I came across a website that shared many predictions of the future of the LDS church. Many of the people predicted the LDS church would decline and be obsolete within this century. This was due to changing of doctrine, a decline in membership in certain areas of the world, and other factors. I came across another blog that discussed a huge decline in membership and congregations closing, particularly in Russia. I know that when I went to Germany about 15 years ago on a mission, there were 7 missions and now I believe there are only 4 or 5.
Although parts of the world are very unreceptive to the LDS church, I do not agree that the church as a whole is declining. In fact, many parts of the world such as Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and US are growing significantly (for details visit this website). Also, some studies show the church has increased in membership by 800 members per day for the past 15 years.
While the people predicting a decline and extinction of Mormonism may be correct in some parts of the world, I do not believe the LDS church will be dying out anytime soon.
Grace for Grace 
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November 5, 2010 at 5:12 am
jen
I’m confused….are you LDS or a Christian writing about LDS topics? I am very concerned about the first website that you referred to in this post. It is very obviously an anti-Mormon website. No one that I know in the church has ever said that the church would decline. In fact if someone has a true testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then they would know that the work of the Lord would do nothing but increase as time goes on as it has been doing.
The second website you reference also doesn’t state that the church is declining in Russia, but in fact is growing so much that they are restructuring the area so that a stake can be created. Yes, there might be fewer branches overall but this is done when deciding which areas are going to have more growth in time and which are not. My stake here in the states does that all the time. We have gained and lost branches in various areas depending on how people are moving and growing. We’ve had up to 16 units in our stake at one time but are now back down to 12 but those that they do have are busting at the seams because that is where the growth happened. Its cool to see it happen. I’m grateful that we have a church that is willing and able to grow and change as life changes around us.
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November 5, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Aaron R.
To be able to be confident you would need some sense of the number of people who are leaving the Church. Moreover, because the Church records membership and not active membership it is possible that a high level of discrepancy exists between the number of people who attend Church and the number of people who are on the Church records. For example, in Britain, there are 180,000 members but attendance is approximately 11,000. Thus because only 10% attend it is clear that trying to infer the Church’s growth from membership records or even convert baptisms is not very reliable.
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November 6, 2010 at 8:38 pm
ama49
Hi Aaron,
You’re right about looking at just membership. That’s why it is important to have a discussion on number of stakes, wards, etc. If a stake exists, it is assumed it is because of the amount of members attending.
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November 5, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Doug
I read with great interest one of your earlier posts (Why people leave the church) The article you recommended on why people should stay caught my eye. One of the challenges faced by LDS people are the contradictory words at times spoken by the prophets (including Joseph).
Since we don’t hold our leaders to the same level of inspirational authority-their off statements, poor teachings and sinful acts do not have the same intellectual impact to us (evangelicals) as it does for members of your church (consider Martin Luther and his anti-semitic teachings in the latter part of his life and the immorality evident in the lives of some key evangelical leaders in recent years).
My conviction is that they succumbed to the lies of the devil and God gave them over to their base desires (Romans 1). A true prophet can’t succumb to falsehood and immorality in the eyes of faithful LDS people-or can they?
On a side note-there is an interesting article in the current issue of Christianity Today regarding the exodus of 20 and 30 somethings from the Christian church-did anyone read it? The reasons given include intellectual skepticism regarding the truth claims of Christianity and an exposure to a shallow superficial Christianity that was stripped away once they left home. As a dad it makes me want to work even harder to help my children be firmly rooted in Jesus Christ.
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November 5, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Jon W
I guess that is one way to look at it Doug.
Personally I accept that leaders of churches all over the world are simply human. They are no more or less contradictory than other humans. Yet God continues to work through fallible humans like Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, Joseph Smith and others.
One thing I appreciate in the church is the concept that Prophets will not be perfect, they should not be seen as perfect and sometimes what they say has been wrong.
Yet on the important things, that really matter, they have been right. The essence of Godhood, the atonement and the message of evolution beyond this life and family have been correct principles that have always made sense even in the darkest points in my life.
The rise and fall in membership will always occur. Particularly in areas where persecution, secularism and malaise in the membership are commonplace.
Given what I have heard about the treatment of the church in recent years it sounds like Russia has fallen into line one.
Western Europe for the most part is point two as most of the organized churches are struggling.
The last one, is more difficult to overcome but yet probably the least likely.
And meanwhile the church is slowly making in roads in China and continues to grow in the southern hemisphere.
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November 6, 2010 at 2:53 am
Doug
Jon,
My point was not that Latter-day Saints don’t recognize their leaders and Prophets as human beings-just that their words are given great weight. This has at times forced the Church to tackle teachings spoken and taught by past leaders that they no longer embraced (Polygamy, Adam-God, the spiritual place held by people of dark skin). In addition the early history of the church was not always as pristine as presented and frankly when some people discover the “humanity” of some of their early leaders in the course of their research it can be unsettling. If I’m off here please let me know.
Your point regarding Russia and the rest of Europe is right on-these are difficult places to be Christian. I actually had a nice conversation with a young lady on mission for the LDS church and she admitted how people think you are odd for going to church in her native Switzerland. I worry that we as a nation are going down the same slippery slope. Many people I meet seem to be indifferent to spiritual issues.
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November 6, 2010 at 9:09 pm
ama49
Hi Doug,
I think you bring up some good points. LDS tend to hang on every word of their leaders. What they should do is listen to their leaders, but really pay close attention to the Spirit of God speaking with them. Develop a relationship with God and when truth is spoken by a leader, it will be confirmed. If an untruth is spoken, that will be confirmed as well.
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November 6, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Cal
Hi Jon. I don’t believe I’ve met you.
Yes, Doug, I’m always concerned about a slippery slope as well. The election on Tuesday was a bit of encouragement, though, wasn’t it? Here’s a story that was sent to me from Charisma:
Conservative, Evangelical Voters Turn Out Strong for Midterms
Thursday, 04 November 2010
According to the results of an election-day survey by the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC), self-professed evangelicals and social conservatives made up the largest single voting block in the midterm elections held on Nov. 2.
The survey results, released after the elections, showed that the two groups cast 29 percent of the votes, and a whopping 78 percent of them voted Republican. For this year’s midterm elections, evangelicals garnered their highest turnout in history, up 5 percent over the previous high in 2006.
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November 6, 2010 at 9:07 pm
ama49
Hi Cal,
It was very good to see the country as a whole make a good decision. I was dissapointed in the results of my state in WA though. I just wrote a post on it.
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November 7, 2010 at 3:10 am
Mike S
The official LDS membership is BOTH increasing AND declining. In terms of absolute numbers, the LDS Church continues to grow when world membership numbers are used. There are some areas where membership is less but others where is it more.
However, in terms of growth is it certainly slowing down quite a bit. In terms of converts, there used to be converts on the order of around 3% annually (ie. if there are 1,000,000 members, there would be 30,000 converts that year). This has steadily decreased each year and is currently around 50% less.
Also, while the church doesn’t officially release the numbers of people who leave the church, a rough idea of the combined number “leaving & dying” can be calculated. Each year, the church gives the current number of members, the number of converts, and the number of children born into the church. If you add the new members to the previous years’ numbers, it is always more than the current number of members. The difference is the people who left.
So, the absolute numbers are increasing, but the rate of increase is decreasing. Things can always change, and no model is perfect, but if the current trends continue, at around 17-19 million members, the people coming in will balance the people leaving and the growth will be essentially neutral.
This also doesn’t address people who are “members” in name but who are completely inactive.
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November 10, 2010 at 1:24 am
el oso
The projections for church membership used to be at a steady acceleration into the future. Now that growth has slowed, the projections are certainly going to be lower in overall numbers. It seems that church growth is more on a linear model at the moment. There may be a new surge in growth if new countries are opened to the preaching of the gospel and the people are receptive.
The good thing is that we have yet to reach the inflection point where numbers go up, but the church population is aging significantly. There are still lots of active young people in the church who will continue to grow the work. That is the first real sign of decline that hit other denominations.
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November 11, 2010 at 4:04 am
ama49
El Oso,
You bring up a very good point with the importance of the younger generation. In my stake when I was in the singles ward, only 10% of young single adults stayed active after they left home. That meant that there were 2000 single adults in the stake on record and only about 250 regularly attended. For the church to stay strong those numbers need to increase.
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February 12, 2012 at 10:15 pm
John Peterson
Right you are. Retention of the college aged kids is getting harder. I just published a post titled “The Fading Zeal for Zion” in which I break down the growth (or lack thereof) statistics I gathered from the Ensign. You can find it here: http://noblenarcissist.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/the-fading-zeal-for-zion/
There are several reasons I can see for this decline in “zeal”:
1) Some BYU professors are teaching the kids that being gay is genetic and so many of the youth are feeling that the Church’s policy towards gays is cruel.
2) Some anti-Mormon Christians have been slamming on the Book of Abraham as an obvious mistranslation and fraud, which causes some to loose trust in Joseph Smith as a prophet. This is something that shook my testimony up pretty badly not too long ago. I’ve been able to resolve these issues for myself recently (see my blog), but the LDS leadership really needs to tackle this issue directly from the pulpit.
3) The Church has hidden much of its historically controversial doctrines (Adam-God, polygamy, etc) by not discussing them openly. When a young member discovers these things from a non-LDS friend or anti-Mormons, it causes a real crisis of faith.
That’s just a few of the more obvious ones, but there are definitely others. Watch a few of these very candid videos and you’ll get a feel for why people are leaving. http://likebutton.com/?url=iamanexmormon.com
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December 7, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Cal
Sorry to leave the topic, but I thought ama might be interested in a website I happened upon this afternoon which says that a panel of primarily non-Mormons, criticized the anti-Mormon movie “The God Makers” as being very misleading.
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/godmaker.htm
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December 7, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Cal
Oops . . . Here’s the best page:
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/nccj.htm
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