First evidence of actual active members

[no1saint]

This is the first real indication of the state of active members globally.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... rch-213172

Someone on ldschurchgrowth said 1 million members in Utah are active, the other million are inactive and the rest of Utah are non members. If that’s the case and it represents 1/4 of global activity, that’s 4 million active members. A terrible stat no matter how you spin it.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

[Hagoth]

I bet it's far worse in many places. You hear about missionaries baptizing impressive numbers in some places but for some reason the local branches remain small. That was the case in my mission on the Texas/Mexico border. The mission had great baptism stats but the majority of converts seemed to slip into into inactivity within a year.

[Red Ryder]

Interesting... the church news article seems to inflate the active count.

The article implies a bit less than 50% active rate if you consider 2M = 25% of active attendance totals. 8M total active out of 16.6M or 48%.

However, as you said If ldschurchgrowth states 1M Utah members are active and represent a 1/4 of all active then it is lower than the article implies.

I think that a 50% number is too high based on years of attending church where it was closer to 1/3 active. Given the rise in Secularism and apathy towards Religion in general I could see the standard 1/3 we’ve heard for years degrade to 1/4. Not surprising at all considering how stale the church experience has become.

The Utah Area is the Church’s largest in terms of membership and activity, with more than 2 million Latter-day Saints participating in nearly 630 stakes. While that is only 13% of the Church’s 16.6 million membership worldwide, the Utah Area accounts for about a fourth of the Church’s active-attendance totals, Elder Christensen said.

Reading through the rest of the article tells us a few more things. That the church will continue to scale down. The article says:

Elder Christensen said he’s always looking to learn from the international Church, asking area presidencies worldwide questions like “What have you given up that you never want to bring back? What have you learned that we need to incorporate into the Church going forward from this period of time? What learnings have we actually come to?”

Perhaps the Saturday night session of conference was a casualty to his question?

The streamlining and simplification have application in Utah, where Elder Christensen says the Church experience can become “complicated.”

“We’re trying to learn from international areas to see what’s the essence, what’s the simplicity, what would the Lord have us do and what really matters. And to me, we don’t want to lose that.”

The fear is, he added, that “all those old traditions” might come roaring back in the return to regular routines.

“We’ve been too isolated, if you will, too much member-centric,” Elder Christensen said of the Church experience in the Utah Area.

It sounds like the streamlining and simplification will continue!

[no1saint]

@Red Ryder - agreed, the streamlining of Church will be interesting as the rest of the world has survived with a bare bones necesseties version. Is 2 hours going to be maintained? Or will it be reduced further to reduce the need for so many buildings? Do you need all those classrooms? Can wards be consolidated to maximise attendances and minimise buildings? What is the end game? Will it include some doctrinal reform?

[no1saint]

I bet it's far worse in many places. You hear about missionaries baptizing impressive numbers in some places but for some reason the local branches remain small. That was the case in my mission on the Texas/Mexico border. The mission had great baptism stats but the majority of converts seemed to slip into into inactivity within a year.

Absolutely. Regional areas in Australia have seen a complete collapse with chapels sitting empty for years. The product is too American still, the packaging is boring and lacks the charisma and energy of evangelical Christianity.

[nibbler]

The fear is, he added, that “all those old traditions” might come roaring back in the return to regular routines.

Fear they might come roaring back? Getting back to exactly the way things were before the pandemic and getting back to them far more quickly than what's safe appears to be the marching order in my area.

Cut out the changes people liked (allowing people to bless the sacrament in their homes, online options for services), obligate members to participate anew in all the programs that generated little more than churn.

[græy]

The fear is, he added, that “all those old traditions” might come roaring back in the return to regular routines.

Fear they might come roaring back? Getting back to exactly the way things were before the pandemic and getting back to them far more quickly than what's safe appears to be the marching order in my area.

Cut out the changes people liked (allowing people to bless the sacrament in their homes, online options for services), obligate members to participate anew in all the programs that generated little more than churn.

I met with our wards YW President the other day. She is a strong introvert, but told me very openly that she is not happy about returning back to the old routines. She told me that when everything stopped - no Sunday meetings (besides home sacrament, which they were doing), no YW during the week, no RS activities - it was the first time in 27 years of church activity as an adult that she felt like Sundays were a real day of rest and rejuvenation.

I have also spoken with a couple who are very extroverted. They were crying foul 3 weeks into the pandemic shutdown because they missed the meetings, missed the socializing, and needed it to restart.

Regarding those extroverts, the YW President said 2020 gave them insight to the pain that introverts feel constantly under normal conditions and schedules.

Either way, they want the return to prior schedules. If they didn't they'd reintroduce essentials slowly and build up only what is truly beneficial from there. Instead, as you mentioned @nibbler, the standard order is to RESUME ALL OF THE THINGS.

[wtfluff]

I'm sorry folks, but y'all need to STOP DOING MATH!!!

It will only lead to heartache and pain.

(This is just one of myriad examples were simple math all but "proves" that " The Church is NOT True™ "

[moksha]

In fifty years, will the Church be faced with a bunch of aging and empty Temple properties?

[no1saint]

In fifty years, will the Church be faced with a bunch of aging and empty Temple properties?

Agreed. It seems illogical. If they were to shift to having a few Sundays dedicated to temple work, that might justify the increase in numbers. That is the only reason I would see such a strong focus on temples. If you believe the rumours, and the crumbs of facts are looking pretty seriously, in the next few years there will be a massive amounts of temple built and operational sooner rather than later.

Of course, the contractors and companies supplying for the massive construction program look like they are all linked to particular families. The conspiracy theorist in me sees key families making a significant amount of cash from the billions of dollars that have, are currently and will be spent into the future.

[wtfluff]

In fifty years, will the Church be faced with a bunch of aging and empty Temple properties?

Rumor has it that the flagship Salt Lake temple is currently aged, and empty (of any "temple workers.")

[no1saint]

In fifty years, will the Church be faced with a bunch of aging and empty Temple properties?

Rumor has it that the flagship Salt Lake temple is currently aged, and empty (of any "temple workers.")

I hear they are disguising it as a construction site.

[2bizE]

This is the first real indication of the state of active members globally.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... rch-213172

Someone on ldschurchgrowth said 1 million members in Utah are active, the other million are inactive and the rest of Utah are non members. If that’s the case and it represents 1/4 of global activity, that’s 4 million active members. A terrible stat no matter how you spin it.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

Another interesting thought from the article is this man is being re-assigned to South America, Chile in particular. We know from a few years ago that only a fraction of the people in Chile, who the church considers to me members, acknowledged they were members on the Census.
It sounds like they are sending him there to help with this less active problem.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

[Yobispo]

This is the first real indication of the state of active members globally.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... rch-213172

Someone on ldschurchgrowth said 1 million members in Utah are active, the other million are inactive and the rest of Utah are non members. If that’s the case and it represents 1/4 of global activity, that’s 4 million active members. A terrible stat no matter how you spin it.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

Another interesting thought from the article is this man is being re-assigned to South America, Chile in particular. We know from a few years ago that only a fraction of the people in Chile, who the church considers to me members, acknowledged they were members on the Census.
It sounds like they are sending him there to help with this less active problem.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

This is Craig's big break. If he can pump up those numbers he could crack into the 12. Isn't it wonderful?

[nibbler]

Another interesting thought from the article is this man is being re-assigned to South America, Chile in particular. We know from a few years ago that only a fraction of the people in Chile, who the church considers to me members, acknowledged they were members on the Census.
It sounds like they are sending him there to help with this less active problem.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

Didn't they assign JRH to live in Chile for a year or two?

[nibbler]

Regarding those extroverts, the YW President said 2020 gave them insight to the pain that introverts feel constantly under normal conditions and schedules.

Ha. I've said something very similar (I'm an 11 out of 10 on the introvert scale). "Now you know how it has felt for introverts all this time."

[nibbler]

I got to thinking (futile and dangerous)...

Each unit of the church has to produce quarterly reports. The quarterly reports indicate how many people are attending sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting attendance churchwide is a known figure to someone out there.

The church is very tight lipped about those sorts of numbers and I doubt they'd ever share them... but if they did. How accurate would that figure be? I know plenty of ward clerks that have clever ways of inflating the numbers that are reported.

"The high councilman called from our ward would have addended here if he wasn't a high councilman out attending some other ward, so I'll include him on the count... and the high councilman visiting our ward."

"I don't want to barge in on someone in the mother's lounge and a few people probably went to the bathroom when I did my count, so I'll just add five people to the count for good measure."

The quarterly report only asks for a single attendance number, one number representing about 13 Sundays. The reported number is supposed to be an average but there's opportunity to report one of the higher numbers during the last 13 weeks.

Attendance numbers also govern the ward pittance for the year. There's incentive to overreport.

All that to say that even if the aggregate attendance was reported I believe the actual numbers would be several percentage points lower.

[wtfluff]

This is Craig's big break. If he can pump up those numbers he could crack into the 12. Isn't it wonderful?

Wonderful, Wonderful!

As soon as Elohim decides to kill off one of the Q15, Craig is IN like Flynn!

[2bizE]

Another interesting thought from the article is this man is being re-assigned to South America, Chile in particular. We know from a few years ago that only a fraction of the people in Chile, who the church considers to me members, acknowledged they were members on the Census.
It sounds like they are sending him there to help with this less active problem.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

Didn't they assign JRH to live in Chile for a year or two?

Yes they did. I forget if that was before or after the census.

[no1saint]

Interesting times ahead for a dying religion.