Missionary Numbers - stats, ugh.


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8 hours ago, person0 said:

Do you think this is part of the reason for the change to combine priesthood quorums?

Not necessarily.  I think @Vort's explanation in his High Priest thread is a good one.  I'm sure they made this change because it will best enable the men in the Church to fulfill their duties.  Though it does seem like it will help those areas with smaller numbers.

7 hours ago, Vort said:

I'd just like to point out that the Church today is larger than it ever has been in all of history. There are more active, believing Latter-day Saints than at any other time. I bet Latter-day Saints comprise a larger percentage of the worldwide population than ever before (albeit still tiny, perhaps no more than one active Latter-day Saint per thousand people).

Yes, we have challenges. Yes, many in the western world have at least temporarily succumbed to the temptations of decadence and death. But truth goeth onward. Our children need not be threatened by these evils, if we teach them truth and help them understand how to find it for themselves. No pickle-suckers here!

I have no doubt about what you're saying.  When you look at these numbers:

Quote

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Total membership

16,118,169

New children of record

106,771

Converts baptized

233,729

MISSIONARIES

Full-time missionaries

67,049

Church-service missionaries

36,172

...each alone looks pretty impressive.  When you divide the first into the others, the others stop looking so impressive - even when you fiddle around with the first to adjust for ages which would be appropriate to the others (e.g. only couples of child-bearing age should be considered in relation to "New children of record", other age groups for the missionaries).  [ETA: This requires a lot of guestimation.]

We may well be doing better than ever.  The percentages still don't look that impressive (to me).  I guess "dwindling" may be an erroneous judgement - I didn't look to see if our percentages were trending up, staying the same, or heading down.  If they'd give me a database, I could have that answer for you in seconds. ;)

Edited by zil
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6 minutes ago, zil said:

Not necessarily.  I think @Vort's explanation in his High Priest thread is a good one.  I'm sure they made this change because it will best enable the men in the Church to fulfill their duties.  Though it does seem like it will help those areas with smaller numbers.

I have no doubt about what you're saying.  When you look at these numbers:

...each alone looks pretty impressive.  When you divide the first into the others, the others stop looking so impressive - even when you fiddle around with the first to adjust for ages which would be appropriate to the others (e.g. only couples of child-bearing age should be considered in relation to "New children of record", other age groups for the missionaries).  [ETA: This requires a lot of guestimation.]

We may well be doing better than ever.  The percentages still don't look that impressive (to me).  I guess "dwindling" may be an erroneous judgement - I didn't look to see if our percentages were trending up, staying the same, or heading down.  If they'd give me a database, I could have that answer for you in seconds. ;)

Smaller family sizes is certainly a huge part of the dwindling numbers.  We're MORMON's people!  We're supposed to have huge families.  But nowadays, if people have to buy a minivan, then they have large families.  How about a MAXI-van?

I've been in wards where my family was only an "average" sized family.  But I'm realizing now that most of the time, that was because the larger families were with older couples.  Today, my family is the largest in the ward.  Whaddup?

I know people cannot have children (or cannot have more children) due to issues beyond their control (like medical reasons).  But all too often, people simply choose to have smaller families because of inconvenience rather than need.

Then this becomes a perpetuating cycle.  Because you grew up in smaller families, you figured that you cannot handle more kids and go crazy.  So, people limit themselves because of "ability to parent".  As if any of us knows how to parent. 

And people delay having kids for financial and educational reasons.  Then they are told by doctors not to have them too close together because... reasons.  Then they're told to stop having kids at a younger age (this last one I can somewhat agree with).  All this also results in smaller families.  And the cycle repeats itself because those children then think that's what they're supposed to do.

Sorry for the thread-jack.  Just had to get that off my chest.

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4 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I think it was because there were prideful High Priests, discriminated against older Elders

I'm a High Priest, don't accuse me of being prideful simply because I'm wiser than you!

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9 hours ago, person0 said:

Do you think this is part of the reason for the change to combine priesthood quorums?

4 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I think it was because there were prideful High Priests, discriminated against older Elders, and struggling Elder's Quorums

Maybe it was so that the internet could be filled with things like this:

Mormons-react-to-High-Priest-Elder-Quoru

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5 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

No.

I think it was because there were prideful High Priests, discriminated against older Elders, and struggling Elder's Quorums that were lacking the experience and wisdom older individuals could give them.  The combining of priesthood quorums, IN MY OPINION, was done to do away with these in order for the priesthood in the ward to feel more unified and more as a spiritual unit within the ward that all the priesthood should feel part of.  It was to increase the brotherhood between the priesthood holders of the ward and to create stronger unity among them.

Perfectly said JJ. 

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2 hours ago, zil said:

Not necessarily.  I think @Vort's explanation in his High Priest thread is a good one.  I'm sure they made this change because it will best enable the men in the Church to fulfill their duties.  Though it does seem like it will help those areas with smaller numbers.

I have no doubt about what you're saying.  When you look at these numbers:

...each alone looks pretty impressive.  When you divide the first into the others, the others stop looking so impressive - even when you fiddle around with the first to adjust for ages which would be appropriate to the others (e.g. only couples of child-bearing age should be considered in relation to "New children of record", other age groups for the missionaries).  [ETA: This requires a lot of guestimation.]

We may well be doing better than ever.  The percentages still don't look that impressive (to me).  I guess "dwindling" may be an erroneous judgement - I didn't look to see if our percentages were trending up, staying the same, or heading down.  If they'd give me a database, I could have that answer for you in seconds. ;)

Also in thinking about all this, remember that we are getting on average 250,000 converts each year  (and this number is dropping) and around 110,000 new births.

but world wide there are 100,000,000+ births each year. The church is growing more slowly than the earth population.

so strictly looking at it statistically, we aren’t growing too fast.

That being said... I do think the church is greater today than ever before.

Edited by Fether
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I'm confident that the church will address the problem. I've seen companies fail because someone refuses to look at the numbers or just whistle past the graveyard. 

Edited by MormonGator
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ALSO, interesting to note that children born into the church has increased every year up until 2010 where it was at 120,000. Ever since then it has dropped and today it is to about 109,000.

SO many of the people of my generation (millennial) don’t feel they need to start families. Of all the people I know that are my age, only three are starting families right now. Everyone else is waiting for their careers. This is incredibly common. To the point that people who start families early in marriage are somewhat looked down on. I received SO much criticism and “advice” when people found out we wanted to start a family right away.

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2002:

Membership:11.5 million

children born: 81,000

2010:

Membership: 14 million

children born: 120,000

2017:

Membership: 16 million

children born: 106,000

 

between 2002 and 2010 the birth rate per year increase 40,000. But between 2010 and 2017, despite having 2 million more members, we decreased 14,000 children per year.

(note: look at the individual reports too. This isn’t just an anomaly or statistically insignificant. Every year membership increases and every year up until around 2010/12 child birth has increased steadily and somewhat dramatically. Every year since 2010/12 it has gradually decreased)

Edited by Fether
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47 minutes ago, Fether said:

Also in thinking about all this, remember that we are getting on average 250,000 converts each year  (and this number is dropping) and around 110,000 new births.

but world wide there are 100,000,000+ births each year. The church is growing more slowly than the earth population.

so strictly looking at it statistically, we aren’t growing too fast.

That being said... I do think the church is greater today than ever before.

Actually, by those numbers, the Church is growing faster than the earth population by a small margin.

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Just now, Carborendum said:

Actually, by those numbers, the Church is growing faster than the earth population by a small margin.

The birth rate is nice, but the retention rate is what matters. While it's true, LDS do generally have a stronger retention rate than other religions, my concern is that it will falter as the culture continues to become more secular 

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38 minutes ago, Fether said:

ALSO, interesting to note that children born into the church has increased every year up until 2010 where it was at 120,000. Ever since then it has dropped and today it is to about 109,000.

SO many of the people of my generation (millennial) don’t feel they need to start families. Of all the people I know that are my age, only three are starting families right now. Everyone else is waiting for their careers. This is incredibly common. To the point that people who start families early in marriage are somewhat looked down on. I received SO much criticism and “advice” when people found out we wanted to start a family right away.

I can tell you that we started having children fairly early.  My wife's grandmother even yelled at her and encouraged her to have an abortion for having a baby that young.  Yes, her grandmother is LDS.

We had children very close together and we had many of them.  We also lived in poor conditions as well as wealthy conditions.  But none of my children are going on the dole any time soon.  And they're not going to be criminals either.

So, don't worry about what others say.  And, no, career or fear of poverty is not as important as people think.

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2 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

The birth rate is nice, but the retention rate is what matters. While it's true, LDS do generally have a stronger retention rate than other religions, my concern is that it will falter as the culture continues to become more secular 

I assumed that the birth and convert rate would be proportional to activity rate.  When you calculate that out, that ratio cancels out of the equation.  So, the growth rate of the Church is a mite larger than the world growth rate.

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3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

And people delay having kids for financial and educational reasons.  Then they are told by doctors not to have them too close together because... reasons.  Then they're told to stop having kids at a younger age (this last one I can somewhat agree with).  All this also results in smaller families.  And the cycle repeats itself because those children then think that's what they're supposed to do.

This is true, but of course it goes deeper than this. Are we teaching our sons from their infancy that they will soon grow into men and happily shoulder those burdens, that the greatest achievement -- indeed, the very measure -- of manhood in the gospel is to seek for the responsibility of wife and children? Are we teaching our daughters from their infancy that all their education and preparation is to the end of marrying a good man and rearing righteous posterity, so that they know in their very core that "career" and "job success" per se are meaningless, merely a means to an end? This whole mindset is missing from the rising generation, having been forcibly extinguished from the two preceding generations.

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6 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I assumed that the birth and convert rate would be proportional to activity rate.  When you calculate that out, that ratio cancels out of the equation.  So, the growth rate of the Church is a mite larger than the world growth rate.

Time will tell. Numbers and statistics can be spun in a number of ways (get it? Get it? You got it), but in the end, they are unconcerned with the opinions of @MormonGator and @Carborendum

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15 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Actually, by those numbers, the Church is growing faster than the earth population by a small margin.

Please explain :) I see 100 million+ births a year for the world and only 350,000ish growth for the church

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12 minutes ago, Vort said:

...Are we teaching our sons from their infancy that they will soon grow into men and happily shoulder those burdens, that the greatest achievement -- indeed, the very measure -- of manhood in the gospel is to seek for the responsibility of wife and children? Are we teaching our daughters from their infancy that all their education and preparation is to the end of marrying a good man and rearing righteous posterity, so that they know in their very core that "career" and "job success" per se are meaningless, merely a means to an end?...

Your generation may indeed be teaching the above to the next generation. It might be though, that the next generation is not accepting that teaching. They may be deciding for themselves what "greatest achievement" means to them.

M.

Edited by Maureen
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7 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Your generation may indeed be teaching the above to the next generation. It might be though, that the next generation is not accepting that teaching. They may be deciding for themselves what "greatest achievement" means to them.

Sure, every generation decides for itself what to believe. Wise generations listen to those who have gone before. And of course, this whole "generations" blather is meaningless. People are individuals, not "generations". The very word "generation" has been perverted from its natural and obvious primary meaning of "posterity" to "a group of people born around the same time".

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1 hour ago, Fether said:

Please explain :) I see 100 million+ births a year for the world and only 350,000ish growth for the church

Percentages, dude.  You have to divide the number of births by the total number of individuals (then multiply by 100).  That said, I haven't done the math for the total population, so I don't know its percentage.

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18 minutes ago, zil said:

Percentages, dude.  You have to divide the number of births by the total number of individuals (then multiply by 100).  That said, I haven't done the math for the total population, so I don't know its percentage.

Oh I see. But I’m not talking about demographic family growth. 7 billion people having 100,000,000 children may be a small percentage, but the world is still growing much faster than the church.

If this was a debate about fertility and amount of children demographics are having, we are doing fantastic!

but 1 Mormon birth out of every 10,000 world births shows that we are not growing faster than the world. That, and baptisms per year have dropped since 1990. So the church growth appears (at least to me) to be slowing while as the world is increasing.

Edited by Fether
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1 hour ago, Vort said:

This is true, but of course it goes deeper than this. Are we teaching our sons from their infancy that they will soon grow into men and happily shoulder those burdens, that the greatest achievement -- indeed, the very measure -- of manhood in the gospel is to seek for the responsibility of wife and children? Are we teaching our daughters from their infancy that all their education and preparation is to the end of marrying a good man and rearing righteous posterity, so that they know in their very core that "career" and "job success" per se are meaningless, merely a means to an end? This whole mindset is missing from the rising generation, having been forcibly extinguished from the two preceding generations.

 

1 hour ago, Maureen said:

Your generation may indeed be teaching the above to the next generation. It might be though, that the next generation is not accepting that teaching. They may be deciding for themselves what "greatest achievement" means to them.

M.

My generation does indeed see family as a burden. Starting a family means giving up your dreams!! Or so my generation believes. And I don’t know that many of us LDS millennials realize we believe this.

 

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