Recording of Mission President Discouraging Elders from "Self Abuse"

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Originally Posted by Adam

The actual growth rate of the Church floats around 0%. The numbers keep going up because every child of every person that ever joins the church is added to the records. All inactive are kept on the records in the lost member file until they reach a theoretical age of 120 when they are removed (the only other way to get off the rolls if you die is if the ward sends in the death notice--if it isn't sent in, you stay on until 120). So the absolute numbers are edging up slightly every year (while the yearly trend line is significantly down over the last 15 years or so).

Sorry, but you are wrong on this, Adam. I have collected, compiled, and analyzed church statistics for over 20 years now (let's just say some of us have some strange hobbies - but I know people with stranger hobbies - Trekkies come to mind offhand). The "true" growth rate (foregoing for the moment exactly what that is, let's just assume we have a pretty similar concept of that) has leveled off over the last 20 years or so, and it certainly isn't as high as it is sometimes portrayed. But it is not floating around 0%.

Maybe I can find a moment in the next few weeks to post some actual numbers, but suffice it to say for the moment that I'm quite confident I can make some pretty strong arguments that pin down that rate fairly accurately, and it will definitely be above 0%.

[minn_stat]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

...I hear folks raise the "lost member file" all the time as padding the numbers of The Church. How many records are in the lost member file? Does anyone here really know? Even then, who has the right to expunge people on that list from membership in The Church without their consent? What do people expect; for The Church to issue some official breakdown of activity? People pass into and out of full activity on a regular basis, but still consider themselves Mormon. I think the significance of the "Lost Member File" is very much a red herring.

I don't claim to know what the actual number is, but it is pretty big. Even for the United States, where the file is almost certainly smaller (as a percentage of total members), it is at least 10% of the membership. I'm sure it is larger in almost every other part of the world. I made an attempt to estimate this for the United States several years ago, and actually came up with a number closer to 20%.

Again, I know I'm not backing this up with data, but I did do the analysis, and perhaps I can get some of it out here for you to look at in the near future. I just don't have the numbers at my fingertips at my office - go figure.