It’s easy to look at any signs of growth in a vacuum and feel complacent, Riess said. But pair some of the church’s own growth stats with those of the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses as Stewart does, and one could argue that Latter-day Saints are underperforming even in places where expansion is occurring.
Take Africa, for example, a relative bright spot for Latter-day Saint growth. Membership on the continent mushroomed nearly fivefold between 1999 and 2019, expanding from a little more than 136,000 members to more than 665,000 in that 20-year span.
Matt Martinich, who operates The Cumorah Project in tandem with Stewart, compiled a list at his ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com website, for instance, where the church grew fastest in 2020-21. Ten of the top 14 locations were in Africa.
The Democratic Republic of Congo led the way, with a jump to 89,136 members, up 29.4% since 2019. Martinich called that rapid expansion one of the “most significant developments,” noting the Central African nation accounted for only 0.53% of the church’s worldwide membership but 8.4% of its growth over that two-year span.
Despite this, the church’s total membership in all of Africa (736,701 at the end of 2021) remains far “below its major competitors,” Stewart writes, with Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses reporting 2019 memberships of 9.56 million and 1.7 million, respectively.
It's worth noting that Seventh-Day Adventists report active member numbers, so the gap is likely much, much wider.
Church critics, Stewart acknowledged, would no doubt chalk up his pessimistic projections to the idea that the faith’s beliefs and practices no longer resonate with many in today’s world.
“I disagree with that,” he said. “The shortfall in the growth of the LDS Church is not ultimately about the message. It’s been, in my view, about the way that the message has been spread.”
Not really. If it was simply about how the message is spread, the number affected would be converts. The retention losses are coming from people who disagree with "the message". I'm surprised he cannot bring himself to acknowledge that. Riess has provided ample evidence of that being the case.
Instead, Stewart and Martinich suggested more training, tools and manuals aimed at equipping lay members in the effort of finding and teaching those receptive to the faith’s message.
“The mantra ‘every member a missionary,’ introduced by President David O. McKay in 1959, has remained an empty slogan,” Stewart writes, “with actual performance reflecting nearly the opposite.”
Finally, as counterintuitive as it may sound, Stewart argued that an overemphasis by mission leadership on baptism rates has undercut meaningful growth by prioritizing a single — albeit crucial — event over real conversion.
For years, he said, missionary training has pushed “high-pressure, corporate sales tactics” aimed at moving an individual to baptism as quickly as possible, resulting in low retention among converts.
That's because Mission Presidents have mostly been successful corporate businessmen, and because the Church has promoted the idea that it's all about Church growth, quantity not quality.
Amaechi Okafor is a Nigerian convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He believes the faith must emphasize localizing its missionary program and worship style if it is going to thrive in places like his home country.
Amaechi Okafor was first introduced to the church in eastern Nigeria in 2004 before joining four years later at age 20.
Since then, the doctoral student at Canada’s Concordia University has served in positions of local lay leadership and worked hard as a member to bring new people, including friends and other acquaintances, into the fold — only to see them fade away.
“I stopped working with the missionaries after I brought eight people to church and they couldn’t retain one of those converts for a year,” he said. “It burns you out.”
Retention problems are to do with the message, and an indication that people are rushed into baptism before they fully understand what Mormonism is all about.
Like Stewart and Martinich, he blames much of this on the pressure the missionary program puts on the full-time proselytizers to hit baptism targets, regardless of whether those they’re teaching are sold on the faith.
“It’s kind of like we want these numbers, and whatever happens after happens,” he said. “It troubles me.”
The Apostles will lay the blame at the members door on this one.
