According to the recent cult stats, there are approximately 29,000 wards and branches. By my math that equates to an average of 500 members per unit to make up the 14 million plus members. I know for a fact that it was considered a good Sunday if there were 180 people sitting in sacrament. And as this is an average, and there are a lot of tiny branches out there, so some wards would have to have a colossal amount of members to balance this average.

In the late 70's, I attended a ward that had almost 900 members and the suits in SLC would not split the ward.

The average number that attends a regular size ward is between 90 and 120. Each ward and many branches will have about 300+ members that do not attend and are not on the general membership list for the unit.

TSCC uses funny math to equal 14 million members. The number of buildings and actually numbers that can be figured out just do not reach any where close to 14 million. Even 5 million might be too high. Years of lying about growth has created their math problem.

The more you lie, and the bigger the lie, the easier it gets to keep lying. Their rationalization is that life is eternal so it matters not that the members are dead or not active or even resigned. They're still members, even if they were babies that never actually got baptized. Those babies will be baptized by proxy in the next life if not this one and resigned/apostates will get re-baptized eventually. Once on the books, always on the books in relation to fostering the image of growth.

"Welcome to the Hotel California!"

Today was huge attendance. Probably 140 out of about 600

Yeah, less than 250 for the biggest I've ever attended. And there was one small branch of less than 40!

There were fewer than 100 attending on any given Sunday in my old ward, although there were 800+ on the roster.

All I remember is that the overflow area wasn't always needed as there were plenty of seats available inside the chapel itself. Even then, the overflow was just a small room behind the chapel connected with folding doors. At least, that's what it was like 12 years ago when I last went inside the local chapel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2013 08:49PM by adoylelb.

Our ward had over 700 members. It was unusual if more than 100 showed up. Of those, only about 1/3 were die hards.

In the Redlands, CA area, there are 3-4 mega-churches ...

Buses are routinely used to bring in the followers.

HUGE buildings


Mormonism is small potatoes...

breedumyung Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In the Redlands, CA area, there are 3-4
> mega-churches ...
>
> Buses are routinely used to bring in the
> followers.
>
> HUGE buildings
>
>
> Mormonism is small potatoes...

Are you talking about "The Rock" in SB? There is a HUGE amount of churches in the Redlands area. When the Redlands temple had the open house, a local Baptist church told their members not to go to it-that the temple was evil.

I used to drive by and thought unhappy thoughts about that church. Now I drive by and shake my head in agreement.

Yes, The Rock on Waterman.

Also, in Highland, there is an Emmanuel Baptist ? that is HUGE.

The Adventists have another 'splinter' group that is huge...

Then, there is The Packinghouse in Redlands at SB Ave/Alabama

. . . . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2013 02:38PM by fossilman.

DW's ward sure talks particularly about Baptists as being very evil and very much plotting against The One True and Living Church. I've asked this before, but want to get more opinions...do Mormons mostly think the local religious majority (probably Baptist here) is out to get them or, as I think and others here have said, they particularly think Baptists are out to get them? Just trying to get some context here.

Nice catch. So, if the average ward and branch had 100 active members (which is sounds indicative of what others are saying), then the total active membership of the church would just be under 3 million.

It makes the 4 to 5 million speculated active members to sound in the ballpark, maybe slightly high, even.

Interesting guys. I would love to know how to get this information out there because I know so many TBMs find safety in their numbers. "We are the fastest growing church", " The Lord is hastening the work", "Look how many temples we have today". The first thing my husband said to me when I told him I no longer believed was, "So you think 14 million people are wrong?"

Inky said, "The first thing my husband said to me when I told him I no longer believed was, So you think 14 million people are wrong?"

Hey hubby, do you think 1 billion Islamists who believe in the Quran are wrong?

That's a ratio of 1 Mormon to 71 Islamists. Do the math.

This is probably why they have to keep sinking money into useless temples. They're trapped in the lie that the church is growing so rather than closing temples they have to keep building them. As long as TSCC is a tax free religion they are at least not having to pay property taxes on these useless, hollow shells. If they can keep them maintained with volunteer labor, all the better for the bottom line.

I think 3 million Mormons are wrong, and 11 million "Mormons" are right. ;-)

+1

"fastest growing church" is one of those lies that has gained truthiness through constant repetition, especially by careless media people looking for soundbites.

A number of other denominations who don't even fudge their numbers are growing faster. Check out census data over time for any country at all.

I’ve seen on other threads that TSCC keeps members on the records until their 110th birthday, even if they know that they are dead. This 25-30% inflation of their members mortality rate alone explains 4,000,000 of their claimed members that aren’t filling seats on Sundays.

I doubt they are even dropping them at the 110 YEAR mark. At some point even that trick will no longer work.

There are some units of the church that have over a thousand members of record and fewer than 40 attending. It's hard to know what is what, particularly with a lying leadership.

One town I was in on my mission had close to 200 people on the branch roles, but we were lucky if we got ten people to show up on Sunday. The who town had been contacted multiple times. So we spent most of our time trying to reactivate exisitng members.

That feels about right...Pareto Rule applies. 20% of the membership is active, 80% stays home.

The last time I regularly attended was 1987 in Farmington, UT. Typical brown ward building. The overflow seating behind accordion doors was never used. It wasn't difficult to find a seat for 6 people (my mom, me, 4 siblings) even when we were late, which was often as my mom has always been on mormon standard time. I don't know what the total ward membership # was.

As of 2013 my BIC TBM mom and formerly convert TBM dad (now ex-mo atheist) have contributed 1 BIC TBM kid & 4 BIC TBM grandchildren for TSCC to exploit. Their other 5 children are all ex-mo and have produced 4 never-mo grandchildren.

For a large TBM family of origin like mine, minting just 4 new BIC customers seems like a diminishing return to me.

I can't imagine similar numbers didn't happen and aren't continuing to happen in many other TBM families. I suppose if both parents are TBM and maintain tight control on their children's minds it could be different.

It's actually kind of unnerving: if neither I nor any of my siblings had left TSCC but instead had followed our original programming we might have produced a large crop (30, 40...50?) of young BIC sitting ducks in the past few decades.

It's really hard for me to imagine that there has been any compelling reason for attendance to increase in the past 25 years, unless the overlords in SLC have managed to convince couples to double the amount of children they produce for programming. Given the easy access to church history, doctrine, stories of people leaving & why via the internet I can only imagine that the number of active mormons has continued to decrease, in the last 10-12 years, probably rapidly.

I'm always amused by the "x million believers can't be wrong!" mantra, as well as the notion of "fastest growing". Relying upon safety in numbers can be useful in some situations but falling back on it to prove that some seemingly large group must be on to something is silly. What about all the Hindus, Buddhists, Islamists and Catholics in the world?

It seems far more rational to make the following reasoned assumptions: the LDS church has long since learned how to run itself as a successful corporation without being accountable to its many dedicated investors. It extorts large sums of money from them on religious grounds, then builds expensive structures whose sole purpose is to reinforce the investors' unquestioning, continued financial stake in their organization. The metastasis of temples worldwide has made it *appear* that mormonism has been spreading like wildfire, when what is really going on is little more than sophisticated window dressing. They're protecting and promoting a brand name for their loyal customers. Doesn't mean the product is really selling more units.

That TSCC is building a new temple in historic downtown Philadelphia has nothing to do with its so-called growing membership. It's little more than further proof that the church has amassed a shitload of capital from tithing and from extremely profitable businesses it owns, and has probably chosen a number of wise long-term investment vehicles. It will continue to leverage the meme of "fastest growing religion" to attract the occasional new member. But the real reason for that new temple is not in response to new demand - but to keep the intergenerational families going, for those in power to maintain their hold on it. For the BIC TBMs to keep reproducing and raising the next crop of BIC TBMs to continue paying the bulk of the tithing and give the corporation that shiny veneer of respectability, existing as a 'church' instead of the business it's always been.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2013 10:26AM by frogdogs.

This was the biggest red flag on that Mormonism 101 infographic they put out a little while back:

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101

Spread across different boxes it says:

*There are 14 million members
*77% attend every week
*There are 28K+ wards and branches

That would mean an average of 385 people per ward or branch EVERY WEEK. Utter bullshit.

This one made me really mad too because it was such an outright lie. Any active LDS person knows darn well that 77 percent of their congregation is NOT attending every week. I don't know how the membership swallowed that one but they probably thought "Well, our ward must be lagging behind the norm so if we just try harder ..." But honestly, the most humble visiting teacher or home teacher knows how many inactives are on their rolls. Promote the to EQP or RSP and they will have an even better idea that this so-called activity rate is a flat out lie.

There are 16 million Southern Baptists in the U.S. (one of several Baptist denominations in the U.S.)...and they don't fudge their numbers like TSCC, so they are probably mostly at least semi-active. And I know from DW's ward that Mormons definitely think Baptists are wrong...and evil...and out to get them.

I remember Lethbridge 3rd Ward being close to 700 members back in the 60's when Dad as EQP...

Ron Burr



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2013 02:52PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

My ward in Madrid, Spain had well over one million members and an average attendance of 150 people, most of them investigators and 'new members' (in their first year). A provincial town in Portugal where I often vacationed had a branch with 70 members known to be living in the village center, and only three of them were active. But the best was a Spanish city of 90,000 inhabitants and one very active member. Particularly very active with one missionary who was sent home for it.

Brother of Jerry posted an interesting statistic a few weeks ago that speaks to the uselessness of many of the new temple building projects around the world, and highlights just how much they are mere window-dressing designed to fool members.


He said: ". . . the announced temple in Winnipeg, Manitoba, will only be serving Manitoba members. There are already temples in all the surrounding states and provinces (Twin Cities, MN, Bismarck, ND, Billings, MT and Regina, SK). That means they will have a temple for 1,800 members. That's not even a single decent sized stake."


That would be hilarious enough except that there are only 13 "units" according to LDS.ORG in Manitoba. Cumorah.com reports that there are 7 wards and 6 branches. It is clear that BofJ's estimate of 1,800 members is generous at best.