Popular Post rockpond Posted April 13, 2016 Popular Post Posted April 13, 2016 37 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said: If people today have been so "blinded by the craftiness of men" that they are generally less receptive than ever to the gospel message, that only means we must redouble our missionary efforts (and increase the size of our missionary force) to search out and teach those who are prepared to receive the message. Although, since the data shows that increasing our missionary force is giving us diminishing returns (we've seen a precipitous drop in converts per missionary since the age change), it may be wise to consider alternative methods to search out those who are prepared, or to prepare those who are not. Missionaries today seem to be permitted to do many more hours of community service than I was authorized to do during my mission (two decades ago). And I've heard rumors of pilot testing a significantly higher percentage of the missionary's day being spent in community service. Serve first, teach second was the model that Ammon demonstrated, though I am not advocating any arm chopping. 5
Scott Lloyd Posted April 14, 2016 Posted April 14, 2016 2 hours ago, rockpond said: Although, since the data shows that increasing our missionary force is giving us diminishing returns (we've seen a precipitous drop in converts per missionary since the age change), it may be wise to consider alternative methods to search out those who are prepared, or to prepare those who are not. On the other hand, it may be wise to not jump to any post hoc conclusions about "diminishing returns."
rockpond Posted April 14, 2016 Posted April 14, 2016 39 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said: On the other hand, it may be wise to not jump to any post hoc conclusions about "diminishing returns." Yes, I thought it went without saying here, that the data shows correlation not causation. But, three years of a very clear drop is enough to validate at least asking the question. Basic statistical process control methodology: We had 15 years of a steady convert per companionship value. Then the surge accompanied by a significant drop that has held steady for 3 years. We could wait and collect more data to feel more confident but I doubt the Brethren are doing that. 1
carbon dioxide Posted April 14, 2016 Posted April 14, 2016 3 hours ago, rockpond said: Yes, I thought it went without saying here, that the data shows correlation not causation. But, three years of a very clear drop is enough to validate at least asking the question. Basic statistical process control methodology: We had 15 years of a steady convert per companionship value. Then the surge accompanied by a significant drop that has held steady for 3 years. We could wait and collect more data to feel more confident but I doubt the Brethren are doing that. Perhaps there are only so many fish in the sea to to be caught. Adding more fishermen does not mean more fish will be caught. It may mean each fisherman gets less fish. 3
rockpond Posted April 14, 2016 Posted April 14, 2016 12 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said: Perhaps there are only so many fish in the sea to to be caught. Adding more fishermen does not mean more fish will be caught. It may mean each fisherman gets less fish. That could be true. It could also be true that using a different rod, line, bait, or net could be the way to catch more fish rather than solely redoubling our efforts and increasing the size of the missionary force.
Hamba Tuhan Posted April 14, 2016 Posted April 14, 2016 (edited) 37 minutes ago, carbon dioxide said: Adding more fishermen does not mean more fish will be caught. It may mean each fisherman gets less fish. Speaking from personal experience, I think the ward (or branch) is the determining factor in all this. Wards that received extra missionaries and just ignored them will have missed an incredible opportunity (and contributed to the recorded decline in converts per missionary). Wards that saw the extra missionaries as a gift and put them to work will have reaped incredible blessings in the process. I know my ward sure has! The stats would suggest that many wards just kept doing what they've always done. I hope the Lord gives us all a bit more time to see clearly on this point before He gives up on some of us. Edited April 14, 2016 by Hamba Tuhan
smac97 Posted April 19, 2016 Posted April 19, 2016 Jana Riess has today published an interesting bit of information about possible reasons (and non-reasons) for the slowing of the Church's membership ("RNS" is Riess on behalf of "Religion News Service"): Quote I spoke with Matt Martinich, founder of the LDS Church Growth blog. For over eight years now he has tracked just about every aspect of Mormon growth and loss, tracking baptisms, retention rates, and more. RNS: What do you make of the 2015 Statistical Report which shows a slowing rate of LDS growth? Martinich: Annual membership growth has steadily declined in the last 25 years. It used to be 4-5% a year, and now it’s only 1.7%. I don’t think it will decrease much more than to 1.5%, though. RNS: The report notes that convert baptisms are down by more than 13%. Why has growth slowed so much? Martinich: The biggest reason is the “centers of strength” policy, which has been in place since the early 1990s. There’s not much information about it, but it’s a policy where the church intentionally restricts its missionary activities to only a handful of places in the world. Prior to the 1990s the Church would very aggressively and kind of indiscriminately open new areas for missionary work. A lot of the rapid growth in Latin America and elsewhere was due to that. But in the 1990s the idea became that the church needed to have a “center of strength” and be well established in at least one city in an area so that administratively there would be enough leadership to run the church. The problem is that many of these areas never become centers of strength. So you have a number of cities where the church has been there for some time, and they won’t create new wards or branches unless existing wards or branches are split, which is not very effective for growth. The church in the 1980s and 90s had pretty poor standards for baptism, and changing that has also been a huge aspect of why growth has slowed. Low qualifications for baptism resulted in a lot of converts who didn’t come to church and didn’t contribute much. Some would argue that secularism has also contributed. The Internet has nothing to do with it: In some areas the Internet has increased growth, and in other areas it’s decreased growth. It has more to do with the function of secularism, not whether people have information about the church that is negative or incorrect. ... RNS: You say in your blog that the good news about the statistical report is the creation of new wards and stakes, which is the largest increase in wards since 2005. What does that mean? Martinich: Congregational growth and stake growth are the best measurements of the increase of active members. Those numbers really say a lot about active membership and leadership. There’s a net increase of 60 stakes, the most new stakes created in any year since 1998, though there were also several stakes closed. That growth has happened all over the world. This year, 2016, is an unprecedented year for growth [in stakes] so far. A second stake was created in Kenya last month, and the creation of two new stakes in Hong Kong will occur later this month. But despite these encouraging developments, most of Latin America remains stagnant. RNS: So you’re saying that even though baptisms are down, the rate of already-baptized Mormons who are active and involved is increasing? Martinich: In some areas, it is. The church in Mozambique has achieved good results improving convert retention and member activity rates. This success resulted in the organization of the first two stakes in that country during 2015. The church has also achieved some marginal progress in some other nations with sizable numbers of Latter-day Saints such as Brazil, Guatemala, and Taiwan. Rapid growth is currently occurring in West Africa. However, many of the nations with the most Latter-day Saints continue to experience essentially stagnant growth, such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and the United Kingdom. Martinich's remarks about the apparent (non-)effect of the Internet on Church growth is, to me, the most intriguing point. Thought? -Smac 4
rockpond Posted April 19, 2016 Posted April 19, 2016 59 minutes ago, smac97 said: Jana Riess has today published an interesting bit of information about possible reasons (and non-reasons) for the slowing of the Church's membership ("RNS" is Riess on behalf of "Religion News Service"): Martinich's remarks about the apparent (non-)effect of the Internet on Church growth is, to me, the most intriguing point. Thought? -Smac Yeah, that is really interesting. Good interview, thanks for posting. Locally, and entirely anecdotal, the people I see leaving are those who find out information about the church that they just can't process given what they were taught all their lives to that point. But Martinich is obviously looking at it from a global perspective (not just "people that rockpond knows"). I wonder why, from a statistical perspective, he believes that the declining trend will flatten out at 1.5%?
Avatar4321 Posted April 19, 2016 Posted April 19, 2016 On 4/2/2016 at 6:13 PM, Johnnie Cake said: With the announced 261,862 growth in church membership taking total church membership to 15,634,199 for an annual growth rate of 1.7% the church continued it's downward growth trend reaching a growth rate not seen since the Great Depression or 78 years... what is most striking is this downward trend is despite the increase in missionary numbers to historic levels...but the convert to missionary ratio hit a new low thoughts? one. What are you doing to help the good work move along? 1
stemelbow Posted April 21, 2016 Posted April 21, 2016 On 4/19/2016 at 3:26 PM, smac97 said: Jana Riess has today published an interesting bit of information about possible reasons (and non-reasons) for the slowing of the Church's membership ("RNS" is Riess on behalf of "Religion News Service"): Martinich's remarks about the apparent (non-)effect of the Internet on Church growth is, to me, the most intriguing point. Thought? -Smac If he had information about activity rates throughout the world, then this would mean more. The increase in congregations or units is meaningful if activity rates increase. It's backwards to say activity rates have increased, we know, because the number of units have increased. The number of units could increase even with declining overall membership. It's interesting, if you look at members per unit, per country or area of the world, you'll see significant variations. As you can see below (the second list) of the ten countries in the world with most members per unit, all but one is in Latin America. Thus, we might conclude activity rates in Latin America are the lowest in the world, by and large, with some exceptions. The first list below shows the top 10 countries with the least amount of members per unit. They are kind of all over, although there is a high prevalence of Southeastern Europe and middle east in there. This shows clearly that the number of units or congregations varies widely. To increase units from 1 to four, as in comparing Guernsey and Israel, may be increasing 7 people on record. Or you could say Northern Mariana Islands with one unit has only 11 less members on record than the top 10 countries in the first list. The variation is staggering in that sense, and really makes the measure of saying more units means better activity to be silly. Country Congregations Members/Cong Guernsey 1 49 Israel 4 56 Slovakia 4 61 Guadeloupe 3 64 Slovenia 5 87 Moldova 4 90 Rwanda 3 94 Croatia 6 98 Turkey 4 99 Nauru 1 103 Country Chile Units 604 Members/Unit 959 Nicaragua 101 870 Northern Mariana Islands 1 789 Bolivia 253 760 Ecuador 308 744 El Salvador 164 734 Colombia 263 725 Honduras 229 723 Uruguay 143 720 Peru 774 720
canard78 Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 13 hours ago, stemelbow said: If he had information about activity rates throughout the world, then this would mean more. The increase in congregations or units is meaningful if activity rates increase. It's backwards to say activity rates have increased, we know, because the number of units have increased. The number of units could increase even with declining overall membership. It's interesting, if you look at members per unit, per country or area of the world, you'll see significant variations. As you can see below (the second list) of the ten countries in the world with most members per unit, all but one is in Latin America. Thus, we might conclude activity rates in Latin America are the lowest in the world, by and large, with some exceptions. The first list below shows the top 10 countries with the least amount of members per unit. They are kind of all over, although there is a high prevalence of Southeastern Europe and middle east in there. This shows clearly that the number of units or congregations varies widely. To increase units from 1 to four, as in comparing Guernsey and Israel, may be increasing 7 people on record. Or you could say Northern Mariana Islands with one unit has only 11 less members on record than the top 10 countries in the first list. The variation is staggering in that sense, and really makes the measure of saying more units means better activity to be silly. Country Congregations Members/Cong Guernsey 1 49 Israel 4 56 Slovakia 4 61 Guadeloupe 3 64 Slovenia 5 87 Moldova 4 90 Rwanda 3 94 Croatia 6 98 Turkey 4 99 Nauru 1 103 Country Chile Units 604 Members/Unit 959 Nicaragua 101 870 Northern Mariana Islands 1 789 Bolivia 253 760 Ecuador 308 744 El Salvador 164 734 Colombia 263 725 Honduras 229 723 Uruguay 143 720 Peru 774 720 Since when was Guernsey a country? It's part of the UK. That's like having Vancouver Island on the list. Do do you have a source for this please. I'd be interested in a filter of >10 units or >1000 members. Your first list is just being skewed by looking at countries where the church is tiny. 2
Scott Lloyd Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 (edited) On 4/19/2016 at 3:26 PM, smac97 said: Jana Riess has today published an interesting bit of information about possible reasons (and non-reasons) for the slowing of the Church's membership ("RNS" is Riess on behalf of "Religion News Service"): Martinich's remarks about the apparent (non-)effect of the Internet on Church growth is, to me, the most intriguing point. Thought? -Smac I made this observation on another thread -- one of my own that I revived -- but in a portion of the interview you did not include here, Martinich makes the same observation I did: that it is misleading to make too much of last year's drop in the number of missionaries, that it was only a reflection of the last of the "double cohort" from the surge having come home, and it is best to compare the number of missionaries currently serving with the number who were serving prior to the age-change announcement in 2012. Martinich points out that the net increase has been 15,000, which is a lot in such a short time. Edited to add the quote: Quote RNS: ... The “surge” in missionaries that began after the age change in October 2012 has run its two-year course. Martinich: Right, the double cohort is pretty much gone now. So it looks like the number of missionaries has dropped a lot in the last year, but that’s misleading because of the surge. What might be more accurate is to measure today’s number of missionaries against 2012, which is before the surge, and that’s an increase of about 15,000. That’s a sizable increase over such a short period of time. Edited April 22, 2016 by Scott Lloyd
Okrahomer Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 46 minutes ago, canard78 said: Since when was Guernsey a country? It's part of the UK. That's like having Vancouver Island on the list. Do do you have a source for this please. I'd be interested in a filter of >10 units or >1000 members. Your first list is just being skewed by looking at countries where the church is tiny. You might try Cumorah.com. They have a lot of great information there. Cumorah.com lists Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, and the Falklands as "countries".
Calm Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 10 hours ago, canard78 said: Since when was Guernsey a country? It's part of the UK. That's like having Vancouver Island on the list. Do do you have a source for this please. I'd be interested in a filter of >10 units or >1000 members. Your first list is just being skewed by looking at countries where the church is tiny. Wiki says that it is not part of the UK, they label it a dependency. 1
Scott Lloyd Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 2 hours ago, Calm said: Wiki says that it is not part of the UK, they label it a dependency. What is a dependency? Is it like a territory?
canard78 Posted April 22, 2016 Posted April 22, 2016 7 hours ago, Calm said: Wiki says that it is not part of the UK, they label it a dependency. Hmm. Ok, not accurate to say it's "part of the UK." It's more a part of the UK than it's not a part of the UK though. Like, France is completely not a part of the UK and Guernsey is more a part of UK than France is. I guess the list compiler can filter Guernsey in as a standalone if they want, it's just that most states in that list are still too much in the "outliers" category to reach any kind of conclusions about.
stemelbow Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) On 4/22/2016 at 10:25 PM, canard78 said: Since when was Guernsey a country? It's part of the UK. That's like having Vancouver Island on the list. Do do you have a source for this please. I'd be interested in a filter of >10 units or >1000 members. Your first list is just being skewed by looking at countries where the church is tiny. I don't know why the Church put Guernsey as a country in it's numbers. If you go to mormonnewsroom and facts and statistics, you see the number of members per location and number of units. I compiled it that way. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics I have each country, even though some aren't countries, per se. Here is the smallest number of members per unit with more than 10 units (My point remains in that there is a large variety of members per unit in various parts of the world, so increase in units does not mean more member nor stronger membership, per se. keep in mind this has nothing to do with activity rates. Much more interesting if we knew, for instance, the activity rate in Chile is comparable to Finland): Country Congregations Members/Cong Poland 14 130 Benin 14 136 Finland 30 163 Romania 16 187 Czech Republic 13 189 Denmark 23 192 Togo 14 200 Norway 22 213 Vanuatu 31 216 Ukraine 51 226 Edited April 25, 2016 by stemelbow 1
cdowis Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 On 4/22/2016 at 11:17 AM, Calm said: Wiki says that it is not part of the UK, they label it a dependency. Is that like Puerto Rico?
USU78 Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 On 4/22/2016 at 4:57 PM, canard78 said: Hmm. Ok, not accurate to say it's "part of the UK." It's more a part of the UK than it's not a part of the UK though. Like, France is completely not a part of the UK and Guernsey is more a part of UK than France is. I guess the list compiler can filter Guernsey in as a standalone if they want, it's just that most states in that list are still too much in the "outliers" category to reach any kind of conclusions about. Or ... there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_dependencies Quote The three Crown dependencies are the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel. Being independently administered jurisdictions, they are not part of the United Kingdom nor British Overseas Territories.[1] They are self-governing possessions of the Crown (defined uniquely in each jurisdiction).[2] However, internationally, the dependencies are recognised as "territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible".[3] As a result, they are not member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, nor, save for a limited extent, a part of the European Union.[4] However, they do have a relationship with the Commonwealth, EU, and other international organisations and are members of the British–Irish Council. Although the Crown dependencies are not sovereign states in their own right, the power to pass legislation affecting the islands ultimately rests with their own respective legislative assemblies, with the assent of the Crown (Privy Council, or in the case of the Isle of Man in certain circumstances the Lieutenant-Governor).[5] In 2005, Jersey followed the Isle of Man and Guernsey in creating the role of Chief Minister to serve as the island's head of government. 1
stemelbow Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 Sheesh what a cute, and interesting distraction. yes it was interesting. I liked it. But the point remains. The variety of unit size and attendance throughout the world indicates an increase in units does not necessarily mean better engagement from the members on record, nor does it necessarily mean there is a positive to conclude for our declining growth rate. 2
Scott Lloyd Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 2 hours ago, stemelbow said: Sheesh what a cute, and interesting distraction. yes it was interesting. I liked it. But the point remains. The variety of unit size and attendance throughout the world indicates an increase in units does not necessarily mean better engagement from the members on record, nor does it necessarily mean there is a positive to conclude for our declining growth rate. Why not?
stemelbow Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 40 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said: Why not? Hi Scott. Increase in Church units does not necessarily mean more member engagement because the size of units varies greatly around the world. meaning, we could have 45 actively engaged members, in three separate units, in one location, while there may 8,000 members, ranging from engaged to not engaged in 8 units elsewhere. But what might have happened from year one to year to, was, perhaps, a new unit was added to both locations, accommodating these populations. The only real way to measure member engagement, it seems, is to count the actual number of members who are active in each location, at least to date. Those numbers would be great to see, but we don't get to see them. The Church keeps them safely hidden from our view for some odd reason, leaving us to make guesses like that recent blog post did about growing Church units.
Scott Lloyd Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 49 minutes ago, stemelbow said: Hi Scott. Increase in Church units does not necessarily mean more member engagement because the size of units varies greatly around the world. meaning, we could have 45 actively engaged members, in three separate units, in one location, while there may 8,000 members, ranging from engaged to not engaged in 8 units elsewhere. But what might have happened from year one to year to, was, perhaps, a new unit was added to both locations, accommodating these populations. The only real way to measure member engagement, it seems, is to count the actual number of members who are active in each location, at least to date. Those numbers would be great to see, but we don't get to see them. The Church keeps them safely hidden from our view for some odd reason, leaving us to make guesses like that recent blog post did about growing Church units. In theory, at least, it takes a certain critical mass of active, engaged Church members for a unit of the Church (be it branch, ward, stake, mission district) to function in a given area. Ergo, the creation of an additional unit of the Church in a given area has to mean one or both of two things: enough less-active Church members have become active to reach critical mass and/or enough new conversions have transpired to reach critical mass. Either event -- or a combination of both -- amounts to real growth.
stemelbow Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 1 minute ago, Scott Lloyd said: In theory, at least, it takes a certain critical mass of active, engaged Church members for a unit of the Church (be it branch, ward, stake, mission district) to function in a given area. Ergo, the creation of an additional unit of the Church in a given area has to mean one or both of two things: enough less-active Church members have become active to reach critical mass and/or enough new conversions have transpired to reach critical mass. Either event -- or a combination of both -- amounts to real growth. Sure. In theory. Just pointing out that unit growth does not necessarily mean a whole lot in this area. For instance in 2015 we added 395 units (wards and branches) to the Church and had 261,862 people added, giving us 663 people per unit added. in 2014 we added 368 units giving us 789 people per unit added. The number of member per unit is too much a variable. And since some locations which add units have very small members per unit, it's hard to extrapolate it to the world wide figures.
Scott Lloyd Posted April 25, 2016 Posted April 25, 2016 15 minutes ago, stemelbow said: Sure. In theory. Just pointing out that unit growth does not necessarily mean a whole lot in this area. For instance in 2015 we added 395 units (wards and branches) to the Church and had 261,862 people added, giving us 663 people per unit added. in 2014 we added 368 units giving us 789 people per unit added. The number of member per unit is too much a variable. And since some locations which add units have very small members per unit, it's hard to extrapolate it to the world wide figures. While we may not be able to pinpoint a precise number of individual members in a given area who have become active (or joined the Church) we can with reasonable confidence assume that there have been enough to drive the creation of one or more additional units of the Church, if that has indeed transpired. While it may not be as precise a metric as you want it to be, neither can it be dismissively marginalized as (in your words) as "a cute and interesting distraction."
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