Question is in the topic. My sister in law and her family left. That's 7. My wife and I are leaving with our family, making it a total of 13 in 2 months. I keep hearing people are dropping off like flies. I have read and also agree that active membership is not in the 14 million but closer to 5 million active members. They're just counting all current records



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2015 11:45AM by shodanrob.

My wife, a never-MO, has a very good ex-Mormon female friend who told her of growing up with a very tyrannical TBM father. The friend went on to serve a full mission in Guatemala. She, along with four of her five siblings, are no longer members. These individuals along with their spouses and children is a sizable loss for TSCC.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2015 12:00PM by Templar.

There is no way to get accurate counts of those leaving. We get a lot of anecdotes, but of course no one would come here to post the other side of the story. We all badly want shrinkage to be the truth and often try to convince ourselves of it. It 'feels' right.

The 5 million active has quite a bit more evidence to back it up, including a quote from a leader. I don't have as much trouble with that.

5 million is a high end estimate. The Reuters article that first mentioned members "leaving in droves" mentioned convert retention of 25% and 5 million active members. 5 million would be weekly per-unit attendance of ~170. Considering that thousands of the 29k+ units are branches with very few members, there is no chance that attendance is 5 million. There may be 5 million combined active and semi-active members though.

As for anecdotes, in the ward here, I know at least 7 individuals have left over church history, the essays, etc... in the last couple years. That's over 3% of the ward. The bishop has also said that he's had many people come to him to discuss these issues...so many that he asked the SP if he could have 5th Sunday lessons on the essays. Some of the essays, mostly the polygamy essay, were also discussed on the ward FB page. Besides those that have actually left, it appears there are many that are closeted exmos, NOMs, etc...

The year I hubby and I left with our two kids, 8 other families left left the ward that year.

Since then, another BIG family left that ward. All of their adult kids, their spouses and their kids left. I think Including the parents, kids, grandparents, it added up to 26 people! That's just one very big tithe paying family that held a lot of the top jobs in the ward.

And it makes me wonder when the graph lines will intersect at the point of growth vs. loss....

The area I live in has combined wards and stakes, down from 2 to one stake, down from four to three wards in one area.
I know a lot of older people moved away but that doesn't account for all of the changes.

It can indeed be difficult to know how many are leaving. In fact, what is meant by leaving? Does it mean simply going inactive or does it mean resigning or both?

Obviously, a lot of people are leaving -- as evidenced not just by anecdotal stories but the continual amount of damage control being done by the suits in the red velvet chairs. The emphasis in church talks now seems to be on "doubting your doubts" and on "re-activating the less-active."

So, something is afoot but the lack of transparency by TSCC makes it difficult to come up with hard numbers.

From my perspective, when they no longer give tithes and offerings, and don't clean toilets or other free serives, they've left. Warming the pews is irrelevant to 50 E. North Temple. It's all about the green.

Reality Check Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It can indeed be difficult to know how many are
> leaving. In fact, what is meant by leaving? Does
> it mean simply going inactive or does it mean
> resigning or both?

It usually means simply going inactive. When you no longer believe the mormon rituals mean anything, you also no longer believe you should undo them, so why bother?

Two good articles on the subject http://www.fullerconsideration.com/membership.php. http://www.mormonism101.com/2015/04/mormon-attrition-1975-2014.html

This is by no means provable or scientific but since Q.Cook is claiming that doubt and disbelief can be measured conclusively by numbers of people formally resigning, I will respond that it cannot. Most of the people I know who are doubting the church and/or totally disbelieve do not bother to resign. They just walk away. That does not make the church "stronger than ever".

Gotta love the magical, wishful thinking.

Confirmed. I am 100% non-believer. Yet counted as an inactive, since I'm still on the records.

I'm saving my resignation to do it with my kids once they are all 18 and able to join me. Timing is everything.

You are considered 'less active'.

Inactive is too offensive and you may be offended by that label and choose to stay away forever. :)

My wife pointed out that almost all of the talks at the last General Conference were more damage control and missionary work that it actually was about Jesus and Atonement. She thinks there was only 1 or 2 talks about it. It was just more confirmation for us that things are afoot.

While none of my siblings or I have formally resigned, three out of 4 know it is bunk, and two of us have dramatically decreased participation.

Four out of seven children in my family left, three+ grandchildren... (3 RMs) big revenue loss for church inc.

I agree that the estimates on this forum are inaccurate. But I don't think they are exagerated, but conservative. Because most posters here are from North America, where activity rates are the highest. In non-English-speaking countries it is usually in the single digits, below 10%.

Me and The DW have left emotionally and financially and have cut our Participation to a minimum. I am playing the waiting game till my DW is totally ready to pull the plug. I am getting closer to the date when she says she is done.

I believe there are more people in our circle that would leave but have the same family pressure we do. It is just a matter of time.

I started visiting this site in 2003 and was a quiet (to my family) unbeliever for a decade.

Unknown to me, all 5 of my children also figured out the truth and stopped believing over the last 4 or 5 years. They all got together less than two years ago and decided that they needed to slowly and carefully share it with my then-TBM wife.

She started to do her research about a year and a half ago and quickly came to the same conclusion that the rest of us did.

Our resignation went in a little over a year ago. Three of the five children have resigned; the other two are busy with college and can't be bothered.

The contagion spread to my brother-in-law (wife's brother) and his family. All 5 of them jointly told the bishop to consider them permanently inactive (they are planning to resign as soon as the bishop is released; he's a personal friend).

Mother in law was baptized decades ago, she's on the rolls but wants to get out for solidarity.

So that's 13 right there!

i quit 18 months ago (Gospel Doctrine teacher at the time), my wife was RS Pres and she quit with me. Our kids out too. Mother and father went with us, as did one member of the bishopric and his family, another longstanding family and a few single senior members. I think it totalled 12 direct walk outs, but since then others have declared NOM openly and my brother and his family also declared NOM no longer paying tithing.

In the last five years i've seen at least 6 Melch Priesthood holders from my ward, including a member of the SP quit the church.I've also seen 4 excommunications of MP's from the ward in the same time frame.

Ward is now seriously down on active members. It has casual attenders and NOMs but few serious believers left.

10 years ago i would never have expected this, now i see it accelerating and expect it will get worse over the next few years. The LGBT Marriage thing, and the church history stuff is killing the church and the supposedly inspired leaders are flapping in the wind like Hollands Jowls caught in a tornado. They just don't seem to know what to do and can't seem to happen on a consistent nor coherent approach.

Just come clean you scum bags, tell the truth and give the money back.

"I've also seen 4 excommunications of MP's from the ward in the same time frame."

Lilburne, are you referring to mission presidents? I think that we all would love to hear more details about that.

"Ward is now seriously down on active members. It has casual attenders and NOMs but few serious believers left.

May I ask where you're located?

"10 years ago i would never have expected this, now i see it accelerating and expect it will get worse over the next few years."

I hope to be able to live to see that happen.

Is that the new Honda?

Here in New Zealand theres been little changes in numbers. Not a lot leaving, not many coming in. I know of only a handful of people that have left in the last 5 years. But thats it. I was hoping for droves.

God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in a Plymouth.

I don't know what a Drove is, maybe a Korean car?

Crossing my fingers that my daughter and her husband in Provo have restless friends and become restless themselves.

All I know is that the stigma that was attached to leaving is not there like it was. And I keep running into people who have gone inactive who used to be active. And the TBMs I know admit that a lot of people seem to be leaving.

All in all, the stone keeps rolling forth. Truth will prevail.

I checked google maps for a town called Droves, but there wasn't one. So apparently members are not leaving in Droves.

As a serious and dedicated investigator back in 2005-2007 I wrote to Greg Dodge asking about how many members were leaving and officially resigning and asked about the accuracy of figures I heard Grant Palmer mention when speaking with John Dehlin.

It was a very sincere inquiry. I heard nothing back.

So giving the benefit of the doubt as I would often do I wrote again and asked perhaps they could at least acknowledge my letter and if for whatever reason (and perhaps explain why) they didn't want to divulge any statistics I would be very understanding.

TWICE I WAS IGNORED.

MASIVE CULT SIGNALS FLASHED!!!

Greg Dodge, his office and the stupid cult leaders are a bunch of ignorant A**holes.

That helped me decide to quit bothering with a hideous, secretive, information hiding, greedy cult that cares nothing but forwarding the cults agenda which is all about MONEY.

Stupid Cult.

How on earth could I in good conscience join such a dishonest and greedy organisation, knowing they just hide everything possible from members ( and especially investigators) and worse still lie all the time about themselves.

I can remember a missionary assuring me without a shadow of a doubt that I would get a response and he too would like to know what was happening as far as resignation numbers. After all he said the truth would have nothing to hide and they are very open and honest about everything.

The good news is this same missionary later emailed me a few years after and told me he was prior brainwashed and had now seen through it all.

He is now very active on facebook questioning, though needs to tread very lightly because all his family and friends are linked with the church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2015 06:53PM by Zeezromp.

I'll just add that I'm very thankful to be on the right side of history, by voting with my feet for leaving it behind. History is already judging us. Better here, than back there!

My daughter is the only grandchild and great-grandchild of my parents who is mormon. Most haven't even been baptized, let alone blessed.

I was raised a mormon, though my dad and his extended family were never too TBM (well, my uncle became more TBM the higher his calling up to SP). Many of my cousins are not mormon. Most of my siblings are not mormon.

I'm always caught off guard each time I find another cousin, their children, or their grandchildren are no longer mormon, but I keep finding out about more and more of them every day.

The ones who shock are the ones who were so "wild" in their 20s, 30s, 40s and are now TBMs. The one who shocks me the most is the one who is on his 6th marriage, almost 70, and got sealed in the temple to his current wife.

Oh, I've been waiting to share this little tidbit. One cousin got divorced about 20 years ago. Her husband had been cheating. She married a nonmo at least 15 years ago. My still-active sister told me the other day that this man got baptized last year. He is in his 60s. My sister told me like I'd give a shit--I just changed the subject.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2015 07:16PM by cl2.