To Grow a Church
What the data says about the Latter-Day Saints growth, trajectory, and roadblocks
Like most active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I spent the first weekend in April parked in front of the television watching our semi-annual conference. Until recently, the Church shared a statistical report at the April conference. Now, the numbers arrive in a press release online.
When I read the report, I was surprised to see that the total Church membership still hadn’t surpassed seventeen million. Are we stagnating, I wondered? Are people leaving? Did COVID slow us down?
To answer my questions, I turned to the data. This was easy since others had already compiled spreadsheets including statistical reports and other metrics from the earliest days of the Church. Calculations uncovered other unreported information such as birth rates, death rates, the number leaving the church, and the number who are inactive. I’m relying especially on data compiled by Clint Kimball (could you come up with a more Mormon name than Clint Kimball?) who provides the raw data along with some explainers and graphs on his website.
In this post, I’ll discuss total church membership generally and then drill down into five trends that paint a better picture of the health and growth of our Church. Also, I tried to trim this down to be more readable and ended up putting a few more anecdotes, nuances, and opinions in the footnotes.
General Church Membership
There are a few ways to look at total Church membership.
Consider that for every year of the Church’s existence, we’ve grown faster than the world population. When my father was born in 1968, he had a .07% chance of being a member of the Church. When I was born in 1995, my odds had more than doubled to a .16% chance. And when my son was born in 2021 he had a .21% chance. Between 1968 and 2021, the size of the church increased roughly 8x while the population of the world increased a little over 2x. However, in 2021, for the first time, Church membership didn’t outpace total earth population growth.
Another interesting way to look at our membership growth is by how long it took us to reach the new millionth member.
First million: 117 Years (1947)
Second million: 16 Years (1963)
Third million: 8 Years (1971)
Fourth million: 7 Years (1978)
Fifth million: 4 Years (1982)
Sixth million: 4 Years (1986)
Seventh million: 3 Years (1989)
Eighth million: 2 years (1991)
Ninth million: 3 years (1994)
Tenth million: 3 years (1997)
Eleventh million: 3 years (2000)
Twelfth million: 4 years (2004)
Thirteenth million: 3 years (2007)
Fourteenth million: 3 years (2010)
Fifteenth million: 3 years (2013)
Sixteenth million: 4 years (2017)
Seventeenth million: Likely 5 years (2022)
Even at our fastest, when we gained another million every three years, the growth rate was declining. Whereas we had more like 6-8% annual growth in the 1960s-70s, we’ve now slowed down to 1-2% growth. However, in the 1930s, growth was also closer to 2%, so it’s not like our current moment is ahistorical.
The next five trends will look at the reasons our growth is slowing.
Trend 1: Birth Rates are Down, Death Rates are Up
Gone are the days of the large Latter-day Saint family. As recent as the 1980s, Church families averaged around a 4.0 fertility rate, more than double the US average. Now, however, the fertility rate is closer to 2.3, still a few notches above the national average of 1.7.
This decline reflects in the raw numbers as well. The Church reports births in the statistical report as “New Children of Record.” 1 Births peaked in 1996 at 136,954. Lately, the number has hovered under 100,000 with a noticeable drop during the COVID-19 pandemic. The church doubled in size since the 1990s, but births have decreased over the same period. 2
At the same time, the death rate among members of the Church is increasing. All the growth we recognized in the mid-1900s is now resulting in more deaths. I suspect it will continue to increase for a few more years as Baby Boomers age, after which the death rate could level off. 3
Trend 2: Convert Baptisms have Decreased
The best way to add new members to the Church, better birth, is conversions. While we’ve always been a missionary-focused church and have seen great success in that effort, the number of new converts has decreased slightly over the last decade. This decrease looks even more drastic as a percentage of our total membership and missionary force.
COVID-19 plays an outsized role. 4 New converts were trimmed by 50% in 2020 but rebounded slightly in 2021. Still, even before the pandemic, the number of new converts was either stagnant or decreased year-over-year since the peak in 2000.
I’ll get to missionary work more in a minute, but one stat to consider here is the average number of baptisms per missionary. The rate was around three-to-four convert baptisms per missionary from 1900-1950 then increased to six-to-eight until the late 1990s. Recently, we’ve been back down to three-to-four per missionary. In other words, missionaries are half as effective as they were thirty years ago.
Trend 3: The Church has Reached Maximum Geographic Exposure (for now)
Much of the growth of the church since 1975 is due to geographic expansion. For example, since 1975, the number of missions increased from 130 to 407. We have an active missionary force in every country that will allow us. In the same time frame, the number of stakes has increased from 737 to 3498.
While that’s great news, the caveat is there aren’t really any more untapped areas for us to reach. Of course, several nations have never had missionaries like China, North Korea, Cuba, and a number of Islamic States.
Until those open up, the Church will likely see slightly diminished numbers of new converts as awareness reaches something of a maximum threshold. 5 While proselytizing continues, so will a focus on retention, helping new converts remain actively engaged. Consider that the number of districts is declining as they upgrade to become stakes. We’re increasing the concentration of active members in certain areas even as new converts slow.
Trend 4: Young Men Serving Missions has Decreased
Since the 1990s, the Church has averaged roughly 50,000 active full-time missionaries at any given time. A huge leap occurred in 2012-2013 when President Monson lowered the age for men and women to serve. Full-time missionaries peaked at 84,000 in 2014 and then settled down lower to about 65,000 after that. Once again, the pandemic had an adverse effect on active missionaries, reducing the number back to the low 50,000s.
Like the other stats we’ve considered including births and converts, we should have seen the number of missionaries climb more organically than we have. In fact, prior to the 2012 age-change policy, the numbers had stalled and decreased as a percentage of total membership.
Will the missionary force rebound beyond correcting for COVID? Given the emphasis placed on young men during this latest General Conference, you would hope.
The focus on young men is fair and urgent; they’ve stagnated the most. While the number of new sister missionaries has more than doubled thanks to the age change, aside from 2012-2014, there has been no improvement in the number of young men serving missions. We’ve been stuck at the same number of new male missionaries per year since 1990 even though total Church membership has doubled in the same period. 6
Trend 5: Former Members of the Church are Increasing
I’ve often wondered how many members of the Church officially remove their records each year. While not officially reported, thanks to Clint Kimball’s spreadsheet, we have a ballpark number. 7
So how many is it? Clearly not zero, otherwise the combination of births and new converts would grow membership much faster than the current rate. It also can’t be a huge number, as membership continues to grow despite the increasing death rate. Clint Kimball lands close to 50,000 on average over the last decade. I honestly have no clue whether this is high or low. My gut feels like it’s a little high, but not by much. There have been several vocalized departures after certain policy announcements.
Additionally, based on this stat, Kimball estimates there are 1,750,000 ex-Mormons worldwide. They’re growing much slower than the Church, but growing nonetheless.
How about inactive members? The easiest way to guess is to look at your own congregation. Based on my current congregation in Maryland and the congregations on my mission, I’d say between 25-35% are active.
My guess comes in too low for Clint Kimball who calculates that active rate at 40%. The active rate is likely higher in Utah, even upwards of 80% in many Utah County congregations, while far lower internationally. I remember receiving a list of Church members in all four cities I lived in New Zealand. The lists were enormous, hundreds of members long, yet only 75-90 showed up each Sunday.
The percent active number has decreased over the last several decades. In the 1980s, Kimball estimates a 65% active rate that’s been dropping ever since.
Where Does This Leave Us?
I’m left with mixed emotions after looking at the numbers. On one hand, I recognize that we can’t expect the same growth we had in the late 1900s. We’ll never have the same birth rate as before. And the drastic COVID slowdown probably isn’t our new normal, just a blip.
On the other hand, converting new members to the Church appears discouragingly difficult. Maybe we haven’t figured out the new best way to find people to teach and baptize in the digital era. When I was in New Zealand just under a decade ago, we talked to strangers at their door and on the street with as much confidence as we could muster. It was pathetically ineffective. We all knew it, as did the Church leaders, and it was clear that smartphones and social media were soon to replace these worn-out efforts. Yet Facebook-finding isn’t yielding better results, or at least not yet.
Additionally, it seems we’re up against a general decline in faith. It was always easier to convert a Christian than an atheist/agnostic to our Church. And with more ex-members of the Church, the most vocal opposition will only grow louder.
Perhaps the best thing to do is reconsider what it means for our Church to fill the whole earth as a “stone was cut out of the mountain without hands.” As a prophet says in The Book of Mormon when he saw our day, righteous Church member’s “dominions upon the face of the earth were small” and they “were scattered upon all the face of the earth.”
We may be scattered and few, but those who want to learn about our church are more likely to have a congregation near them than ever before. The same goes for the possibility of learning about the Church in their own language.
The Changing Face of the Church
As a final thought, I wonder what it would feel like to be a member of the Church if the Church is no longer growing. Imagine this worst-case scenario, which has a strong likelihood of happening:
Birth rates continue to decline slightly and fewer and fewer children are born into the Church.
Fewer births result in a smaller missionary force.
A smaller missionary force baptizes fewer new members.
This cycle repeats itself all while Baby Boomers, still a strong generation of active members, finally all pass away.
It remains as popular as ever to remove one’s name from Church records.
Should one-to-two things from this list occur, we could see our numbers officially stall or even decline. What would it be like to be a member of that Church? Hopefully, for most members, our faith isn’t tied to our growth. Nevertheless, we want to think of our Church as this robust machine of missionary work and conversion. Does anything change in our psyche if we aren’t? 8
Going back to my worst-case scenario, it could all be reversed if several things occur such as:
a new missionary strategy that allows missionaries to find and convert more members
expansion into previously closed areas like China and the Middle East which rapidly accelerates new membership
the Church blossoms internationally as it grows more roots in Latin America, Africa, and Asia
Of these three events, I suspect the final, international growth, is the most likely. Consider that Americans and Caucasians are already a minority within the Church. Membership in the United States accounts for only 42% of the total Church, and ballparking race, Caucasians are likely under 50% as well.
We don’t give this shift enough attention, mostly because we’re still a US-centric (even Utah-centric) church. However, our new demographic is slowly starting to reflect in our senior leadership, both in the Quorum of the Twelve, which now have two international members and the first of Asian descent (though he is American by citizenship), and in the Quorum of the Seventy, roughly 50% of which are international. In ten-to-fifteen years, who knows what these quorums will look like.
When I think about the changes that await the Latter-day Saints, our potential, challenges, and transformations, I can’t help but be a little excited, even if that means our growth and traditions start to look a little different. We’ll always be “a peculiar people,” after all.
Technically this number records the number of Baby Blessings during the calendar year.
The birth rate is even more interesting when coupled with the metric “Children of Record Baptisms,” essentially children who were born into Latter-day Saint families who stayed active enough to baptize the child at age eight or converts who baptized children baptized after they became active members. It’s a useful gauge of the drop-off/inactivity rate.
To calculate this stat, I looked at the number of “New Children of Record" divided by the “Children of Record Baptisms” eight years later. Since the 1920s, the Church has averaged an 80% rate. In other words, 80% of children who received a baby blessing are later baptized. This stat peaked in the 1960s at above 90%, a truly remarkable retention rate, and dipped in the 1990s down to 65%. Right now, we’re averaging 75%, which is still healthy, yet below historical precedence.
As recently as the 1980s, the statistical report contained a section called “Notable Deaths” and names of ex-mission presidents and general authorities were published. That feels like a very “small church” thing to do. I bring that up only to say that if we ever feel like a big Church, let’s not forget that less than half a century ago we were publishing deaths like an alumni magazine.
My younger brother, who is now 21 months into his mission in Minnesota, has spent the better part of the last two years cold calling random numbers and messaging folks on Facebook as he was confined to his apartment during the pandemic. If that doesn’t sound entirely effective, go with your gut.
You have to imagine that pre-internet and before much of our international expansion, we were converting people who had never heard of a “Mormon” or read something about the Church.
Of all the stats in this article, this one surprises me the most. Leaving for a mission before college is so convenient, not to mention there’s immense peer pressure on young men to serve in the strong LDS communities of the Mountain West. I have to imagine Church leaders are looking at the same poor trajectory and thus vocalizing the call for all worthy and able young men to serve.
The stats in this section come with the biggest disclaimer as they rely on Kimball’s other calculations, such as the difference between baptisms, deaths, and total membership growth. While I wouldn’t put much stock in the specific numbers, the trends are likely accurate.
No one wants to play for a losing team. I think psychologically, most members of the Church already consider themselves underdogs, if not losers in the eyes of the world. To me, being a Latter-day Saint in the 21st century mostly involves convincing myself I’m normal and then engaging in society and being reminded that I’m not.