The LDS Church has grown in leaps and bounds in the last century since it was founded in 1830. Church growth is often highlighted in news stories that treat various topics of Mormonism. Have a look at this updated video that highlights Church growth on a map of the world. The dots on the map correspond to "stakes", units of the Church that roughly correspond to what in the Catholic church would be called a diocese. A stake is made up of several "wards" (equivalent to a parish). Each ward has around 400 individuals and each stake has between 4,000 and 5,000 individuals.Click an icon to watch the video...
The growth of stakes is not a reliable indicator of Church growth - there are wards with only 120 people in, and there are stakes with only 4 wards or branches in.
ReplyDeleteBecause in some countries the birth rate is low you can have enough active Priesthood holders for a ward, and have far fewer people attending than a ward in another part of the world.
Stakes can also be made from existing districts, so may not mean any substantial new membership in a given area. A better indicator of growth is from branches and wards combined.
I just mention this - because I wouldn't want anyone to be mistaken and think that Church growth is any indicator of the truthfulness of the Gospel, or that Stake growth is an indicator of any real growth.
Understood. My intent in posting this was not to try to show that the church is true simply because of its rapid growth (the Muslims have us beat on that with birth rate alone). What I intended to show was that it is a much larger and faster growing organization in many more countries than the mainstream media tends to portray.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that there is also (unfortunately) a gap between "members of the Church" and "active members of the Church. However, this is true in every organization that keeps records of its members. Since the Lord looks upon each individual as precious, it is appropriate to count the full population rather than the active set.
As for variation counted when you add in the people who are passing away (daily), being born (daily) and are asking or have asked to be removed from the records of the Church, that is something that is rather difficult to portray or count as it is a figure not fully snapshotted until a count is made at each conference of the Church.
Thanks for your comments!