Mass Exodus from Church?

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

Scott may have a better reference than this, but Cumorah.com in general and Matt Martinich specifically seem to provide pretty reliable Church growth Data:

"The year 2016 has been an extraordinary year for stake creations. Thus far, there have been 85 new stakes organized since January 1st, 2016.

Stake growth is a robust indicator of "real growth" in the LDS Church as stakes require certain minimum requirements to operate (e.g. number of active, full-tithe paying Melchizedek Priesthood holders [AFTPMP]; number of congregations; ratio of AFTPMP to general church membership; etc). Thus, accelerated stake growth in 2016 constitutes a noteworthy development in regards to the growth of the Church."

And three more temples have been dedicated in the last few weeks. 

The Church doesn't build temples where there are not enough temple-worthy Church members to keep them occupied. Temple-worthiness is one of the surest indicators of real growth. 

It's amazing to me to see it among our youth. When I was in my teens we got to go do baptisms twice, maybe three times. These days the youth in our ward are going every few weeks. They hold a temple recommend (limited use) just as adults are encouraged to do. 

Edited November 27, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[6EQUJ5]

27 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

And three more temples have been dedicated in the last few weeks. 

The Church doesn't build temples where there are not enough temple-worthy Church members to keep them occupied. Temple-worthiness is one of the surest indicators of real growth. 

It's amazing to me to see it among our youth. When I was in my teens we got to go do baptisms twice, maybe three times. These days the youth in our ward are going every few weeks. They hold a temple recommend (limited use) just as adults are encouraged to do. 

I've been hearing this type of garbage for over a decade.  Remember Bob McCue?  He predicted the end of Mormonism in only a few years? 

The Church rolls on and these claims will never stop even as the Church grows.

[Teancum]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The resurrected John the Baptist during his appearance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. See Doctrine and Covenants 13. See also Joseph Smith - History in the Pearl of Great Price, especially the Oliver Cowdery quote in the footnote. 

This is elementary Church doctrine. 

Is this a trick question?

No.  I just wanted to see what you attributed it too.  

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

And three more temples have been dedicated in the last few weeks. 

The Church doesn't build temples where there are not enough temple-worthy Church members to keep them occupied. Temple-worthiness is one of the surest indicators of real growth. 

It's amazing to me to see it among our youth. When I was in my teens we got to go do baptisms twice, maybe three times. These days the youth in our ward are going every few weeks. They hold a temple recommend (limited use) just as adults are encouraged to do. 

I can only speak to the temple very near where I live.  It is one of the very small temples. By design these temples were intended to be open only limited hours.   But even with those limited hours many of the endowment sessions during the week are poorly attended.  Weekends tend to be fairly busy.  Because the temple is close the youth do have more opportunity to attend.  But I am not sure I agree that building many small temples is an indicator of growth.  Rather it seems designed to bring the temples closer to the people and thus increase temple attendance which certainly has been the case for our temple district.  This has also increased temple recommend holders because proximity seems to be a motivator. Before the closest temple was three hours drive or more from some.  

Further, and his anecdotally only, the wards and stakes where I live have seen no net growth in 25 years.  This may be due in part to the weak and diminishing economy where we live.  But baptisms by the missions is anemic and retention is even worse.  Also those who are baptized are mostly from a poorer socioeconomic class and single. We see few families join.  

This does not mean other areas are not having robust growth.  But activity statistics world wide seem awful.  I may have shared this before but a close friend of mine just finished serving as a mission president in a South American nation.  Most stakes and wards in his mission had 3 to 5% activity rates. Wards with 1000 on the roles with 35 or so attending.  Again anecdotal.

 

 

[Steve J]

💤

[SteveO]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

I can only speak to the temple very near where I live.  It is one of the very small temples. By design these temples were intended to be open only limited hours.   But even with those limited hours many of the endowment sessions during the week are poorly attended.  Weekends tend to be fairly busy.  Because the temple is close the youth do have more opportunity to attend.  But I am not sure I agree that building many small temples is an indicator of growth.  Rather it seems designed to bring the temples closer to the people and thus increase temple attendance which certainly has been the case for our temple district.  This has also increased temple recommend holders because proximity seems to be a motivator. Before the closest temple was three hours drive or more from some.  

Further, and his anecdotally only, the wards and stakes where I live have seen no net growth in 25 years.  This may be due in part to the weak and diminishing economy where we live.  But baptisms by the missions is anemic and retention is even worse.  Also those who are baptized are mostly from a poorer socioeconomic class and single. We see few families join.  

This does not mean other areas are not having robust growth.  But activity statistics world wide seem awful.  I may have shared this before but a close friend of mine just finished serving as a mission president in a South American nation.  Most stakes and wards in his mission had 3 to 5% activity rates. Wards with 1000 on the roles with 35 or so attending.  Again anecdotal.

 

 

Anecdotal of course...but the trend I'm seeing on this thread is that those who want to see "awful" trends and statistics will generally see them in their "own wards and stakes"...and of course those that have a positive view of the direction of the church will see the opposite.  So what could one reasonably conclude based on these trends found in this thread?  Again, anecdotal.

Edited November 27, 2016 by SteveO

[Tacenda]

3 minutes ago, SteveO said:

Anecdotal of course...but the trend I'm seeing on this thread is that those who want to see "awful" trends and statistics will generally see them in their "own wards and stakes"...and of course those that have a positive view of the direction of the church will see the opposite.  So what could one reasonably conclude based on these trends found in this thread?  Again, anecdotal.

SteveO, not me, I will tell it like it is, I see no real evidence that any exodus is occurring in my ward and stake. But have seen some really stalwart members leave, not many though. It was a shock to see who did though. When you have members go to several temples each year for their anniversary and have callings and give talks that show how devoted they were in their Mormonism, it was almost inconceivable. She was in a presidency with me, and at one time our hometeachers. Never in my mind would I have foreseen it. I do think there are plenty like me that still attend but have doubts though. 

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

I can only speak to the temple very near where I live.  It is one of the very small temples. By design these temples were intended to be open only limited hours.   But even with those limited hours many of the endowment sessions during the week are poorly attended.  Weekends tend to be fairly busy.  Because the temple is close the youth do have more opportunity to attend.  But I am not sure I agree that building many small temples is an indicator of growth.  Rather it seems designed to bring the temples closer to the people and thus increase temple attendance which certainly has been the case for our temple district.  This has also increased temple recommend holders because proximity seems to be a motivator. Before the closest temple was three hours drive or more from some.  

Further, and his anecdotally only, the wards and stakes where I live have seen no net growth in 25 years.  This may be due in part to the weak and diminishing economy where we live.  But baptisms by the missions is anemic and retention is even worse.  Also those who are baptized are mostly from a poorer socioeconomic class and single. We see few families join.  

This does not mean other areas are not having robust growth.  But activity statistics world wide seem awful.  I may have shared this before but a close friend of mine just finished serving as a mission president in a South American nation.  Most stakes and wards in his mission had 3 to 5% activity rates. Wards with 1000 on the roles with 35 or so attending.  Again anecdotal.

 

 

The smaller temples of which you speak are very much the exception. None of the temples built this year have been of the "smaller" variety. In fact, the last such temple to have been built was so long ago (I don't recall, but it may have been a decade or two ago), we may have seen the end of that trend in temple building. 

Edited November 27, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[SteveO]

19 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

SteveO, not me, I will tell it like it is, I see no real evidence that any exodus is occurring in my ward and stake. But have seen some really stalwart members leave, not many though. It was a shock to see who did though. When you have members go to several temples each year for their anniversary and have callings and give talks that show how devoted they were in their Mormonism, it was almost inconceivable. She was in a presidency with me, and at one time our hometeachers. Never in my mind would I have foreseen it. I do think there are plenty like me that still attend but have doubts though. 

I think everyone has known someone who ended up being the unthinkable apostate. Maybe that gives a false perspective that if they can leave, then it must be a huge problem to the extent of a "mass exodus".  But as you noted, it's probably not the case as heartbreaking as those kinds of exits are.

[SteveO]

BTW, this subject made "The Daily Beast" if anyone is interested:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/27/why-it-s-not-easy-becoming-an-ex-mormon.html

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The smaller temples of which you speak are very much the exception. None of the temples built this year have been of the "smaller" variety. In fact, the last such temple to have been built was so long ago (I don't recall, but it may have been a decade or two ago), we may have seen the end of that trend in temple building. 

Maybe a decade but not two.  Ours was built after the year 2000 and many more were built after that.  

[Calm]

Temple size stats:

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/dimensions/

Dedication dates:

https://www.lds.org/church/temples/find-a-temple?lang=eng

If you have two devices, opening them up side by side on these sites should find the date of last small temple quickly...then doublecheck to see if it is operating on full or partial schedule.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Temple size stats:

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/dimensions/

Dedication dates:

https://www.lds.org/church/temples/find-a-temple?lang=eng

If you have two devices, opening them up side by side on these sites should find the date of last small temple quickly...then doublecheck to see if it is operating on full or partial schedule.

Teancum is right in that two decades is definitely too long of a window, as the Monticello Utah Temple was not dedicated until 1998, and that was something of a prototype for the smaller temple design.

There were a bunch of them built within the years immediately following that, perhaps due to pent-up demand, but my memory is that they have been less common in more recent times. I could be wrong; I don't have time right now to compile a list of dedication dates for smaller temples. But I don't accept the conclusion that a temple is apt to be used infrequently just because it is in a smaller square-foot range.

One thing is certain: There continues to be a proliferation of new temples.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[JulieM]

48 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

One thing is certain: There continues to be a proliferation of new temples.

A rapid increase in numbers in temples being announced and built?  I'm not sure that is true as it once was.  I think it's slowed down as far as new temple site announcements made in recent general conferences.  Or am I mistaken here that fewer are being built now?

[Calm]

You can see how many sessions are scheduled for each temple on the LDS.org temple page.  When I feel like it in a day or two, I may compile a smaller temple list, dedication date, and number of session per week.

[Scott Lloyd]

10 minutes ago, JulieM said:

A rapid increase in numbers in temples being announced and built?  I'm not sure that is true as it once was.  I think it's slowed down as far as new temple site announcements made in recent general conferences.  Or am I mistaken here that fewer are being built now?

Not as fast and frequently now as during that point in President Hinckley's presidency, when there were sometimes more than one dedicated in a single week. That was an unprecedented period, though -- and pretty unusual.

[Scott Lloyd]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

You can see how many sessions are scheduled for each temple on the LDS.org temple page.  When I feel like it in a day or two, I may compile a smaller temple list, dedication date, and number of session per week.

I'm guessing you'll find most of the smaller ones came about during that period in President Hinckley's administration that I just mentioned. It was all we at the Church News could do to keep up with the temple dedications at that time. We were compelled to excerpt the dedicatory prayers because we didn't have space to publish them in full as there were so many.

[Tacenda]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

You can see how many sessions are scheduled for each temple on the LDS.org temple page.  When I feel like it in a day or two, I may compile a smaller temple list, dedication date, and number of session per week.

I remember looking up many temples in other states or countries besides Utah, and saw that they were open far less, I guess for lack of participation. I would hope that in areas like these the church would build smaller temples. But I guess they might be looking to the future also, in case one day more LDS live around these temples. But if I'm being honest I wish the temple builders out there would reign in the spending IMO. I lived next to someone in the department who said there was no budget when it came to building temples. 

I think Christ would want the monies to go to feed the hungry or help the poor.

[HappyJackWagon]

29 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I remember looking up many temples in other states or countries besides Utah, and saw that they were open far less, I guess for lack of participation. I would hope that in areas like these the church would build smaller temples. But I guess they might be looking to the future also, in case one day more LDS live around these temples. But if I'm being honest I wish the temple builders out there would reign in the spending IMO. I lived next to someone in the department who said there was no budget when it came to building temples. 

I think Christ would want the monies to go to feed the hungry or help the poor.

It's at least partially an approach of  "If you build it, they will come".

IMO- using Stakes and temples to determine real growth is problematic because there is a layer of unverifiable data, and the assumption of what that unverifiable data means, in between real church membership and building structures (Stakes, wards, missions, temples).

The most precise data would be things like...

-Actual participation/activation numbers by demographic

-Tithing dollars received and the trend line of self-declared full tithe payers

- Current temple recommend holders

The church has access to these numbers. The only reason we don't know the numbers is because the church doesn't share them. Temples, stakes, wards, etc are merely a symbol to represent the actual data but we really don't know how accurate the representation is.

[Jeanne]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

I remember looking up many temples in other states or countries besides Utah, and saw that they were open far less, I guess for lack of participation. I would hope that in areas like these the church would build smaller temples. But I guess they might be looking to the future also, in case one day more LDS live around these temples. But if I'm being honest I wish the temple builders out there would reign in the spending IMO. I lived next to someone in the department who said there was no budget when it came to building temples. 

I think Christ would want the monies to go to feed the hungry or help the poor.

I wish that LDS tithe payers could have a say in where these monies go  Just a few blocks away from a beautiful Temple and the City Creek Mall there are those who could really use some help or at least a plan other than...don't give you money to  those folks.  Instead of building...give them a "road home"...or at least try.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Jeanne

[ERayR]

16 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

I wish that LDS tithe payers could have a say in where these monies go  Just a few blocks away from a beautiful Temple and the City Creek Mall there are those who could really use some help or at least a plan other than...don't give you money to  those folks.  Instead of building...give them a "road home"...or at least try.

The surest road home is a spiritual awakening.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

I remember looking up many temples in other states or countries besides Utah, and saw that they were open far less, I guess for lack of participation. I would hope that in areas like these the church would build smaller temples. But I guess they might be looking to the future also, in case one day more LDS live around these temples. But if I'm being honest I wish the temple builders out there would reign in the spending IMO. I lived next to someone in the department who said there was no budget when it came to building temples. 

I think Christ would want the monies to go to feed the hungry or help the poor.

 

16 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

I wish that LDS tithe payers could have a say in where these monies go  Just a few blocks away from a beautiful Temple and the City Creek Mall there are those who could really use some help or at least a plan other than...don't give you money to  those folks.  Instead of building...give them a "road home"...or at least try.

Fortunately, in the Church of Jesus Christ, mortal men and women don't tell the Lord how to run things.

Joseph Smith said that if we neglect our kindred dead, the Lord will reject us as a people.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

It's at least partially an approach of  "If you build it, they will come".

IMO- using Stakes and temples to determine real growth is problematic because there is a layer of unverifiable data, and the assumption of what that unverifiable data means, in between real church membership and building structures (Stakes, wards, missions, temples).

The most precise data would be things like...

-Actual participation/activation numbers by demographic

-Tithing dollars received and the trend line of self-declared full tithe payers

- Current temple recommend holders

The church has access to these numbers. The only reason we don't know the numbers is because the church doesn't share them. Temples, stakes, wards, etc are merely a symbol to represent the actual data but we really don't know how accurate the representation is.

Since it would make no sense to build a temple where there are not sufficient temple recommend holders to keep it functional, the proliferation of temples is a fairly reliable indicator.

And since a stake cannot be formed without a critical mass of faithful and earnest believers to keep it functional by filling key positions, the proliferation of stakes is also a reliable indicator.

 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Jeanne]

Just now, Scott Lloyd said:

 

Fortunately, in the Church of Jesus Christ, mortal men and women don't tell the Lord how to run things.

Joseph Smith said that if we neglect our kindred dead, the Lord will reject us as a people.

 

You can do work for the dead in any building...the dead don't care how much your chandeliars and carpet costs...and the Lord would want us to give to those in need...and surely have priorities set for those needs.  Fortunately, God gave us free agency and minds of our own.

[Jeanne]

3 minutes ago, ERayR said:

The surest road home is a spiritual awakening.

Where it is nice and warm.