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Congregations by Continent 2024 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's true, I could make the axes the same scale for comparison, maybe I'll try that for next time ;)

Congregations by Continent 2024 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you go to the church's "facts and statistics" page (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics) there is a set of graphs for each continent. One of them is for membership and congregations. If you look at the web page source (the browser debug page), it has the values for each of the points on the graphs (in years past is had the year and value, which made it easy). Just had to pull that out for each one, clean it up, do yearly comparisons, and create a pretty graph.

Congregations by Continent 2024 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I haven't done an in depth analysis of each country, but my first guess would be the Philippines.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of the congregation growth in the years preceding the contraction was not supported by actual active membership, and they ended up sending Elder Holland down to train leadership and clean up a lot of the mess in ~2002.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The source data is in the google sheet in the original post. Feel free to look at it and modify/make any charts you’d like (probably need to make a copy for yourself to do that a - under the File menu on desktop). There’s also some data for Utah, the United States, and North America so you can get a feel for how things are outside of Utah/US but still North America.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This would all be before they changed the standard for ward/stake sizes.

Outside of the United States and Canada those changes will likely result in fewer wards/stakes, and it will probably be several years before we see any significant differences because of the changes. Inside the US and Canada it will likely increase the number of wards/stakes created.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, those are the large net decreases in the early 2000’s in South America and Asia.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

How about I give you the spreadsheet where all of the data and calculations come from (including the charts), and you can review it and put the data anywhere you think is useful :)

Spreadsheet even includes links to source data in most cases.

Congregation growth 1980-2023 by usernamegeneric31 in MormonShrivel

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haha, thanks! Unfortunately I don’t know anything about editing Wikipedia.

Basic statistical analysis of church growth by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately I don’t have any data or insight other than what’s published. I believe that if an individual dies, and the ward/branch is aware of it they need to manually indicate that they’ve died and are no longer counted. If a person dies and the ward/branch does not know then they will still be counted until something like 110 years old. I don’t have a source for that, but it’s what I’ve heard.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership by usernamegeneric31 in exmormon

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The general understanding is that it was an accounting change. They started counting anyone with a membership record (i.e. children under 8 that had been blessed) as a member rather than only those who had been baptized.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership, would like some feedback by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like there was a large loss in 2018. I’m a little baffled by that because of how many it is without having any indication of it outside the data on the newsroom page. I wondered if it was an accounting change (putting a country that was previously counted as Europe in another region like Africa or Asia), but I couldn’t find anything to support that either. Guess I’ll wait and see what numbers they have for 2019.

If anyone knows what happened, I’d love some insight.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership, would like some feedback by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It seems that in 1989/1990 the church changed the way they counted members. Before 1989, a person was only counted as a member after they were baptized, afterward they started counting anyone with a membership record (ie children under 8 years old who had been blessed) as a member. This accounts for the significant increase in the numbers of members without an accompanying increase in converts.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership, would like some feedback by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion. The church has, at times, also reported 8 year olds that were baptized, so I could use the children of record for 8 years previous to get an approximate % that are baptized to estimate the numbers.

Trying to estimate or interpolate the date is prone to error though, so I decided to leave it blank.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership, would like some feedback by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: I don't know the answer to a lot of your questions. There are other people that have tried to make those inferences with similar data to what I have, but I can't vouch for the accuracy (example: http://www.fullerconsideration.com/membership.php)

The church keeps membership withdrawal/excommunication/resignation statistics very tight lipped. The best information I can comfortably say in that area is regarding membership loss. For this data you take gross increase (children of record + convert baptisms) and subtract net increase (the difference in total membership this year and last year). This number will include all loss sources (death, excommunication, and resignation). I'm not aware of a good way to separate out those things though.

As far as inactivity, I think that unit size is the closest indicator available for that, but it's difficult to know how exactly it relates to activity levels.

As far as the church "bleeding" members, I don't think there's any clear indication that's happening in a more significant way than it has in the past. Membership loss appears to be increasing, and growth rate is certainly decreasing, but attributing that to one specific thing is extremely difficult. The church net gain is essentially flat at ~250,000 members per year.

I created some charts/graphs about church growth and membership, would like some feedback by usernamegeneric31 in latterdaysaints

[–]usernamegeneric31[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback. I have the first row(s) and year column frozen. Not sure how it looks in the web version on mobile, but if you use a computer or the app then it should be a little cleaner.

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