Check out https://www.dropbox.com/s/rkrzewzliwbsrvl/2014%20Europe%20Area%20Plan%20Executive%20Version%20-%20English.pdf

Someone leaked the 2014 area report for Europe.

It reads like a corporate sales team planning document. Do what we've always done with diminishing results, but claim we're doing better.

Look at the numbers! The number of baptisms in 2013 is the same as 2012, despite there being more than 40% more missionaries. Only 100,000 sacrament meeting attendees *in all of europe* (and only half have temple recommends). The state of the kingdom is bad, folks. But the emperors new clothes are beautiful.

And the area presidency even tries to spin them to the HQ, talking about how the numbers are up against 2008, while failing to mention that the numbers dropped from year to year in some cases.

Nor do they mention how almost 8,000 baptisms can result in *decreased* sacrement meeting attendance between 2011 and 2012.

I think the goal for missionaries to find members who can "help build the kingdom" is telling, clearly they are not baptizing any new potential leaders.

Thanks for the link, squeebee.

"For Leaders
3. Discuss individual investigators, converts, and less‐active members using the Progress Record and the New and Returning Member Progress Record." (We can leave the church, but the church can't leave us alone.)

"For Missionaries
2. Find investigators who can help build the kingdom." (Not those ne'er-do-wells who will suck up church resources rather than fill the church's coffers.)

"For Members
1. Invite friends to attend church.
5. Invite friends and acquaintances to be taught by the missionaries.
6. Use online tools to share the gospel."

Maybe on their kabillionth time rolling it out, the Lord's cutting edge plan to hound the members to death will work to hunt down and assimilate some new tithe payers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2013 12:01AM by Surrender Dorothy.

Thanks for the link - complete awesomeness!

Save this one to your hard drives before the lawyers have it pulled.

Did Jesus request this executive summary?

Wow if this is true it's pretty incredible. 100,000 active and 50,000 card holding members. If you look at the wiki page for number of members in Europe it's around 450,000 (quick estimate adding the numbers up in my head).

Their goal in 2009 was to double active membership in Europe by 2019. They better get busy.

Page 8 before Jesus is even mentioned

FredOi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Page 8 before Jesus is even mentioned

Yeah, about that. I think that's a mistake. It doesn't really fit into the tone and setup of the rest of the document. They should have caught that when reviewing the draft...

what is the number that the LDS gives for the Europe ?

The prize for firmly rejecting "the gospel" goes to the UK county of Cornwall where sacrament meeting attendance is dropping precipitously. Runners up include Denmark, southern Sweden, southern and northern Norway, Poland, Greece, Romania, Moldova, and large chunks of Ireland and Germany where church members are increasingly finding better ways to spend their Sundays and their money.

In France, regions where attendance is rapidly dropping include Provence and the Cote D'Azur, Centre, Bourgogne, Franche-Comte, and Corsica. In Italy, church attendance in Tuscany is falling.

I'm sure Jesus made these same reports during his ministry. He also built a mega mall in Nazereth.

Indeed, The Mormon church truly is doing the work of Jesus. Business plans, growth strategy, land purchasing, etc.

Jesus inc

...that apart from short references to the youth getting ready for missions and doing temple baptisms, and activating the young single adults....there was NO mention of women???

There was tons of mention of men, young men and ordaining them to "power", but NOTHING about young women and women in general. This is so bloody telling! Women,...you are nothing, remember that. In the LDS church, you are nothing, you are not spoken of, not planned for,...you shut up, open up and breed and then when you are done breeding...shut up the rest of your life. We have no need for you.

Appaulling.

Still, more mention of women than Jesus

That's ironic, given that women are the only ones who actually generate growth by having Mormon babies (though not as much as they used to).

I wish this report showed how much tithing they brought in. If 45,000 members paid an average of 2000USD a year they would be bringing in almost a hundred million dollars. With all the different countries and economies I'm not sure what the actual figure would be, but it still seems like a pretty good racket they got going.

UK alone brings in > $100m

sorry, I'm confused- at a loss at how to show this to TBMs.

The numbers (with one blip in 2010) show growth every year.

Can someone give those of us statistically challenged a way to share this in order to respond to the "but look at the growth!" response?

thanks.

These are the salient points for me in terms of numbers:

The church claims 495k members in Europe. This report shows that only 20% are active and 10% have a temple recommend (these are numbers the church likes to keep secret, they never release attendance figures).

In 2012-2013, the number of missionaries has increased significantly (roughly from 50k to 75k, a 50% increase). The number of converts is down from 7,992 in 2012 to 7,900 in 2013, while their target was 8,500.

In terms of the rest of the document, what stands out for me is that:

(1) they try to spin it as positively as they can (e.g. saying that "convert baptisms are not increasing proportionally to the increase of missionaries", while in reality, convert baptisms aren't increasing at all and they are missing their target) and

(2) they have no clue as to how to improve things, other than rehashing the same old "programs" whereby members are "invited" to work with the missionaries and stuff like that.

My CEO would fire my ass if I submitted a report like this. Luckily for them, their CEO and Board of Directors consist of senile old men who are as clueless as they are.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2013 06:24AM by rt.

Oh how I rejoice when their sorrows I see!

One phrase used repeatedly is "real growth". Why is the adjective "real" in the phrase? Is there another kind of growth?

This is one of the first official confirmations that the increase in the number of missionaries is not effective, at least in Europe. The number of converts per missionary in 2012 was 2.5 and estimated to be 2.1 in 2013. The estimate was based on year to date data (November 2013). They lowered their goal for converts per missionary from the 2013 goal of 2.6 to 2.5 for 2014. The total number of convert baptisms dropped from 7992 in 2012 to the estimate of 7900 for 2013 and that is with the increase of the number of missionaries.

Overall sacrament meeting attendance dropped from 2009 to 2010 then again from 2011 to 2012. There is a sudden 4000+ increase in attendance in 2013. I assume that these are reasonably accurate numbers in contrast to the PR stated numbers that grossly inflate membership statistics. The first page has the comment "For internal use only. Please do not copy". This is consistent with the 20% activity rate we have experienced. Interesting to see it "officially" stated.

The 4000+ plus bump in 2013 attendance could be just the increase in missionaries.

How often have prospective missionaries been told that they'll knock on thousands of doors, bother thousands of people, and get 2.1 baptisms out of it? Yeah! That will be the greatest two years of your life!

And... who exactly are these 2.1 people? Kids who've turned 8? Immigrants, etc, who are looking for help/companionship?

Yet... how often are missionaries made to come up with 6, or 8, or 10 as a monthly baptismal goal? And then they're accused to have a lack of faith if they view reality?

Missionaries are fodder. Reports like this confirm it.

Baptizing 9 year olds is a mission tradition. Though I'm not proud if it, we told a family it would be easier to wait to baptize their kid until after he turned 9. They contacted us about a month before his 9th birthday about getting him baptized. We said wait so we could teach him and count him as a convert.

It's extremely typical.

Ha-ha-ha this reads like one of those 5year plans from the old Soviet Union.

AND......

The joke is, they are not!

Right........?

Like RT, I would have been canned for a report this bad. Like reading company annual reports, you learn more by what they don't mention than what's there.

More key points:

Compare the maps. The only meaningful map is the first one, which the GROWTH of sacrament meetings. Look how much is minus, including the more heavily populated areas of Sweden. You know that project? It failed.

Note that the other maps, such as Melchizedek Priesthood holders don’t show growth only numbers, which should be increasing.

See this quote: “Leadership strength (active Melchizedek Priesthood holders) continues to prevail in central Europe, Scandinavia and the southern part of the United Kingdom. We are now seeing equally strong numbers of Melchizedek Priesthood holders in stakes in Italy, Spain and Cape Verde.” This is code words for “No real growth anywhere else.”

Look at the number of active young single adults. There are fewer in 2013 than in 2010.

Part of the bump of active Melchizedek Priesthood holders is going to be from the increase in missionaries. Note that the increase doesn’t match the number of new missionaries called, which means that there was a high percentage of sister missionaries called.

What’s more interesting is to do your own analysis.

Compare the number of convert baptisms to the sacrament meeting attendance. From 2009 to 2013, there were more than 36,000 convert baptisms. The number of increased attendance? 5,262. Even if there were zero net growth from members (the same number of people died as children baptized), the retention rate is horrible.

For the almost 6,800 converts in 2009, there was a net minus 24 people attending in 2010.

More later. Time for bed.

I'll bet you could find similar position papers, and strategy outlines, and conference reports, and statistical summaries, and committee assignments, and graphs, and video presentations, and choirs, and speeches, and bands, and masses of devout smiling people ... all deeply united in the work of keeping the Soviet Union strong and growing in its world-wide influence!

...just before the Berlin Wall fell.

I wonder what a report like this would be like for the USA??!!!