Church Measures and treands

[stemelbow]

I guess I can't copy and paste these charts in the body of the message.  But here's an attachment.

You'll see a downward trend in nearly all of these. 

Most notably for me is the last one.  It is almost imperceptible but it's meaningful to me.  You'll see the percent of members in the world.  The last two years has seen that drop off the trend.  The last two years you'll note that the Church is growing at a slower pace than world growth.  I believe that's a first for the Church. 

in 2008 the percent of Children of record was hitting some highs over the past 20 years, but it has declined since then.  Odd that in 2001 and 2 (would be kids getting ready for missions in the next couple of years) that percent is lower than it is today. 

Converts is at an all time low and the trend continues to decline, so how low will we go?

 

Thanks. 

Church Charts 2016_1.pdf

[Gray]

Thanks for crunching the numbers, Stem. The trend is definitively slower and slower growth. Maybe we've hit peak Mormonism? 

[stemelbow]

I forgot an important measure.  See new attached. 

Converts per missionary is been on the decline as well.  It seems our missionary program is less effective than it used to be.  TIme to change things up? 

 

Convert Per missionary 2016.pdf

[stemelbow]

5 minutes ago, Gray said:

Thanks for crunching the numbers, Stem. The trend is definitively slower and slower growth. Maybe we've hit peak Mormonism? 

I guess so.  Or we aren't able to adapt to the evolving world fast enough.  it might be that some day we'll make some drastic changes, kind of like the priesthood ban lifting and see some major growth like we did in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  I think the issue here is more about the Church not being able to keep up with the world at large, as if tradition and culture is weighing us down. 

[Gray]

3 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I forgot an important measure.  See new attached. 

Converts per missionary is been on the decline as well.  It seems our missionary program is less effective than it used to be.  TIme to change things up? 

 

Convert Per missionary 2016.pdf

I think they should move missionary work to humanitarian work, as that's the greatest good those kids could be doing, and I think you'd get some solid baptisms as a side effect anyway, but that's just me

[Gray]

1 minute ago, stemelbow said:

I guess so.  Or we aren't able to adapt to the evolving world fast enough.  it might be that some day we'll make some drastic changes, kind of like the priesthood ban lifting and see some major growth like we did in the 70s, 80s and 90s.  I think the issue here is more about the Church not being able to keep up with the world at large, as if tradition and culture is weighing us down. 

No one really knows. You can have a trend that lasts for a decade but that doesn't mean it lasts forever. You're right, there could be some big change in our future that reverses these numbers. 

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

I think they should move missionary work to humanitarian work, as that's the greatest good those kids could be doing, and I think you'd get some solid baptisms as a side effect anyway, but that's just me

Yep.  You'll notice that in 2007-2010 the missionary program was more effective--as in missionaries got more baptisms, convert percentage was on the trend line and the missionary percentage was far below it.  We got more out of less back then.  I get the surge was far more about grooming young men and women at a younger age hoping to keep them around longer, moreso than converts, but there might be something said about the ineffectiveness of the surge, as well. 

[Gray]

1 minute ago, stemelbow said:

Yep.  You'll notice that in 2007-2010 the missionary program was more effective--as in missionaries got more baptisms, convert percentage was on the trend line and the missionary percentage was far below it.  We got more out of less back then.  I get the surge was far more about grooming young men and women at a younger age hoping to keep them around longer, moreso than converts, but there might be something said about the ineffectiveness of the surge, as well. 

Yes, and I think humanitarian work would feel more meaningful to most of the kids and actually be a more effective retention tool. 

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

Yes, and I think humanitarian work would feel more meaningful to most of the kids and actually be a more effective retention tool. 

Agreed.  my son is 18 and getting ready to graduate.  He told me of a close friend of his who is a year older.  He went on a mission and left after a couple of months.  The friend said, he just could do it.  he witnessed the lives of the people (he went to Ukraine or Russia, I believe, can't remember which) and couldn't stay there without doing anything.  So he's opted to leave and join a program where he goes to a foreign land and builds, serves and teaches.  This boy's decision has influenced my son.  He might end up doing the same, as it turns out. But he's also still contemplating a mission, so we'll see. 

[rockpond]

Thanks for putting those charts together.  Nice work.

The important things that I noted as I went through my own spreadsheet:

• Big increase in the number of stakes (90 new stakes), more than double the average of the previous decade.  While members per stake held steady.
• Church growth continued its four decade long decline.
• Obviously another big drop in missionaries as the surge subsides but converts per missionary holding steady.
• Increase of about 2,000 church service missionaries.  That's a great trend to see!

[stemelbow]

8 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Thanks for putting those charts together.  Nice work.

The important things that I noted as I went through my own spreadsheet:

• Big increase in the number of stakes (90 new stakes), more than double the average of the previous decade.  While members per stake held steady.
• Church growth continued its four decade long decline.
• Obviously another big drop in missionaries as the surge subsides but converts per missionary holding steady.
• Increase of about 2,000 church service missionaries.  That's a great trend to see!

Awesome.  I should add what you describe to my figures.  I haven't really paid much attention to stake and unit growth. 

The Church service missionary reported figure is awesome.  I'm glad it's been added. 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Agreed.  my son is 18 and getting ready to graduate.  He told me of a close friend of his who is a year older.  He went on a mission and left after a couple of months.  The friend said, he just could do it.  he witnessed the lives of the people (he went to Ukraine or Russia, I believe, can't remember which) and couldn't stay there without doing anything.  So he's opted to leave and join a program where he goes to a foreign land and builds, serves and teaches.  This boy's decision has influenced my son.  He might end up doing the same, as it turns out. But he's also still contemplating a mission, so we'll see. 

While I think helping in other ways is important, I think changing individual's live ends up having a longer term effect. Not everyone necessarily agrees, but societal change often depends upon social change. There's no shortage of NGOs trying to do the other type of work. Indeed from what my friends who were into that sort of thing said, usually they have too many volunteers in terms of people and the limiting factor tends to be money.

Edited April 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[stemelbow]

4 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

While I think helping in other ways is important, I think changing individual's live ends up having a longer term effect. Not everyone necessarily agrees, but societal change often depends upon social change. There's no shortage of NGOs trying to do the other type of work. Indeed from what my friends who were into that sort of thing said, usually they have too many volunteers in terms of people and the limiting factor tends to be money.

Thanks I agree.  It'd be nice if the Church was more into service for missionaries.  If the missionaries were out serving, as in building, training, teaching, each day I'd guess the Church would grow at much faster and more meaningful pace. 

I'm not sure joining the Church is necessarily changing individual's lives in a meaningful way, at least not all around.  It works for some.  But, I'd say that's part of the problem.  We need our Church to be much better for everyone, not just a select few.  As the trends show, the direction we're heading is more and more irrelevancy in the world, sadly. 

[clarkgoble]

23 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Thanks for putting those charts together.  Nice work.

The important things that I noted as I went through my own spreadsheet:

• Big increase in the number of stakes (90 new stakes), more than double the average of the previous decade.  While members per stake held steady.
• Church growth continued its four decade long decline.
• Obviously another big drop in missionaries as the surge subsides but converts per missionary holding steady.
• Increase of about 2,000 church service missionaries.  That's a great trend to see!

A certain decline is expected but we should also note three pretty major changes that decreased effectiveness. First increased physical and worthiness requirements which reduced the number of missionaries while increasing individual productivity (converts per missionary). That was around 2003. The recent drop was due (IMO) to decreasing the age from 19 to 18 thereby significantly dropping productivity. The other change was shifting missionaries from just doing teaching full time to also doing service work. An other change was to focus more on retention. This dropped the number of baptisms but likely improved the number of people baptized who were active a year after baptism. (We don't have those statistics, but that's the general consensus after a lot of baptisms in the 70's and 80's with low retention)

 

When you look at productivity (baptisms per missionary) you see a general downward trend starting around 1982 and ending around 2003 (with an anomalous blip around 1988-1991. I suspect that's the actual trend line which then got reversed with the increased requirements.

The big problem now is much more the age issue IMO. I'd be shocked if we don't see that changed in a year or two.

Edited April 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[stemelbow]

8 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

A certain decline is expected but we should also note three pretty major changes that decreased effectiveness. First increased physical and worthiness requirements which reduced the number of missionaries while increasing individual productivity (converts per missionary). That was around 2003. The recent drop was due (IMO) to decreasing the age from 19 to 18 thereby significantly dropping productivity. The other change was shifting missionaries from just doing teaching full time to also doing service work. An other change was to focus more on retention. This dropped the number of baptisms but likely improved the number of people baptized who were active a year after baptism. (We don't have those statistics, but that's the general consensus after a lot of baptisms in the 70's and 80's with low retention)

 

When you look at productivity (baptisms per missionary) you see a general downward trend starting around 1982 and ending around 2003 (with an anomalous blip around 1988-1991. I suspect that's the actual trend line which then got reversed with the increased requirements.

The big problem now is much more the age issue IMO. I'd be shocked if we don't see that changed in a year or two.

I thought the age change had far more to do with trying to keep young adults in the Church rather than conversions.  If the goal was to address the huge problem of young adults leaving the Church, then I don't imagine they'd change away from the leaving at 18 and 19 for women change.  The big problem is though, the age change isnt' exactly working on either front it looks like.  The amount of missionaries going now compared to the whole is still much lower than it was in the 90s, for instance.  It's up from what it was in the mid first decade of the 2000s though.  The 2001 change in which the bar was raised for missionaries saw the percentage drop quite a bit starting in 2003.  Without the age change in place I'd figure that trend would put us closer to .30% rather than .45% as it is now (or at the end of 2016).  Even at the peak of the surge from the age change we did not get to the rate of missionaries we had in the mid 90s. We got close but not quite there.  In /97 for instance the rate was at .56%.  In 2014 at the height, the rate was .55%.  I'd anticipate at our rate we'll be back down to .40% in the next year or two.   

This seems to correlate with the notion that the Church is losing interest from its members as information is getting out there via the internet, I might suggest, as well.  Another issue the Church has tried to address.  Yet, since the surge the trend is still downward and it appears will continue to be downward, but we'll see.  It might level off. 

[Jeanne]

Why not have two different kinds of missions?  There are many places that need help...and different kinds of missionaries.  Why not give them a choice..It would be too their advantage and the church for them to be happy and successful and the PR would be great.  Let them choose how they want to do this and less missionaries will be returning home.

[rongo]

9 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I thought the age change had far more to do with trying to keep young adults in the Church rather than conversions.  If the goal was to address the huge problem of young adults leaving the Church, then I don't imagine they'd change away from the leaving at 18 and 19 for women change. 

Has the surge actually helped stop the bleeding of young adults in their twenties? I don't think there is a way to know for sure without statistics on that, but anecdotally (YSA wards and YSAs in my stake), I would say that getting more kids out on missions at younger ages has not had an effect. There are also more early-returning missionaries, too, and many of them go inactive after their mission. 

[stemelbow]

1 minute ago, rongo said:

Has the surge actually helped stop the bleeding of young adults in their twenties? I don't think there is a way to know for sure without statistics on that, but anecdotally (YSA wards and YSAs in my stake), I would say that getting more kids out on missions at younger ages has not had an effect. There are also more early-returning missionaries, too, and many of them go inactive after their mission. 

Yes.  I think you're right.  I'm not sure it's helped. 

[clarkgoble]

18 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I thought the age change had far more to do with trying to keep young adults in the Church rather than conversions.  If the goal was to address the huge problem of young adults leaving the Church, then I don't imagine they'd change away from the leaving at 18 and 19 for women change.  The big problem is though, the age change isnt' exactly working on either front it looks like.

I don't know on retention. While I'm skeptical it'd have a big effect, there just don't appear to be data that would let us know. My guess is that those who wouldn't go on a mission at 19 and fall away are unlikely to go at 18 either. Likewise there was always a problem with people going inactive when getting home from their mission. Those tend to be people who pick up on peer effects. When they are on a mission they act like their peers who are missionaries. When they get home and the peers are more open they often fall away. Again I'm not sure changing the age will change that particular group.

Quote

The amount of missionaries going now compared to the whole is still much lower than it was in the 90s, for instance.  It's up from what it was in the mid first decade of the 2000s though.

That's due to the change in physical requirements and worthiness as I mentioned. While this dropped the absolute number of missionaries the productivity of the missionaries who remained was higher. I'm not sure they want to go back on that although they may ease some things.

Quote

This seems to correlate with the notion that the Church is losing interest from its members as information is getting out there via the internet, I might suggest, as well.  Another issue the Church has tried to address.  Yet, since the surge the trend is still downward and it appears will continue to be downward, but we'll see.  It might level off. 

I'm not sure I see that connection. I think the change in requirements explains most of that - you'll note the trend in numbers happens at exactly the same time.

Edited April 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't know on retention. While I'm skeptical it'd have a big effect, there just don't appear to be data that would let us know. My guess is that those who wouldn't go on a mission at 19 and fall away are unlikely to go at 18 either. Likewise there was always a problem with people going inactive when getting home from their mission. Those tend to be people who pick up on peer effects. When they are on a mission they act like their peers who are missionaries. When they get home and the peers are more open they often fall away. Again I'm not sure changing the age will change that particular group.

That's due to the change in physical requirements and worthiness as I mentioned. While this dropped the absolute number of missionaries the productivity of the missionaries who remained was higher. I'm not sure they want to go back on that although they may ease some things.

I'm not sure I see that connection. I think the change in requirements explains most of that - you'll note the trend in numbers happens at exactly the same time.

The "raising the bar" initiative in the early 2000's did not actually seem to have a significant effect on converts per missionary.  It increased slightly but not significantly.  I don't think it can be said that the younger age missionaries are less effective - there are just more of them which is lowering the ratio of converts per missionary.

If we look at a related number:  converts per member is helps to clarify.  The converts per member figure has been steadily dropping over the past 25 years (possibly longer, I didn't look).  Converts per member didn't significantly change with "raising the bar" and it didn't significantly change with the "surge" from lowering the age.

The decrease in converts seems independent from "raising the bar", the "surge", retention efforts, post-surge, etc.

Hopefully the age change will keep youth in the church but based on the new COR number, that does not appear to be the case.  Although, that figure is fairly far removed... it's just all we've got to really measure.

[clarkgoble]

22 minutes ago, rockpond said:

The "raising the bar" initiative in the early 2000's did not actually seem to have a significant effect on converts per missionary.  It increased slightly but not significantly.  I don't think it can be said that the younger age missionaries are less effective - there are just more of them which is lowering the ratio of converts per missionary.

I guess it depends upon what you mean by significant. It arguably had no change for a while or even a negative change. Then by 2006 you have rates jumping up to between 5 and 5.3 until 2011. That's roughly a 10-15% improvement ignoring other effects. So I wouldn't say it didn't change. A 10% change is a pretty significant impact IMO.

Quote

If we look at a related number:  converts per member is helps to clarify.  The converts per member figure has been steadily dropping over the past 25 years (possibly longer, I didn't look).  Converts per member didn't significantly change with "raising the bar" and it didn't significantly change with the "surge" from lowering the age.

I didn't look at that, but you're right it's worth looking at. I just assumed that wasn't a relationship. But given converts in absolute terms was relatively flat for a while it's not surprising. We've not had geometric growth for quite some time. At least since the late 70's. 

[stemelbow]

Anyone note how the DENr (dead, excommunicated, and names removed)  as a percentage of the whole Church has increased and is trending upward? That feels pretty significant in all of this.  More people in the Church are leaving and/or dying as a percentage than it used to be.  Are we dying at a faster rate or losing people?  It may be both (I wish they'd give us enough info to break it down precisely). 

[clarkgoble]

7 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Anyone note how the DENr (dead, excommunicated, and names removed)  as a percentage of the whole Church has increased and is trending upward? That feels pretty significant in all of this.  More people in the Church are leaving and/or dying as a percentage than it used to be.  Are we dying at a faster rate or losing people?  It may be both (I wish they'd give us enough info to break it down precisely). 

I've not calculated that but it's easy to figure out in a spreadsheet. My data's in an Excel spreadsheet at T&S. You just take the prior year and the current year and get the difference. That's the growth in absolute numbers. Then you subtract baptisms of members or record and converts and see what's left. I don't have time to do it now but it's a trivial calculation.

Be aware that will include those who were converted and fell away. (The incentives to get their names off the records are actually pretty high compared to when I was a kid) It fluctuates a fair bit. It has been up the past few years except for 2012. I think it's around 65,000 or thereabouts. Slightly down from prior years. While that includes people who leave who were born in the church as well as converts, it comes out to around ¼ of converts. That may sound high but a retention of around 75% is remarkably good honestly. It lines up more or less to what surveys give as long term retention as well. (A little higher)

I might do a post on that later in the week.

Edited April 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[HappyJackWagon]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

Has the surge actually helped stop the bleeding of young adults in their twenties? I don't think there is a way to know for sure without statistics on that, but anecdotally (YSA wards and YSAs in my stake), I would say that getting more kids out on missions at younger ages has not had an effect. There are also more early-returning missionaries, too, and many of them go inactive after their mission. 

I agree that it may not be working, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a huge part of the original intent. I agree with Stem that the primary reason for changing the ages was for YSA retention. So perhaps that effort illustrates a failure.

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't know on retention. While I'm skeptical it'd have a big effect, there just don't appear to be data that would let us know. My guess is that those who wouldn't go on a mission at 19 and fall away are unlikely to go at 18 either. Likewise there was always a problem with people going inactive when getting home from their mission. Those tend to be people who pick up on peer effects. When they are on a mission they act like their peers who are missionaries. When they get home and the peers are more open they often fall away. Again I'm not sure changing the age will change that particular group.

You're probably right on that.  If we can say the surge is now over, as in the ratio of missionaries going is levelling off, then it's possible the age change got a slight uptick, but perhaps nothing that would show better retention. 

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

That's due to the change in physical requirements and worthiness as I mentioned. While this dropped the absolute number of missionaries the productivity of the missionaries who remained was higher. I'm not sure they want to go back on that although they may ease some things.

I'm not sure I see that connection. I think the change in requirements explains most of that - you'll note the trend in numbers happens at exactly the same time.

I'm remaining of the opinion that the age change was , at least, mostly about getting more kids on missions and far less about getting more conversions.  While productivity of missionaries is interesting, I doubt it really means anything to the Church.  Dont' get me wrong, they love to see converts, but are much happier to see retention among the multigenerational.  That 's where the real growth comes, in the eyes fo the Church it seems.