It has been over 5 years since we left tscc. We don't talk with anyone Mormon anymore (due to shunning). I am so curious if wards are shrinking. Is the "mass exodus" really happening? Are ward members talking about it? We were terribly shunned by family & friends, so I'm hoping that they are starting to see that we aren't the only ones getting out of TSCC. We live in the PNW, WA state, so I'm especially hoping there is "mass exodus" here. Anyone still attending or anyone know what its like currently?

I'm actually not 100 percent sure but it does seem to me like more and more people are leaving thank goodness! And ive just got to say shunning is just totally what Jesus would do isn't it?

If you run into your friends and family maybe you should start singing "Jesus walked away from NONE he gave his love to EVERYONE"

Exactly. I wish that they could see the irony in their claim of being "Christ-like."

Shunning is horrible.

Nothing screams "It is a CULT" like a good shunning.

I think shunning is great??
In fact, I think a monument should be built in it's honor.
I didn't leave Mormonism because of shunning as I had a pretty good Mormon life. Then information began tearing away at LDS foundational pillars.
Many people, however ARE leaving Mormonism because of shunning.
It's for that reason I say shunning should be memorialized in some way...a statue or a Greek looking building, etc.
Whatever drives people OUT of Mormonism deserves to be memorialized and honored...IMO.

I once ran into a ward friend and she said, "I thought you'd moved away." I said, "No, I just live around the corner." She replied, "Oh, I haven't seen you at church!" I said, "nope"

Her eyes widened and then she turned at walked away without saying anything. The next time I saw her, she crossed the street to avoid me. I couldn't help but laugh because it was so comical.

That reminds me of when I saw someone at the local Target I recognized from RS, and when she saw that I was buying coffee, she grabbed her children and walked fast to shield them from the evil beans I had. I couldn't help but laugh a little, and I wouldn't be surprised if that family moved to Utah during the Recession as they were among the more strictly devout members of the ward.

I've heard it called "redistricting in order fit the change in demographics" here in SL Valley. In other words wards are being combined, ideal populations of wards are decreased, etc. Window dressing to disguise low attendance and exodus.

Did you know that the word "gerrymander" originated in Massachusetts?

I'm surprised they don't pull the "Last Days" card, because in the last days even the very elect will be deceived, fall away and be lost.

How much of it is shunning and how much is to avoid contagion?

People just don't care about mormomism anymore. There will always be the hard core members, like any cult has. I am in TBM country and 80%of the members are there for social purposes. The ward can not fill all the positions. People of tired of the cult taking all their time and money. Sundau is the favouite travel day so you don't have to go to church. There is absolutely no fun in the church anymore. Just pure drudgery and mindless waste of time.

I think you nailed it. They need to make it fun again. SLC has been slowing taking the fun out like kids deflating your car tires. I’d suggest bringing in circus clowns, but the 15 have their own wards.

one of the nicest things that MORmONS ever did for me !!! Who would want to be pestered by MORmON weirdos based on an ulterior motive when a person could just be left alone instead. NOT ME!!!!!

Being left alone and shunning are two completely different behaviors. Being left alone is respecting someones personal choices and boundaries. Yes, I appreciate being left alone, but shunning is a different set of behaviors that is intentionally done to cause harm to the target. I can attest that shunning by our family and friends has caused our family considerable harm.

AMEN!!!

The Sam Bracken story is something, and his wife of Canada is cultish

In my east side SLC ward it is a demographic shift more than exodus. For less money a big mormon family can buy a bigger home in Herriman. And they do. There is some renting to newly weds going to school. And then mostly empty nesters. The smaller families that move in are nonlds and appreciate the qualities of the architecture and neighborhood quality, extremely convenient location and short commutes.

I don't think so. All of the folks that were offended by the church's policy of no gay baptisms have already left. Those that remain in the church are hunky dory. Church is swell for them.

I live in a university town so there has always been influx and out flow as a matter of course. Our wards can always give the excuse that university enrollment is down if they have to explain the loss of members. Since I no longer attend, I have no idea how they are doing but I know they recently messed around with the ward boundaries.

I live in Southern California and have only noticed a couple people leave due to learning truths.

I do believe I have been shunned and suspect it is the protocol leaders are instructed to follow nowadays.

A friend of mine, he is also the husband of a close friend, is on our stake high council. I can think of a handful of times at social events, and at church, where he has completely ignored me - even though he was usually within a foot or two of me. Once, I pointedly greeted him as he was about to turn away from ne. He said,"Oh, I didn't see you there". Mmm-hmm.

I noticed a change around 2014 - what's left of the church has become meaner, just like Jesus would do...

If I run into people that I knew in the ward - say, at the local supermarket - they always smile and say "hi," and that's about it. Nobody ever trots out the "We've missed you at church" line. They know better.

In the UK it's been shrinking for years. My old ward's attendance was 130'sh now it's 65-70 on a good day. The neighbouring ward chapel is closed. Those who departed from my home ward include formerly__2 bishops, 2 R/S presidents, 1 E/Q president, 2 bishopric counsellors, 1 gospel doctrine teacher, 1 Y/M president and a seminary teacher.
Maybe this is not typical but a (still active) former bishop said, confidentially, that things were not looking good.
Those that remain seem to be the very same members who we used to think of as "less committed" and yet they've remained.
They appear to need TSCC for social support.

Hi Politic,

I'm UK to.

My ward story is very similar to yours. I'm NW UK - the first church stake.

Our ward saw a lot of members leave within one year, RS President, Bishopric Counsellor, Sunday School President, Gospel Doctrine Teacher, YW President, Activities Chair, and a number of others (over 20) the ward went from 120 to around 50 over the space of 24 months.

It didn't help that the former Bishop and SP counsellor left, and that others in the ward had given up even before the historical information landed.

I cannot see the Church surviving in many UK towns for another generation. My old ward has so few children in it as to be insufficient to put together a Branch let alone a ward.

What i do see is geographic consolidation. Members moving to Chorley in Lancashire (For Game of Thrones fans this is about 100 miles south of the wall and borders the land where Jon Snow knows nothing).

Chorley has a Temple and MTC it also has a large building and i believe 3 wards. A lot of people moved there for this and i see this as being critical to their UK foothold. TBM's banding together and 'keeping the coal's glowing' with their own shared suspension of disbelief.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2017 05:52AM by lilburne.

Hi'Freeborn John' I've been aware of your interesting remarks from the UK for some time. Good to hear of TSCC's decline up north. I remember visiting the temple there.
I'm sure, if we compared notes, that we would have friends in common but, for personal reasons, I'm flying under the radar at the moment.
How did the members react when you left? Was there one fact more than any other that caused to quit? Regards P.

Hi Politic,

Good to see someone knows their history. I felt Lilburne was an appropriate choice of non de plume as he was threatened constantly to keep his mouth shut by both the crown and Cromwell yet continued to speak out.

I've been out for circa 4 years now. Prior to that i was a TBM, one who would never consider it feasible that TSCC was a fraud.

I left after a discussion with my Bishop and SP. My family and a lot of others joined me based on their own reading of the CES Letter etc.

It divided the ward - those who refused to believe or simply felt the truth did not matter remained - about 50 attend at the moment, but the oddity is that amongst that group are many who know it isn't true and have even quietly acknowledged it as such but say they attend for personal reasons such as family unity or something to do socially. Ultimately this means the TBM numbers are small - which means tithing is smaller. I can't see the UK being financially viable for much longer, intact the UK and Europe may well end up being a cost - it will be fun to see if TSCC decides to abandon UK saints by cutting funding in the future and selling off buildings here.

It will be interesting to see the 'most valiant' let out in the rain and how they cognitively rationalise that.

The UK (and all of Europe) runs at a loss for SLC. It has always been subsidized by the tithes of the Utah faithful.

Thanks lilburne, very interesting.
There are similarities with my departure. Some of those who were close to me followed me out over the next 18 months. There were some stories they manufactured to explain my leaving but eventually they just stopped contacting me.
I left more than a decade ago and these have been the best years. I've never regretted leaving.
Ref your remarks..I've given up trying to fathom how the members think except that truth is not at the top of their priorities. Thanks again

Politics where in the UK are you? I am in Sussex and wards are struggling!

Hi Britboy. I'm familiar with your interesting comments, thanks.
As I said, I can't be too specific at present (flying under the radar) so.... North of Sussex and south of Preston. Good to hear from you.

Where I live in Maryland it's gone down from three wards sharing a chapel to two wards and a branch. This surprised me with all the military bases nearby. I would think this would have the effect of giving greater stability to the number of members, even with the yearly inflow/outflow.

I think the overall pattern is pretty clear:

Membership in developed nations is declining. In some cases modestly, in some the losses are huge. It appears Europe and the US are losing the most.

In many developing nations, there's still growth -- but it's far lower than it has been historically (other than a few areas, mostly in South America and Africa). Currently, the growth there is enough to offset the losses elsewhere, although even the church officially admits that it's "growing" at just over 1% per year (less than the population growth rate, which means they're losing in terms of % of world population). And with growth slowing in the developing nations, there will probably be a net loss year-to-year within the next 5-10 years.

Hie, what's happening in my area (Buenos Aires north mission) is that TSCC is baptizing people but these people don't stay for a long time, perhaps if you see the membership numbers you can see that there is some growth but I bet that the real growth in my area is less than 1%. And I think that the same is happening in the other urban areas in Argentina.
In the rural areas, I don't know what's happening now, but there are some parts of my country where mormons are seen as satanic (these places have an important catholic influence).

Sounds like a lot of other areas.

Unfortunately, those baptized-but-not-staying people are still counted by the church as members. Which inflates their "official" numbers.

Lots of people have posted comparisons between what the church claims as membership in some country, versus what census results report as membership. It's almost always around a 2-3 times difference (the church claims 2-3 times more members than people who self-identify as members).

Their numbers are never to be trusted :)

Yes, their numbers are a joke, my ward's "members" outnumber the stake's attendance in their best sunday.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2017 10:44AM by luckylucas.

I had a long conversation with him and his wife and realized what may be happening moreso than mass resignation.

In a nutshell, they admit that they are cool mormons and cool mormons don't really pay attention to all the "strange" stuff.

They just focus on christ and doing good to others.

They ignore strange edicts, past history issues, strange requirements.

They claim most of their friends are the same.

I think the church is changing from within and in about 20 years the church will be very close to just being a standard christian church.

Ultimately that is what will keep the ship afloat, or not.

What's odd is hearing that the LDS Inc leadership keeps doubling-down on the requirements and weird stuff (cleaning, indexing, McTemple work, etc).

I live in a town outside of Las Vegas they had 4 wards Combined them into 3 and I heard that about going to make it 2 wards soon. The ward I'm in Las Vegas has over 900 members on the books. However last time we went to that ward less then 80 where at church. I know my neighborhood has a lot of Mormons they seam to be the active ones. It took us a few months but they no longer drop by un announced trying to get us to church. We even had a few of the active member kids come swimming on Sunday now

This is exactly what happened in my mom's small town in California. In the 80's, there were 4 wards, now they are down to 2. Of course, my TBM mom has all kinds of excuses why. Sad, really.

The wards in the jello belt are still strong and full of young families. I don't hear about anyone leaving, but there has to be some.

It seems like the young families are emotional believers and not much in to the doctrine. They mainly believe stuff like, families are forever, go to church/do callings, and listen to GC. That is the main reason they will always believe, it makes them feel like the church is true as long as they don't think.

You hit the nail on the head. The LDS Church has become a tribe.

In the United States I think it depends upon where you live and how the local economy is doing. People have always left the church in the past, but there was no internet for them to meet each other. I would say that in the U.S. the church is growing very slowly just from births and a few converts who manage to remain active. It certainly isn't imploding. Foreign missions have always had a large number of inactives. I have seen only a handful of once active adult members leave the church in my area and they are quickly more than replaced by move-ins from the Intermountain West.

It always was and always will be a regional religion. Mormonism will always be the strongest in the intermountain states in the western US. The missions are primarily there to retain the young men and get them married to a good member girl in the temple when they return. The high cost of college and the high cost of living is making the old Mormon model of the return missionary marrying the Molly Mormon more difficult. Also if they do get married they are putting off having children and not having as many. The lower Mormon birthrate will cause the church to shrink unless they can figure out how to make housing less expensive.

Rising home prices and the book of abraham . . . .

Rising western state home prices are driving active Mormons to the Midwest and Southeast where they mainly socialize with other Mormons. I've seen it for decades.

Young Mormons being pushed out of the Morridor is probably the worst thing that can happen to long-term activity among membership.

"shunning is a different set of behaviors that is intentionally done to cause harm to the target."

Perhaps in some cases, but in most I would say members see us as threats. If we tell them something they don't want to hear, it threatens their belief, and their belief and the church is what they use for security and comfort.

Most people follow the crowd out of fear. Herd animals.

We all use something for comfort. Try telling those who need alcohol the truth about it. Soon they'll be avoiding you also.

I see fluctuation in attendance I still go sporadically. The ward has a membership of approximately 300. On a very good Sunday there are 60 in attendance

Just read an hour ago that three wards were rolled into one right in the heart of morridor...not enough preesdud guys ...oh it's happening IMO...just way too many noms staying for family reasons...just thinking how being prosperous and blessed abundantly would sure make it easier to stay...especially if most f your prosperity was church related...us poor schmucks had far less to lose and truth seems more important than money or position...as the old jokers who never cracked a book or asked a question die off...there will be far less reason for the interweb capable to stay....poor oaks doesn't even understand human nature...tell people not to and they will...somehow his judgeship must have had some nepotism involved...but I could be wrong

I moved to a SL County suburb a year ago. It's one of the more affluent suburbs in SL County.

The amount of cars in the church parking lot is about half of what it was about a year ago.