And the Fastest Growing Church is...Ummm Nope Not That One.

[Johnnie Cake]

So I saw this on another board and thought it might be of interest to the members of this board...seems like the 7th Day Adventists are growing by leaps and bounds....with a total ACTIVE membership of 20 million.  Compare this is LDS Active membership somewhere languishing at  a distant estimated 5 million active members.  This plus totally financial transparency...now if you could only eat meat...they'd really have something.

https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2017-03-01/propelled-by-total-member-involvement-adventist-church-tops-20-million-members/

Edited March 7, 2017 by Johnnie Cake

[RevTestament]

That 20 million is their total membership - not active membership. The Church of Jesus Christ has about 15 million members, so not terribly far behind, but yes the Seventh Day Adventists are currently growing faster. We're all far behind Islam which has a current size of about 1.5 billion, and is taking over Europe. The time is quite soon that whosoever doesn't want to fight will have to come to the New Jerusalem, as that will be the only place for peace. I wish that weren't so...

[JLHPROF]

Good.
Perhaps this means the prophesied winnowing down of the Church is under way.
Hold on tight that you may not be buffeted away by every false wind of doctrine or doubt.

Quote

A people will come forth from among us, who will be zealous of good works, willing to do the bidding of the Lord, who will be taught in His ways, and who will walk in His paths  (Daniel H. Wells, Des. News, Nov. 10, 1875)

Before the great day of the Lord shall come, and the day of righteousness and peace dawn upon this fair creation, two potent cleansing forces shall be in active operation. The first of these is the preparation of a choice people, purified by an application to their lives, as individuals, and a community, of the principles of the Gospel of peace. Such a body will evolve FROM THOSE CALLED LATTER-DAY SAINTS.  (George Q. Cannon; Millennial Star 42:585)

"But the time will come when the Lord will choose a people out of this people upon whom he will bestow his choicest blessings" (Heber C. Kimball, Des. News. Nov. 9, 1865).

"I know there is a people in the hearts core of this people, that will arise in their majesty in a day that is near at hand, and push spiritual things to the front; a people who will stand up for God." (Orson F. Whitney; Deseret News 11 August 1889)

 

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

That 20 million is their total membership - not active membership. The Church of Jesus Christ has about 15 million members, so not terribly far behind, but yes the Seventh Day Adventists are currently growing faster. We're all far behind Islam which has a current size of about 1.5 billion, and is taking over Europe. The time is quite soon that whosoever doesn't want to fight will have to come to the New Jerusalem, as that will be the only place for peace. I wish that weren't so...

So the bad guys will just come to the borders and surrender their arms?

[Ahab]

The fastest growing church in the world is probably the church that the world likes the most, and with the values of the world these days I don't think I would want to be in the church that the world thinks is the best church to join.

[Johnnie Cake]

24 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

That 20 million is their total membership - not active membership. The Church of Jesus Christ has about 15 million members, so not terribly far behind, but yes the Seventh Day Adventists are currently growing faster. We're all far behind Islam which has a current size of about 1.5 billion, and is taking over Europe. The time is quite soon that whosoever doesn't want to fight will have to come to the New Jerusalem, as that will be the only place for peace. I wish that weren't so...

Note the term..."Member Invovlement"  which is synonymous with the LDS term "Active Member"  So yes they have 20 Million Active members while Mormonism is somewhere near 5 Million active members.  The 7th Day Adventist Church does not consider those who are not actively engaged in the church on the membership roles...unlike the LDS church which maintains a member on its roles irrespective of activity level.  Also note that they are baptizing well over 1.2 million members a year compared to LDS 257,000 converts

Note the financial  transparency as well...https://www.adventist.org/en/information/statistics/article/go/-/seventh-day-adventist-world-church-statistics-2014/

Edited March 7, 2017 by Johnnie Cake

[VideoGameJunkie]

Islam is the fastest growing religion.

[JLHPROF]

11 minutes ago, Ahab said:

The fastest growing church in the world is probably the church that the world likes the most, and with the values of the world these days I don't think I would want to be in the church that the world thinks is the best church to join.

Agreed.

Brigham Young -  I look at this, and I am satisfied that it will not do for the Lord to make this people popular. Why? Because all hell would want to be in the church. The people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them.

Brigham Young - I do not want “Mormonism” to become popular; I would not, if I could, make it as popular as the Roman Catholic Church is in Italy, or as the Church of England is in England, because the wicked and ungodly would crowd into it in their sins.

And Brigham Young again -  But shall we turn away from the holy commandments of the Lord and join hands with the wicked and ungodly to make our faith popular? No, God forbid.

And one last time Brother Brigham - When “Mormonism” finds favor with the wicked in this land, it will have gone into the shade; but until the power of the Priesthood is gone, “Mormonism” will never become popular with the wicked.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Note the term..."Member Invovlement"  which is synonymous with the LDS term "Active Member"  So yes they have 20 Million Active members while Mormonism is somewhere near 5 Million active members.  The 7th Day Adventist Church does not consider those who are not actively engaged in the church on the membership roles...unlike the LDS church which maintains a member on its roles irrespective of activity level.  Also note that they are baptizing well over 1.2 million members a year compared to LDS 257,000 converts

Member involvement was the name of the program - not the number of active members. Nonetheless, they probably have a better active % than the LDS church. The article does not say how many of their members are active. Like LDS PR it gives the impression that all 20 million are active, but that is not so.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

So the bad guys will just come to the borders and surrender their arms?

Really can't say. I'll leave that for our Lord.

D&C 45:66 And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;

 67 And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

 68 And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

 69 And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.

 70 And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

[mfbukowski]

16 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Really can't say. I'll leave that for our Lord.

D&C 45:66 And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God;

 67 And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.

 68 And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.

 69 And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another.

 70 And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

That last line was what I was wondering about.  In Los Angeles we have some street gangs.  They are not nice people and will need a little persuasion to let people through to get to Missouri (or however that works)  I trust in the Lord but I guarantee that will be an interesting trip.

Not exactly the way things work today, I think.

On the other hand the spiritual flame throwers from Raiders of the Lost Arc raise an interesting ethical quandary about killing even those who are not righteous.

I attended an interesting paper presentation by Patrick Mason this last weekend at SMPT in which he argued strongly that sometimes killing others was necessary and could be justified but never sanctifying. It is never the best choice possible, even if one's life hangs in the balance in self defense issues.  I think maybe he as right,  It was an interesting discussion.

Edited March 7, 2017 by mfbukowski

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

The fastest growing church in the world is probably the church that the world likes the most, and with the values of the world these days I don't think I would want to be in the church that the world thinks is the best church to join.

Nice passive-aggressive attack on the Adventists.  

I bet your comment would change if the LDS church was the fastest:  suddenly it would be all about the truth we have and the stone rolling forth.  But when the Adventists hold the title of fastest growing than it means that they are somehow lowering their standards to gain worldly popularity?

Edited March 7, 2017 by rockpond

[Okrahomer]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Note the term..."Member Invovlement"  which is synonymous with the LDS term "Active Member"  So yes they have 20 Million Active members while Mormonism is somewhere near 5 Million active members.  The 7th Day Adventist Church does not consider those who are not actively engaged in the church on the membership roles...unlike the LDS church which maintains a member on its roles irrespective of activity level.  Also note that they are baptizing well over 1.2 million members a year compared to LDS 257,000 converts

Note the financial  transparency as well...https://www.adventist.org/en/information/statistics/article/go/-/seventh-day-adventist-world-church-statistics-2014/

I agree that the SDA church appears to be growing faster than a lot of churches; however, you might want to re-think some of your conclusions here—especially with respect to “activity rates”:

The SDA have included “Church Attendance” in their complete statistical reporting since 2012.  According to their Annual Statistical Report for 2014 – 2015, actual church attendance is about 34%.  (2014 membership = 18,478,982 vs. 2014 attendance = 6,342,650)  One should note however, that while the report indicates an “effort” to only count actual members in attendance, it does not provide a definition of “regularly attending”—i.e., are they counting folks who attend weekly, once a month, once a quarter, or just once a year?

With respect to the numbers of folks they are baptizing:  it's not quite as rosy as you think either.  In 2014 they reported 1,167,506 baptisms (accessions); however, in the same period 763,037 losses.

[Ouagadougou]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

So I saw this on another board and thought it might be of interest to the members of this board...seems like the 7th Day Adventists are growing by leaps and bounds....with a total ACTIVE membership of 20 million.  Compare this is LDS Active membership somewhere languishing at  a distant estimated 5 million active members.  This plus totally financial transparency...now if you could only eat meat...they'd really have something.

https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2017-03-01/propelled-by-total-member-involvement-adventist-church-tops-20-million-members/

I do like how much humanitarian aid the 7th Day Adventists provide to the world -- way more than the LDS Church (as a percentage of its total income).  

"In contrast, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which had about 17 million members a year ago, appears to be getting a better return on investment: It builds smaller meeting houses and lots of schools and hospitals, and its numbers are swelling faster than the Mormons', said Stewart. The Adventists claim a million new members join annually, compared with every three years or so for the Mormons. 

"The Seventh-day Adventists clearly have a much more expansive humanitarian project in terms of building hospitals and medical schools and schools and universities and long-term developmental infrastructure around the world," said Stewart. "It's paid off for them." 

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13262285-mormon-church-earns-7-billion-a-year-from-tithing-analysis-indicates

[Okrahomer]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

...seems like the 7th Day Adventists are growing by leaps and bounds...now if you could only eat meat...they'd really have something.

You do not have to be a vegetarian to be SDA.  See here.

"We base all of our beliefs on the Bible, and while we encourage a vegetarian diet, the Bible does make some allowances for eating certain types of meat (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14)."

[Duncan]

It's not like the Church is anti missionary work, it's the "lifeblood of the Church" as Pres. Spencer W. Kimball said years ago

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

So I saw this on another board and thought it might be of interest to the members of this board...seems like the 7th Day Adventists are growing by leaps and bounds....with a total ACTIVE membership of 20 million.  Compare this is LDS Active membership somewhere languishing at  a distant estimated 5 million active members.  This plus totally financial transparency...now if you could only eat meat...they'd really have something.

https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2017-03-01/propelled-by-total-member-involvement-adventist-church-tops-20-million-members/

They are a good faith, imo.  I am pleased they are doing so well.

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That last line was what I was wondering about.  In Los Angeles we have some street gangs.  They are not nice people and will need a little persuasion to let people through to get to Missouri (or however that works)  I trust in the Lord but I guarantee that will be an interesting trip.

Not exactly the way things work today, I think.

On the other hand the spiritual flame throwers from Raiders of the Lost Arc raise an interesting ethical quandary about killing even those who are not righteous.

I attended an interesting paper presentation by Patrick Mason this last weekend at SMPT in which he argued strongly that sometimes killing others was necessary and could be justified but never sanctifying. It is never the best choice possible, even if one's life hangs in the balance in self defense issues.  I think maybe he as right,  It was an interesting discussion.

Sometimes the Lord commands us to go to battle - usually in defense. It may be necessary to prevent the Church from going extinct. That is not murder, unless righteous Mormon was a murderer. The passage indicates that the people will learn to let the Lord fight their battles. My personal belief is that Islam will take up the sword against the Gentiles. It is already beginning in Europe. Righteous church members won't have to worry about this tho - they will have been translated.

[RevTestament]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

They are a good faith, imo.  I am pleased they are doing so well.

Prophetically, they are already more than half-way in the LDS camp. They just don't know it yet. I think they will be some of the first converts to New Jerusalem.

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Sometimes the Lord commands us to go to battle - usually in defense. It may be necessary to prevent the Church from going extinct. That is not murder, unless righteous Mormon was a murderer. The passage indicates that the people will learn to let the Lord fight their battles. My personal belief is that Islam will take up the sword against the Gentiles. It is already beginning in Europe. Righteous church members won't have to worry about this tho - they will have been translated.

Correctly, I presume.

 

[RevTestament]

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Correctly, I presume.

 

Yes, into Jesuese.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So the bad guys will just come to the borders and surrender their arms?

Either God will come up with a way to dissuade them or, like with Enoch, he will fight the battles of Zion. Zion is invincible. The problem is we have never built it and tested that statement in this dispensation.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

So I saw this on another board and thought it might be of interest to the members of this board...seems like the 7th Day Adventists are growing by leaps and bounds....with a total ACTIVE membership of 20 million.  Compare this is LDS Active membership somewhere languishing at  a distant estimated 5 million active members.  This plus totally financial transparency...now if you could only eat meat...they'd really have something.

https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2017-03-01/propelled-by-total-member-involvement-adventist-church-tops-20-million-members/

Yes, the Adventists are good people, and they have a very active missionary program.  However, your figures here are in error.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

Islam is the fastest growing religion.

Correct.  And the evangelical Christian churches are among the fastest growing within christian religion.

[Meadowchik]

11 hours ago, RevTestament said:

That 20 million is their total membership - not active membership. The Church of Jesus Christ has about 15 million members, so not terribly far behind, but yes the Seventh Day Adventists are currently growing faster. We're all far behind Islam which has a current size of about 1.5 billion, and is taking over Europe. The time is quite soon that whosoever doesn't want to fight will have to come to the New Jerusalem, as that will be the only place for peace. I wish that weren't so...

"Muslims will nearly double their numbers in Europe – to more than 10% – by 2050 and will outnumber Christians worldwide by 2070, according to a new forecast of the growth of religions around the world.

The report, by Pew Research Center, also predicts that Muslims will become the second-largest religious group in the US – at 2.1% – by 2050." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/muslim-population-growth-christians-religion-pew

So even in 2050 Muslim's won't even be close to a majority in Europe or the US.  Furthermore, this growth will occur over generations where Muslims can become acclimated to western public life, culture and values.

I'd hold off on the scare-mongering if I were you.  It's really not fair to Muslims.