14,110,917. That is my guess for the number of members they are going to announce in General Conference this weekend. This post is going to cover how I got that number and give you a chance to see how close you can get.
Number of Members: Last year there were 13,824,854 members announced. My guess is a net increase of 286,063, or 2.07%. While the growth is always impressive given the general decline in membership of many churches, it is a decrease from prior years percentage-wise. In the 1980’s, the net growth was in the range of 4-5% per year, and approached . Around the year 2000, it was closer to 3%. If my guess is right, this is around a 50% decrease from only 2 decades ago. So, how did I get this number?
Converts: This is a number they announce each conference. Over the past 10-15 years there has been a decreasing number of converts, both in absolute numbers as well as as a percentage of membership. In the end of the 1990’s, there were over 300,000 converts a year, which represented over 3% of the membership at the time. Since then, there has been a steady decrease and it has recently been in the mid-200,000 range. As a percentage of membership, the number of converts is now down around 2%. If this trend is followed, it can either be done lineally or exponentially. A lineal trend line will eventually get below 0 converts, which I don’t think will happen, so I plotted an exponential decay. I predict 249,472 converts for 2010.
Children: This is also a number they announce each conference. Here, there has been a slight upward trend. It has gone from around 0.75% of the membership up to around 0.85%. I used an upward linear trend to plot this, so predict there will be 116,603 new children announced.
Leaving the Church: This number includes people who died or otherwise left the Church. Since they don’t always have records for inactive people, if they don’t otherwise have specific information that someone died, they count them until an age of 120 at which time the name is removed. This number isn’t specifically announced, but is easy to calculate. If you add converts and children to the prior year’s total membership, the current year is generally less. The difference is the people who left. This number has been gradually trending upward. 10-15 years ago it was in the 0.3-0.4% range. Most recently it is in the 0.5-0.6% range, or nearly double in the past 10 years. My prediction is that this number will be 80,012 this time.
This gives my overall prediction: 13,824,854 members announced last year for 2009 (+) 249,4723 converts (+) 116,603 children (-) 80,012 taken off the rolls = 14,110,917.
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Comments:
– These numbers can obviously change and are only predictions. The missionary work could slow down even further or could increase in a new area. Political candidates running could increase interest or decrease interest. The internet could be having a net positive or a net negative impact. The birth rate among members could decrease more inline with societal trends. Who knows?
– If these trends hold, a few interesting things are seen: In 20 years, by 2031, the number of converts will equal the number of people leaving the Church. The only net growth at that point will be through children born to current members. Depending on the model, after that, by 2050 or so, the Church will neither grow nor shrink, but will stabilize around 20-22 million members.
I have my theories about all of these things, including reorganizing the missionary program, changing some policies, etc., but I’m mostly interested in your thoughts. So have at it…
Questions:
- What is your guess for the number of members they are going to announce?
- Do you see missionary work increasing or decreasing over the next 5-10 years? Why?
- Do you see the number of children increasing or decreasing over the next 5-10 years? Why?
- Do you see the number of people leaving the Church increasing or decreasing over the next 5-10 years? Why?
- If you think there is a negative trend, should the Church do anything to try to correct this and what would that be if you were in charge?
Wheat & Tares 
My guess: 13,999,998
And there will be an audible groan from the congregation…
very interesting analysis mike. firetag has done a similar analysis for the CoC, and he told me that the lds church was following a similar growth pattern. now I understand better what he meant.
my first inclination was to say there will be a push for missionary work. however under the mckay and kimball administrations, we had problems with baseball baptisms in europe in the 60s and soccer baptisms in the 80s in latin and south america. there have been fraudulent baptisms in japan in the 80s as well. imo, pres hinckley put the kabosh on fraudulent baptisms, which is why we see ‘slower’ growth. so I don’t know that a push in missionary work always accomplishes the goal of increased numbers. it could very well be that the convert baptisms of the 60s are now coming off the books and making it appear that there are greater losses than thjhere really are. the 60s growth rates were inflated in the first place, and I suspect the died/left rates may be more inflated as a result.
Demographics is destiny. We were niche limited, and began a rapid decline after we peaked. Your niche is larger and you are more isolated from the larger trends of society, but your issues are, I’m afraid, going to be similar to ours in many ways. You’re simply at an earlier stage of the process.
Are the baby boomers dying now? That could explain why the leaving/dying number is getting higher.
The have been mini baby booms since then. 2007 was a record birth rate year, but when the recession hit I believe birthrates fell.
So, 2009 had births that included decisions to get pregnant before the recession (the first half of the year they got pregnant before the recession and if someone was already “trying” they wouldn’t necessarily stop), so it may have still been an increase.
I’m going to predict a slightly lower number of children born in 2010 because of the recession. A couple is more likely to not decide to try to have a baby because they are worried about jobs, etc.
How low should I go though? Utah’s baby booms have been slightly different than the whole nation because the baby boomers they married earlier and had more children.
The biggest reason for fewer converts is when they raised the bar. Fewer missionaries = fewer converts. Also, worthier missionaries probably baptize fewer: 1) stats show more go home early due to a variety of physical & mental health issues and/or helicopter parenting trends prevalent today, 2) missionaries who were eliminated when the bar was raised probably identified better with the sinners they were seeking to convert, and 3) ex-sinful missionaries have more life experience and better social skills on the whole.
I agree with Hawk. In my mission, the “rebel” missionaries baptized way more than the ones that cried during every testimony. For the first year, I was so “by the book” that I didn’t baptize at all. Once I relaxed and became more social (like the “rebel” missionaries), the baptisms came. Of course there are social, worthy missionaries too, but it seems that many of the “worthy” ones don’t relate to others as well as the “sinful” ones.
Regarding missionaries, I agree with hawk and MH. The most successful missionaries in my mission were the ones who were not quite as “diligent” in following the “White Handbook”.
While current trends suggest a flattening out of the membership growth by 2050, my personal opinion is that it is going to be before then.
Converts: The growth is slowing down. There are as many members in my mission in Europe now as there were 25 years ago. Europe is flat. The number of converts in the US is also quite slow. Why?
– There are fewer missionaries. This is due to changing Church demographics (ie. baby boomer’s children) as well as raising the bar. I don’t know that raising the bar did anything much.
– The internet. People research things before they buy them, from a car to their doctor down to a $10 CD. For something as major as changing religions, they are certainly going to do research. The missionary message is certainly positive – prophets, eternal families, etc. But minimal research shows JS marrying young girls and other men’s wives, blacks and the priesthood, golden plates that aren’t around, etc. These may be enough to sow “unease” in the minds of investigators. There are “unsavory” aspects to the founding and history of all religions – ours is just one that came of age in an era where everything is documented. Mormons are weird – seen from the outside. Nice people, but weird beliefs.
– Societal trends can also work against the Church. Just like blacks and the priesthood generated a lot of negative publicity, if SSM issues progress along the lines of recent trends, the Church may be seen as increasingly anachronistic. Similarly with women and authority issues.
Children: I think the actual birthrate is going to bend downward from what historical trends have predicted. Much of the growth is in foreign countries. As their economic condition improved, they will tend to have fewer children. Recent apostles, like Bednar, have far fewer children and previous apostles. And in the US, tough economic times will decrease birth rates.
Leavers: I don’t know that the death rate will change. People who are “120” and being removed from the rolls now were born in 1891. As this year moves up, increasing numbers will be removed.
– Also, while people historically may have drifted into inactivity, it seems that more people are actively “leaving” the Church. This could just be internet sampling bias, but it at least seems more common. And as it becomes more common, it becomes easier to do as there is not as much stigma attached to it.
So, overall, I think that things may progress faster than historical trends suggest. The numbers are small, so even just a minor tweak in these rates has a “big” difference in numbers. It doesn’t take much to suggest that membership flattens out at 17-19 million in the fairly near future.
So, unless a discontinuity occurs, things are a far cry from the 270 million members by 2080 predicted not too long ago (stone rolling from a mountain…). This could be an external event or societal change, or else a more proactive restructuring done by the Church itself.
* What is your guess for the number of members they are going to announce?
It all gets quite Kremlinological quite quickly, don’t it? When your own friendly Mormon researchers are estimating there are only 4 million to 5 million active Mormons in the world, who knows how or when the GC reporting might be adjusted to more closely align with reality?
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/51497153-80/church-growth-says-martinich.html.csp
At some point the 14 million figure will need to be retired, the folks at the COB already know this, and they’re undoubtedly busy crafting messages to prepare the rank-and-file for the coming adjustment.
This discussion at UVU with the Bushmans, Val Edwards and Gary Lawrence regarding church growth is a must-see and I believe their framing will be how this issue gets handled going forward after the corrections to the currently inflated membership numbers are announced:
* Do you see missionary work increasing or decreasing over the next 5-10 years? Why?
I think proselyting will be slowly phased out. There are more than a dozen countries that have plenty of religious freedom but no LDS missionaries. Missionary standards, numbers, behavior, tactics, etc. only matter in the margins. The main challenge facing the LDS is the white-shirt-and-tie packaging and Made in America label is never going to regain its previous appeal to the target upwardly mobile demo.
There will be a push to evangelize online, but that will be mostly undertaken as a way to keep the membership busy while new narratives are prepared and vetted, and will ultimately be quietly discontinued once the numbers show the effort produces a discernible increase in deconversion rates.
* If you think there is a negative trend, should the Church do anything to try to correct this and what would that be if you were in charge?
The negative trend is real. According to this 2008 post over at MSP, the replacement rate in the US has dropped to 80%: for every five members who leave Mormonism behind, four new converts join the Church.
http://latterdaymainstreet.com/2008/02/26/mormon-replacement-rate-negative-in-united-states/
If I were in charge at this juncture, I’d want to be remembered as the head of the church who implemented devolution, i.e., gradually increasing the proportion of tithing and responsibility that stays at the local level. Without such a policy, the combination of a highly-centralized administration and shrinking revenue base is a recipe for schism.
If I were in charge:
I would change the mission program completely. I would change missions to service missions. I would have the Church become known as a Church that has an army around the world that gets things done. I would go to poor countries or inner city areas or where ever there is need. I would have them build wells and schools. I would have them teach. I would tithe the Church and spend 10% of what we take in on humanitarian needs (ie. $300 million/year instead of the current $17 million/year average). I would get rid of the “uniform” of 1960’s salesmen and let the missionaries look more “normal” for the culture in which they are serving.
We could do AMAZING things with this. As a comparison, the Peace Corps currently has around 9000 volunteers. Its budget is around $300 million. We would have 50-60,000 volunteers with a similar budget.
Advantages:
– We would be helping the poor among us
– We could “lower the bar” and let everyone go
– We would vastly improve the image of the Church
– People will naturally ask questions about our role. The missionaries could teach them.
– Importantly, missionaries could raise the image of the Church in an area and the MEMBERS could teach them. This would do wonders for the retention rate.
– This could be a “discontinuity” shift and help the dying missionary program.
Just my 2 cents.
Chino:
Thanks for the links. I do suspect much of that is true – it’s just really hard to get actual numbers. At some point, I do think that it will become increasingly hard to “paper over” numbers. Something is going to have to give.
Mike S.:
That sense of “something’s gotta give” can be scary and is maybe why the current leadership devotes more energy to managing expectations than they do to managing programs.
If I were still active, I would totally sustain your leadership, especially your revamped missionary program. Sounds like a winner to me.
I’m going with 14+ million. Still not the stone rolling down the mountain though. We’re not growing faster than the growth of the population of the planet. Maybe that puts in better perspective when the Second Coming is to happen…maybe it is not going to be for several hundred more years…
Mike S (#10):
I agree with pretty much everything you say. But consider this: if the Church did make the changes you have listed, it may come across to the outside world as “Hey, we realize that the way we’ve been doing things for the last few decades hasn’t been working, so we’re changing our approach.” Obviously the GAs don’t want outsiders to get that impression, and they would be reluctant to concede that the “program” isn’t working.
The culture of the LDS Church has a death grip on the idea that the full-time missionary program itself is sacred and inspired. Some would even call me apostate for suggesting that the “program” has serious problems and is in need of reform.
The full-time missionary program has become more of an end unto itself and less of a means to an end. If you disagree with me, I suggest you read articles about missionary work in the Ensign from the past year. You’ll notice that the articles talk more about those who serve missions and the program itself, as opposed to focusing more on the life-changing salvation that missionaries can bring to people.
The Divine Call of a Missionary
Preparing Emotionally for Missionary Service
International MTCs Play Important Role
I could link several more stories, but I think you get my point.
A while ago there was a thread on By Common Consent in which people discussed the idea of raising the minimum mission age for males to 21. What I found revealing was the fact that almost everyone discussed why the change would be good or bad for missionaries, as opposed to whether it would be good or bad for the people the missionaries are supposed to be serving.
The bottom line is that the program is serving itself more than it’s serving other people. I wish I had realized this before I made the decision to serve several years ago; I’m still dealing with the disillusionment.
“Mike S
Regarding missionaries, I agree with hawk and MH. The most successful missionaries in my mission were the ones who were not quite as “diligent” in following the “White Handbook”
I remember stories about an elder like that in our mission. Of course his success was attributed to skipping the WoW and tithing discussions.
Growth rate was reported sometime this last year in the DNews and SlTrib at under 2%. It seems odd to me that the Adventists can have over 20 million members world wide and not proselyte at all.
Maybe it comes down to what my old mission president BKP said to us in zone conference. “These people are joining the church in spite of you.”
#15: GBSmith
Buddhism is also growing rapidly in the US. It has nearly doubled over the past 10-15 years and is now nearly the size of the LDS Church in the US. Interestingly, it has no missionaries per se, and is growing the most among the educated, middle and upper classes – ie. the demographic that the LDS Church also aims for.
And for those who say it’s just because people are “lazy” or want to “escape”, truly following Buddhist principles requires at least as much devotion as the LDS Church.
I think the number of actual members in the church are higher than reported. Its’ taken me well over six months trying to have my name removed, partly because my leadership has refused to process the paperwork as required. They refuse to acknowledge that I want to leave, much like they refuse to acknowledge that I was abused
I plan on enjoying conference this weekend as an Ex-Mormon with beer in my hand
Chino Blanco:
I don’t think it’s very surprising that “active” Mormons are far more rare than “official” Mormons. Activity rates of 1/3 are pretty much what I’d expect in the Community of Christ or most protestant denominations in the US.
No, you aren’t going to cover the whole earth, but Mike’s analysis already showed that. Total membership is controlled by society’s response, not missionary program design.
The stunning thing to me about my own findings with the CofChrist was that NOTHING we did or didn’t do had any effect POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE on growth rate. We couldn’t fix it. We couldn’t break it, either. We might influence who joined or left, but how many was out of our hands.
Humbling, but true.
So maybe a missionary program that builds the souls of the missionaries is valid. And maybe an alternative program that helps the poor would be just as valid, whether or not it changes church membership figures. (I assure you, the CofChrist has been having this same argument for more than 30 years.)
Sunshine: I think you mean “lower” than reported. It is a difficult thing to measure, but most estimates suggest around a 30% activity rate. Therefore, for the reported 6 million or so members in the US, there are likely around 2 million active members.
p.s. A decision to remove your name is obviously very personal, but it should NOT take 6 months+ if this is something you want to do. It is possible to bypass the local leadership.
Just looking at the scriptural instructions for missionaries — I see many places where the church could improve:
When to return from preaching:
and
Any priesthood holder should go on a mission b/c he feels called by the Spirit to preach; and he remains on his mission either until the Spirit tells him to return to his family or when he has desires to see his family.
It is all according to his desires. If he has desires to serve God by preaching, he is called to preach. If he has desires to see his family, he is called to return to his family. All of it being done with an eye single to the glory of God and according to the manifestations of the Spirit and the agency and desires of the man.
In this way, all persons on the mission will be fully dedicated men.
Ordained and sent forth:
We fulfill this commandment today by ordaining never-married, non-father, young men between the ages of 18 and 25 to the office of elder and then immediately sending them out on 2-year missions. They then come back and never travel again as elders until and unless they go out again as an older missionary couple.
Surely this is a waste of a lifetime of potential preaching in which more souls could be converted.
A scriptural model of on-and-off preaching throughout one’s lifetime seems a more effective way to fulfill this commandment.
Without purse or scrip:
Taking no purse or scrip is a commandment that is given for a variety of reasons, as the above explains. I think scriptural missionaries have a better chance at fulfilling this commandment than the current church missionaries.
There are others — but that’s sufficient for now, I think.
Mike S, in other words, local congregations would no longer get their power and water paid for out of tithing funds, no more buildings would be built and basically the entire physical plant of the church would be defunded under your plan. I’m not sure I’m ready to embrace that, quite yet.
Stephen: none of those uses of funds [building buildings, paying for power and water, etc] are valid uses for tithing in the first place. We’ve grown accustomed to the “works of men” (i.e. temples, chapels, etc) being a measurement for both prosperity and stability, but that doesn’t make it a divinely approved use of funds.
Mike: I think one of the issues with the growth of the church – especially among younger generations – is the whole corporate mentality. Younger people are more aware of what corporatism has done (and hasn’t done) to the world around them – be that environmental, economical, spiritual or otherwise – and they aren’t impressed. They are also a more decentralized bunch. They don’t rely on the heavyweights for their media information, the don’t rely on authority figures for their needs as much as prior generations. I would love to say there is a shift about, but I’m not yet convinced…
But, I think the church could do wonders by decentralizing itself. Return tithing funds to the local level. Give more in humanitarian aid and stop patting yourself on the back every time you do so. Stop building massive malls and real estate ventures with the interest you make on the tithing. I like the “Peace Corps” model, but I don’t think it sells as well at the governmental level.
Stephen M:
It’s not quite as draconian as you present, as there are other options to come up with the $300 million per year.
– Do we really need to be subsidizing BYU at the estimated $1 billion annual cost that is spent for that? Could we perhaps shift some of that cost on to the students or perhaps downsize a bit?
– Do we really need to spend $3 billion on a mall for downtown SLC? This would pay for at least a decade of humanitarian needs, even at the $300 million rate. Perhaps the role of our Church should be helping the poor rather than developing commercial real estate?
– I don’t know how much the Church currently spends on the missionary program, but restructuring things would free up the millions currently spent on that.
– In addition to what the Church spends, missionaries spend $4000-5000 a year themselves. Multiply this by 50,000 missionaries, and this is in the hundreds of millions.
– Humanitarian giving by the members would also certainly increase if the members knew that it was actually going to humanitarian needs. If only 2 million members of the Church gave $100/year (or less than $8/month), that would be $200 million.
So, I think it is very feasible option and would certainly do more for the image of the Church than the millions they spend on ads of people skateboarding and saying, I’m Mormon.
@ Mike S
Your right I did mean lower. According to Salt lake my name has been removed and my letter has been sent, but, as of yet, Ihave not received it. More of the same bull.
Unlike others who think there’s a difference between hypocrisy and inconsistency, I don’t think so. When I hear the reasons for why we tithe. Like its’ a commandment, and that the money that the church gets from its members is used to help the widows, the poor, the sick, the needy, etc. I really want to vomit. I became ill six years ago, with not one illness, but two illness and became homeless. I didn’t receive any help.
I got myself off the streets, into my own apartment all on a meager social security income and this winter when heating cost skyrocketed I went to my bishop for help, His response. You need to learn how to budget better. Let so, and so show you how its done. I really wanted to slap the crap out of him There is nothing in the Church handbooks, nor is it discussed that members need to let complete strangers look at their financial before receiving help. Pure bull crap. And lets not even get into a discussion on the discrimination I’ve received because of mental health status.
Pure bull crap. All of it, Just pure bull crap
Also, regarding the “no more buildings being built” – there will always be a need for buildings. They should also be buildings that show respect for and reverence towards God.
However, when our Church spends an average of $15-17 million annually on humanitarian needs over the past 25 years, do we really need to be so extravagant. For example: “The Draper Utah Temple is built of the finest materials including granite from China, Makore wood from Africa, and limestone from France.” With so many poor in the world, do we really need to spend so much on buildings?
Sunshine: I might recommend reading The Book of Mammon – yours isn’t the only story about people coming to their Bishop for help, only to be told there wasn’t anything they could do. I have known Bishops who were extremely generous in what they gave out to needy members, but there are equally stingy Bishops who do nothing to help – and, on one level, it’s an institutional issue. There is at least one example in the Book of Mammon of the church putting out videos that are sent out which give leaders training on “teach the members to fish” in spite of any temporal help the members might immediately need.
Mike: I’d be interested in seeing some revelations on why/where the temples are being built. 😉 Seriously, if we believe in revelation, then why isn’t there some reason behind the temples which are being built. I was perusing books in B&N yesterday (in Utah) and was in the Christian (not LDS) section. There was an interesting book that caught my eye, and it would appear that these issues are being noticed elsewhere too. Here is the intro to that book:
$25 million is a big number. But so is $300 – $400 million (the figures I’ve seen which estimate the cost of building temples like the one in Draper, Oquirrh Mountain, etc). And, add to that $3 billion or so for the City Creek Center and I think we can begin to see the disconnect between the annual humanitarian aid given out and the amount of money being spent elsewhere. Add to that the stink over in the UK where humanitarian funds were requested (and donated by members) but only a fraction was actually spent.
But then, transparency hasn’t been in vogue down at the COB for at least 50 years.
David
Spare me the “teach the members to fish analogy.” its’ really condescending. I wasn’t asking my bishop to help me financially, I paid all of my bills, I asked for help from the Bishops store house. This is something we are all suppose to be able to receive help from. In addition, there was a couple in my ward who went to him for help and they received it. minus the lecture. Bishops help who they want to help and give a line of crap to those they don’t plain and simple
David, Do you have any sources you can point me to regarding the request for humanitarian funds that then weren’t spent? That sounds like an interesting story that I’d like to know more about.
Sunshine, I think you are reading David’s comment wrong. He’s support your personal experience. If you can get past the writing style (which is difficult), The Book of Mammon really is an interesting read about the corporate church.
Sunshine, you misread David’s comment to you and your tone towards him is rather rude.
Also, you say “I really wanted to slap the crap out of him There is nothing in the Church handbooks, nor is it discussed that members need to let complete strangers look at their financial before receiving help.”
But is there anything in the Handbook *prohibiting* a leader from helping someone with their personal finances?
Furthermore, is there anything in the Handbook indicating that help must be given indiscriminately?
I really don’t know the answer to these questions, so any corrections from anyone would be welcome. But the thing is, I just don’t quite understand why you feel that the Bishop is in the wrong to make the help contingent and why you feel you are in the right to expect that help without any stipulations. I don’t think I understand why you feel that the Bishop’s actions were “pure bull crap.” Online communication isn’t always super effective, so there may well be something falling through the cracks here, but I’m just not understanding why you are/were frustrated with that particular Bishop.
James
Let me clear, I am not angry at David. I’m more or less responding to the question of do you see more people leaving the church. MY Answer is Yes. I see more and more people leaving because people (both leadership and regular people) don’t want to acknowledge, nor address the real reasons why people are leaving. And no, its not because they are offended.
Let me give an example, I have been a member for well over twenty years. I have attended many conferences, my first being when President Hunter, collapsed at the podium and then popped back up like an Easter Bunny. I will always look fondly back at that conference as it took place shortly after baptism. That being said, I can remember every conference since then where we are commanded to help the poor, the needy etc. No where in any of the talks is there anything said, nor implied that if a member, a widow who needs help needs to let their bishop appoint someone to go over their personal records. Case in point, my relief society presidents’ brother needed help because he lost his job and his bishop did not require that. He received church help for about five years.
Unlike, the help, or rather lack of help or support that I’ve received since trying to re-enter after being sick and homeless for a time period two years ago. The first day I walked into the building I had a woman tell me that not only was I never hungry while, I was on the street, but I should have eaten out of the garbage can. I asked my homet eacher to stop doing something that was annoying me and his response was to tell me and I quote,” you have severe emotional,psychological issues which need to be addressed both professionally and spiritually and he had a right to tell me this because he was once a Bishop.
I sat down with my leadership I had my RSP present because she is also my friend. My leadserhip laughed. I am glad I had my RSP to witness the callous why I was treated because otherwise people would say that I’m lying. That’s respectful. isn’t it. Yet, they all want me to sit in a pew and raise my hand and support them. Its’ not enough to tell me that the church is perfect but the people are not. Because the people are the one’s running the show.
Sunshine:
You did misread me. I agree with you. I think the whole “teach members to fish” analogy – while generally well intentioned – does a lot of immediate harm to members who need immediate help. Teaching someone to fish (i.e. job skills) may help him/her 12-18 months down the line, but oftentimes people come to their ecclesiastical leader when things are already dire…and waiting another 12-18 months for help does nothing to help them and, I’d argue, pushes them out of the church. When members give and give and give for years on end – both time and money – then experience a hardship and are met with nothing but platitudes, it hurts. The church is there to help members, but frequently we turn it around… then when people see the church investing $3 billion in a commercial mall, or hundreds of millions of dollars elsewhere, when members need some immediate help, I can see how people get disenfranchised. I would argue that using tithing funds to invest over a 3-year rolling period, then using all those interest proceeds to build multi-billion malls is as gross a misuse of funds as anyone could do. That’s my opinion.
Kari:
The Church is required by the United Kingdom to post its finances. There is a website where you can find them. Back in 2004-ish when the Banda Ache tsunami hit, the Church encouraged members to donate to its humanitarian funds. Several UK members I’ve both talked to and read about online mentioned there was a big push for donations following the tsunami in their local congregations, at the request of the Church. At one time I poured over those financials from that time period and later years (finances through 2008 are currently available – 2009 should be available in the next couple of months).
From a Humanitarian Aid standpoint, per the Church’s own documents, here is what it took in versus what it paid out [following that link will take you to the UK Charity Commission site for the CofJCofLDS, from there you can peruse the info/financial documents]:
Year: In / (Out) [In Thousands of British Pounds]
2009: £344k / (£11k)
2008: £453k / (£12k)
2007: £322k / (£44k)
2006: £366k / (£48k)
2005: £509k / (£34k)
2004: £252k / (£52k)
So, from the last 6 years, the Church has accepted donations of £2,246,000 and spent a total of £201,000, or roughly 9%. You can see the spike in 2005, but only 6.6% of the funds were spent. Worse, in 2008 and 2009 the Church collected £797,000 but somehow only managed to give away £23,000 (or 2.8% of all collected Humanitarian funds).
To put that in US funds ($$), from 2004-2009 the LDS Church collected $3.6 million in Humanitarian Fund donations. During this same timeframe, the LDS Church spent only $322,000 of the total donations. The remainder ($3.278 million) remained sitting in some account somewhere earning interest, unused.
Humanitarian Funds, it should be noted, are generally given with the expectation that they will be spent on worthy causes – somewhere – in the not-too-distant future, not just stored in an interest bearing account to sit unused for 6+ years. Essentially, the church is still using the £252,000 donated in 2004, and merely throwing the rest into investment accounts and not using any for actual Humanitarian projects.
At least, as the finances show, nearly 90% of all Fast Offering funds are being spent for the express purpose of the donations – that is to help local, struggling people. Humanitarian funds? Ha. They’re sitting in a digital bank account over at your nearest Merrill Lynch or American Express Financial Center.
The only argument one could use against these figures is that the church is saving it for a rainy day… but after 6 full years there comes a point where one should start asking just when are those funds going to be spent…
P.S. The church had a total of 20 employees in 2008 and 19 employees in 2009 earning over $100k US per year in the UK, fwiw.
George, your link basically states that 1/3 of tithing should go to those in the ministry, 2/3 to having fun.
Little things like meeting houses, temples, etc., I gather are out of the question.
Though I think you could probably get a lot of people behind such a proposition, at least the spend 2/3 of what would otherwise be tithing on having fun.
Names, job duties, etc.?
I’m curious.
re: 33
It doesn’t state names or job duties. Go to any of the annual reports and all it says is the total number of employees and pay ranges (see page 21 of the 2009 UK Annual Report, linked here).
Sunshine,
You say “No where in any of the talks is there anything said, nor implied that if a member, a widow who needs help needs to let their bishop appoint someone to go over their personal records.”
For your position to be substantiated you would need to demonstrate that it is stated somewhere that reviewing a member’s finances is a problem. Right now you are simply saying that because it has never been officially sanctioned it is wrong, but that is a false conclusion. Unless you can show that there have been statements one way or another, then any conclusions made are false because they are made on the basis of the mere absence of information.
I’m sincerely sorry, however, to hear that some people have said unkind things to you. Such occurrences are never pleasant. I wonder, though, if you are jumping to see yourself as a victim too quickly. I know when I feel that I am in the right and that others have mistreated me, I tend to interpret actions in the most unfavorable manner possible. I think there is a possibility that you might be doing the same. But then again, maybe not. There are a lot of factors involved, I’m sure, in any occurrence of offense to really make any definitive statements. I wonder, though, if there was a reason the Bishop may have felt it pertinent to discuss your finances with you. Do you think he could have interpreted evidence he was presented with and come to any conclusions that you needed help with budgeting? Also, if you were requesting help, why was his request to help you both in the immediate (with access to the storehouse) and the future (with budgeting help) such a problem? Of course if a Bishop only wants to help with budget needs and neglects the immediate needs, than that is a problem, but why is there a problem with satisfying immediate needs while focusing on trying to limit future need? Since you were in need wouldn’t going over your finances with the Bishop only serve to reinforce your need by making it clear that you weren’t simply irresponsible with your finances and then lead the Bishop to want to help in any way possible?
If nothing has been said one way or the other concerning a Bishop reviewing a person’s finances and if the Bishop is not using the process of helping a person with budgeting as a replacement for immediate help, then I fail to see what the problem is.
I’ve made a post similar to this on several websites recently, including:
Postmormon . org
Life After Mormonism . net
and on my own facebook page
I go into more detail on how I came to these numbers, but here are my base predictions:
Total Church Membership: 14,142,817
Convert Baptisms: 286,365
Increase in Children of Record: 125,252
Member loss (death/removal): 93,654
Total Units (wards/branches): 28,742
Full-time Missionaries: 51,230
FYI: last year prior to Generic Conference, I predicted that church membership would be: 13,824,420. That ended up being pretty close.
James,
You seem to want to make me a victim. Why is that? Is that so it makes more sense, or more palatable to you? The only thing that I am going to say in response to that is this. I am not a victim A victim is someone who allows themselves either consciously or unconsciously to be acted upon in a negative or abusive manner. This is not me.
I will not comment any further, because no matter what I say, neither you, nor anyone else will ever think there is anything wrong with what I’ve experienced. That’s not only the nature of the abuser, but also those around them who want to deny what’s going on.
I know the steps that I’ve taken to reconcile my feelings and thoughts on this matter. I don’t need, nor want your approval.
To answer one of the questions in the OP do I see more members leaving? yes, because much like what I experienced I don’t see other members receiving the support, or respect they deserve
I think Mike’s estimates are pretty good. So I don’t have a better guess than that.
As for the premise of changing the missionary program. I think it is a two way street. I think, in the right frame of mind and situation, a missionary benefits greatly from the experience. However, when the corporate mentality of numbers and how progress is measured is applied to people’s lives, it can be very detrimental to the missionaries and the converts. So I am all for changing that.
I think Mike understates the amount of aid that is supplied directly and indirectly by the church and its members. I think that missionaries in the field perform many hours of service for members and non-members alike. I see it all the time and have for all the time I have been a member.
I also see the corporate activities of the Church, commercial businesses and ventures to be an extension of what we are taught, self-reliance. The Church strives to create business activities to hedge against financial problems and creates revenue streams which finance the work of the Church. I do not see Church Leaders getting rich or living high off the hog at the member’s expense.
Could the Church and its members do more to ease suffering and poverty around the world? Of Course, but I do not see a problem with what the church does do. And sure I’d like to see more.
but I really think it starts with an attitude change among members in the US who need to give more and, who, as political conservatives generally think the poor did it to themselves.
I also happen to agree with Hawkgirl who said numbers lowered when they raised the bar on missionaries. Another factor that no one has brought up is the internet. I think people who are investigating are much more computer savvy and when a missionary tells them something, they are more likely to look stuff up on their own. Reconciling what an investigator has read on the internet,is much harder to come to terms with especially when they ( the investigator) are dealing with an inexperienced missionary who may, or may not have heard of the more questionable aspects of church history and can’t discuss them in a rational way that someone outside the church can come to terms with.
Those who read the scriptures understand the missionary program as we know it will ultimately “fail” (D&C 45:28-30, 133:8). This will occur because of the “precepts of men”.
The precepts of men prevail when the things of the Spirit are rejected (2 Nephi 28:26,31;14).
The Book of Mormon teaches that there is a cycle of righteousness that impacts missionary work (Helaman 11:17-18).
Re Mike S
Cool post. I liked it. I think you’re probably pretty close in your guess. I guess we’ll see in a few days.
Interesting, only George pointed out what I think is the most likely explanation:
As part of that younger generation, I relate strongly to the anti-authoritarian ideals and the decentralization. Over the last 10 years, I have learned that if I really want to know what’s going on in the world, if I really want reliable information, I have to read many different sources and find out for myself. I simply cannot rely on one agency, corporation, church, or gov’t to give me reliable information. Overall, the church is becoming less and less appealing for me. I want divine experiences, I want spirituality. I don’t want more rules to follow, more people telling me how to live, how to think, what God wants me to do, etc. I don’t want structure, I want meaning, purpose, and experiences.
As a result, here’s my proposal for change. In addition to Mike S’s changes, I would do away with our concept of teaching people ABOUT God, plan of salvation, etc. and help them EXPERIENCE it. Personally, I know of no better “hero journey” than the endowment. My change would be to replace church with an endowment like ceremony focused on ritual and divine experiences. I would focus strongly on our mythology and theology, and bring back so many of the things Joseph taught. In “The Power of Myth” Joseph Campbell laments that mythology is dying in the world today. We have a rich mythology, but it too is dying. I wish we could restore it and experience it.
JMB:
Part of the reason myths are dying is that our scientific, materialist culture wants non-mythological explanations. I think that our culture will continue to reject mythology unless we reinterpret mythology in a way that makes it physically real. Of course, there are cultures that will reject modernism in favor of mythology, but our culture will not do well in such a world.
@ jmb275 (#4)
“I would do away with our concept of teaching people ABOUT God, plan of salvation, etc. and help them EXPERIENCE it.”
Amen!
We go to great lengths to find converts and to reactivate people, but what kind of experience awaits them once they come to church?
One of the ideas that my mission president brought up was that every ward hold a “quarterly sacrament meeting.” This meant that every three months, the ward would plan a very spiritual sacrament meeting with the best speakers/topics, good hymns, and a good musical number. There would be a big push for ward members to get non-members out to this special sacrament meeting.
Frankly, the fact that a ward would consider having one of these “quarterly sacrament meetings” is pretty pathetic. Isn’t this God’s true and living church? Shouldn’t every sacrament meeting be a setting conducive to communing with the divine? I wonder what the early saints from Joseph Smith’s time would think about the current state of the Church, seeing that we have a need for “quarterly sacrament meetings.”
This post really does come at an odd time. I was baptized April 8, 1987. And I received my letter of resignation, March 31,2011. All I have to say it was much harder to leave than it was to be baptized. My leadership drug this out much longer than it needed to be and they did this by ignoring repeated attempts to reconcile and to talk thru issues that have written about in the OP as well as ones written by people who have responded to the OP.
I want neither mythology, nor do I want ritual. I want truth. I want the church to be transparent in the way it deals with its’ members. I gave and devoted twenty four years of my life to the members and leadership of my church, and yes, up until this morning it was my church and I received little in return. I feel duped and cheated
Sunshine,
I can tell I’ve offended you. I’m sorry about that. I guess I just wasn’t careful enough with my words. That term “victim” sure seemed to jump out to you though and if I’d known if would have had that effect, then I would not have used it. That comment was more of an after thought: my central concern was in the first couple of paragraphs where I was trying to find out if there was more to your argument because, as it stood, it appeared to be fallacious (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance).
Anyway, your response got me thinking about our respective understandings of the term “victim.” It seems to me that you understand the term to indicate weakness in some fashion. Going through the OED, I found a definition that resonates with your understanding “One who perishes or suffers in health, etc., from some enterprise or pursuit voluntarily undertaken.” This particular definition clearly suggests that, a person is a victim by virtue of allowing the actions, as you say, to take place.
I had not ever really been aware of that aspect of the definition of “victim,” so thank you for pointing it out to me.
I was, however, not using that particular definition of the term. Here are a couple of definitions, again from the OED, that resonate with how I was using the term: One, “A person who is put to death or subjected to torture by another; one who suffers severely in body or property through cruel or oppressive treatment.” and two, “In weaker sense: One who suffers some injury, hardship, or loss, is badly treated or taken advantage of, etc.”
In those definitions, there is not complicity on the part of the victim. They are not allowing the actions to take place in any way. Think of Jewish people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis; they did not allow the actions to take place, but were acted upon in ways which no amount of bravery could have affected. Think of people who have been raped; in no way did a person allow those actions to take place. These types of victims have no complicity in their suffering and regardless of the strength of their will, they are abused.
Anyway, I hope that my explanation of how we were misunderstanding one another helps to soften the offense you felt I gave. I can say one thing for sure, in the future I will be very careful about using the term “victim” because now I see that it can have an offensive connotation (and not just connotation because it’s right there in the definition, meaning it’s even a problem of denotation too)! 🙂
Also, you say “I will not comment any further, because no matter what I say, neither you, nor anyone else will ever think there is anything wrong with what I’ve experienced.”
Wow! That is a very passionate and absolute statement. I’m really not sure how to respond. I’m not trying to say that what happened to you wasn’t wrong, but simply that you haven’t demonstrated how it was wrong (I’m referring, of course, solely to the interactions you had with your bishop and not to the other instances of mistreatment you suffered at the hands of others). It is not the case that “no matter what [you] say” I will never see anything wrong with what happened. It is simply that your current explanation of why the bishop was in the wrong does not hold up very well under scrutiny and so I was hoping to get a clearer understanding of how the bishop was in the wrong. I want to agree with you, but so far you have only indicated: one, that you personally didn’t like the way the bishop handled the situation (without actually explaining how you were wronged) and two, a series of other abuses (which is evidence of the fact that you were surrounded by particularly nasty people, or that you are particularly sensitive, or a combination of the two).
The first point establishes personal opinion, but does not clearly indicate wrong doing on anyone’s part. The second demonstrates a pattern of abuse, but does not lead to the conclusion that the actions of your bishop were, in fact, wrong.
I do not want to deny what has happened to you, but simply understand it. And I am happy that you do not want my approval since we don’t know one another at all. I would feel completely inadequate to offer any sort of approval or disapproval of you, your actions, or whatever else.
Anyway, I am truly sorry that my weakness in writing led to you feeling like I was being a jerk. Please know that it was not my intention to be offend. Of course, just because it was not my intention does not mean that my words were not themselves offensive, but hopefully knowing my intentionality mitigates the impact in some small way. Anyway, I appreciate you helping me see that we had different operational definitions for the term “victim.” I hope we can continue discussing.
#43 Gilroy said:
Isn’t this God’s true and living church? Shouldn’t every sacrament meeting be a setting conducive to communing with the divine?
________________________________________
This is a good point. I think the reason we don’t always experience the divine in our meetings is found in the following observation:
“Now, the atonement of Christ is the most basic and fundamental doctrine of the gospel, and it is the least understood of all our revealed truths.” Bruce R. McConkie, Ensign, May 1985, P. 9. The Purifying Power of Gethsemane
Re Firetag
Yeah, I agree with what you’re getting at, but I don’t see why it has to be this way. Yes, historically, myths WERE the explanation, and when science came around and found out they weren’t, “we” were all disillusioned. But it’s not clear to me why we CAN’T accept scientific reasons for causation and explanation, and still APPRECIATE and IDENTIFY with myths. The reasons myths are powerful isn’t because of their explanatory or predictive power (they fail miserably at that), it’s because they give MEANING!
Re Jared
You explained why we don’t experience the divine, by referencing a quote that says it’s because we don’t understand (underscoring my point). That is, you’re preaching the doctrine that the current church adheres to, that by teaching doctrine people will experience God. I simply don’t think that knowledge equates to experience, and I’d be surprised if you did. In your own testimony it is the EXPERIENCE that changed you, not the knowledge that you could have an experience, or the knowledge that there is a God. No, you felt, you witnessed, you experienced – and that changed your life.
From a Humanitarian Aid standpoint, per the Church’s own documents, here is what it took in versus what it paid out [following that link will take you to the UK Charity Commission site for the CofJCofLDS, from there you can peruse the info/financial documents]:
Year: In / (Out) [In Thousands of British Pounds]
2009: £344k / (£11k)
2008: £453k / (£12k)
2007: £322k / (£44k)
2006: £366k / (£48k)
2005: £509k / (£34k)
2004: £252k / (£52k)
So, from the last 6 years, the Church has accepted donations of £2,246,000 and spent a total of £201,000, or roughly 9%. You can see the spike in 2005, but only 6.6% of the funds were spent. Worse, in 2008 and 2009 the Church collected £797,000 but somehow only managed to give away £23,000 (or 2.8% of all collected Humanitarian funds).
If the above is true it is beyond stunning! It doesn’t even seem like it would be legal.
Are you absolutely certain that it reflects the actual facts? And has the church ever offered an explanation?
Re: #31
David,
I’ve looked through the links you put up (both the webpage and the pdf) and I’m feeling a bit dim-witted. I can’t reconcile what I’m looking at with the conclusions you draw. I was hoping you’d help me navigate those documents a bit.
In the link you provided in the 31, it says the income was £36,531,000 and expenditures £41,791,000. Can you help me out? A page number or direct link or something would be greatly appreciated so I could see the disparity between income and spending that you are seeing.
Thanks.
Alice and anyone else:
It is all available via their own financial documents on the UK’s Charity Commission website. It’s publicly available information that anyone can access.
For anyone interested, go to the following link – it is the link to the Church’s own financial reports from the UK [the Church’s registered charity number is: 242251]:
[Click this link to be redirected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints page on the Charity Commission UK website. From there, click on any of the “Account” hyperlinks for each year (2005-2009). That link will give you the .pdf of the Church’s annual report and financial statement for that year.]
The information on Humanitarian Aid can be found on or around page 21-22 of each report. In 2009, the information is found on page 22.
Again, not to detract from Mike’s post, but this is all publicly available information. I only raised the Humanitarian Aid stuff to highlight one issue where the story we’re told simply doesn’t match up with the reality as presented in these audited financial documents, and I haven’t yet seen a positive explanation from the Church or anyone else on the matter. And, I’d suspect the reason for a lack of an explanation lies in the fact that 99.9% of most members have no idea the information is available and, were they to know, most are content with the Church News explanation about how much Humanitarian Aid the church is providing, even if it pales in comparison to projects like City Creek, or the redevelopment of a hotel in Hawaii, or many other for-profit projects.
If someone has a better explanation for it, I’m all ears.
David,
I was aware the the website, but had never paid detailed attention. Thanks for the info.
Are you also aware that of all the tithing money collected in Canada in 2009, ~58% was transferred directly to BYU? See http://harrisonames.com/?p=37
James:
I’m speaking specifically of the Humanitarian Fund. The figures you quote are the aggregate figures, and include various phantom expense figures like depreciation, or a “grant expense” to the Irish Association.
For Humanitarian Funds, for the 2009 year report, I’d jump to page 22, under the “Restricted Income Funds” section. From L -> R it reads the balance at the end of 2008, income donations during 2009, expenses/outlays in 2009, and an ending account balance as of 12.31.09, in thousands of £. If you want today’s value in dollars, multiply that figure by 1.603. If you want that value as it stood at the end of 2009, multiply it by 1.622.
For the 2009 report, the Humanitarian Aid reads as follows:
2008 Ending Balance: £1,691,000 / $2,472,073
2009 Donations/Additions: £344,000 / $557,968
2009 Expenses/Allocations: £11,000 / $17,842
2009 Ending Balance: £2,024,000 / $3,282,928
[Some differences in the ledger due to exchange rates – I used 1.622 for all 2009 figures, though the running average would probably be a bit less, and 1.4619 for the 2008 ending balance (or the exchange rate on 12.31.2008.]
Hope that makes sense.
What I find most interesting is not so much the financial information but the sinister innuendo that permeates the commentary. The numbers are not that straight forward from my reading and represent only what the Church has to report to the government, not the explanation of those numbers.
The church, like any other large organization employs people in a variety of roles. some of those roles are specialized such as attorneys, accounts and the like. There seems to be aspersions cast if a salary is above $100K when good attorneys generally make multiples of that figure.
So what is the real big deal here? That it doesn’t appear from the balance sheet that the Church donates enough to humanitarian purposes? Or that someone on the payroll might get $200K?
Analyzing those numbers will never get you the full picture.
jmb:
I think mythology is hopelessly “contaminated” in the modern mind by the history of treating it as literally as modern fundamentalists do. The gap in world views between men of science and men of theology is huge within Western civilization.
However, I think it is possible to believe in a description of reality that encompasses literal scientific understandings within the MAJESTY that traditional mythology provided.
The universe is a pretty majestic place, and God is certainly no less majestic than creation.
Jeff Spector,
If the LDS church doesn’t spend the money in the humanitarian fund, why do they keep asking for more and encouraging members to keep donating, implying that it’s being put to good use? At the beginning of 2009 the humanitarian fund in the UK had a cash balance of £1.69M. Since 2004 they’ve barely spent over £200K of the money donated to the fund, which is less than was donated in 2004 along. Why encourage more giving to the humanitarian aid fund? Why not encourage giving to charities that will actually use the money? If I’m going to give my money to a charity, I’m going to give it to a charity that will put it to good use, not sock it away in a bank somewhere.
You are correct. Until churches are required to have transparency in their financial dealings we’ll never have a full picture. That’s what most of us would like to see. An actual accounting of the money donated to the Corporation of the President.
Using publicly available numbers (which in many cases are estimates) the church is spending more money on the City Creek development than they have given in humanitarian aid since 1985. Many of us have problems when an organization that purports to be a Christian church places mammon before charity.
David,
I have to apologize to you because I realize now that I did misread what you were trying to say. I read it when I was tired.
A lesson that I have learned recently, don’t respond when you are tired, or don’t feel well.
I’m sorry
David:
The discussion of numbers is certainly NOT detracting from the post, but is representative of what I think one of the issues is regarding growth.
In society today, people expect transparency and the flow of information. The free flow of information is having profound impacts in the Middle East. WikiLeaks is dedicated to the free flow of information. Etc.
The Wikileaks incident of diplomatic cables is a perfect example. Were there a few things that were embarrassing? Sure. But they were all things that everyone thought anyway. It was actually refreshing to see our diplomats comment on them. And, at the end of the day, my take is that the diplomats involved were genuinely trying to do a good job for the country and in their position.
The issue with the LDS Church is the same. I don’t think there are a bunch of sinister people trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I think there are good people trying to do a good job. But, when there is such secrecy involved, people ascribe a more sinister motive. When the Church won’t release financial information, yet builds a $3 billion mall, people talk. When the Church handbook is under “lock and key” (even though it was available online BEFORE the training meeting), people talk. When the Brigham Young “Teachings for our Times” manual never mentions polygamy, as if that wasn’t a part of Brigham Young’s life, people wonder what else is being hidden.
I disagree with the maxim given before about only talking about faith-promoting things and not just true things. That may have worked in the past, but people today expect just the truth with as little spin as possible. They expect to be able to determine for themselves what the facts mean.
So, I think this attitude absolutely affects growth. When people hear one thing from the “official” Church, yet read something else on the internet about other things, it causes problems.
jmb/FireTag: Part of the reason myths are dying is that our scientific, materialist culture wants non-mythological explanations.
I think this is true to an extent, but at the same time, I think there is a swelling of people who believe in the Spiritual. I think there are many who believe in the interconnectedness of the universe and in the Divine. I actually think spirituality may be INCREASING as religion may be DECREASING.
I think the same applies to the LDS Church. I think the fundamental message is wonderful. A belief in God and Christ. A positive message on families and eternity. Human potential. God acting in our lives. Caring for each other. Priesthood. Etc. These are all spiritual values that I think are still valued.
Unfortunately, we are defined by things that seem illogical to the world. Coffee. A glass of wine. A white shirt and tie. Tattoos. Earrings. Covered shoulders. A rating given by the MPAA. Etc. These are all religious trappings that might not necessarily be seen as having any relationship to spirituality by much of the world.
So, I don’t know that the drifting of religion has as much to do with the loss of myth as it does with a rejection of seemingly arbitrary religious rules.
A quote from Heber C Kimball from the Journal of Discourses 6:32.
“Learn to do what you are told. If you are told to do something by your leader do it. None of your business if it is right or wrong,”
I believe this is important to note because today’s society we question everything. Questioning is what finally brought down the Nixon administration. Questioning is what brings transparency and change and that is a good thing. If a church or any organization refuses to answer questions and or tells you to look the other way when you see them doing wrong what does that say about the legitimacy of the organization?
Mike S:
I largely agree. I think the rigidity of rules (think of Mormon Heretic’s avatar) suppresses the spiritual and takes the mythology with it. Once the alternative, scientific world view takes hold, there’s no repairing the rift on the basis of the old worldview. Non-western cultures may be able to provide such a basis for reconciling the spiritual and material.
But I’d like to think that a revisiting of our Restoration roots in the 19th Century might provide a more appropriate bridge to the 20th and 21st Century West. It beats having to come forward from Greek theology in which most Christianity is still embedded.
Re: #53
The church may well have extenuating circumstances and/or expenses that explain why they failed to distribute what they collected under the guise of providing humanitarian aid. I will not contest that point because I devoutly hope that’s the case.
OTOH, below is an example of what another organization, namely Doctors Without Borders, is doing by comparison according to Charity Navigator, an independent auditor of charitable organizations. I was not able to provide similar analysis for the church as they do not disclose to Charity Navigator any more than they do to those of us who provide the tithing, fast offerings and extraordinary emergency donations.
I just don’t see why it is necessary or advisable to be so circumspect as a general principle. And if there are suspicions raised it really is the fault of that ill advised decision, in my personal opinion. That could be changed if the church decides to be more forthcoming.
(The following is a simple cut & paste from the Charity Navigator site but I did have to try to reproduce the formatting. I hope I was able to do that successfully.)
Overall Rating [4 stars out of a potential 4]
Organizational Efficiency
Program Expenses 86.8%
Administrative Expenses 1.3%
Fundraising Expenses 11.7%
Fundraising Efficiency $0.13
Efficiency Rating [3 stars out of a potential 4]
(33.68)
Organizational Capacity
Primary Revenue Growth 8.6%
Program Expenses Growth 23.6%
Working Capital Ratio (years) 0.50
Capacity Rating [4 stars out a potential 4]
(27.50)
————
Income Statement (FYE 12/2008)
Revenue
Primary Revenue $158,319,656
Other Revenue $1,893,014
Total Revenue $160,212,670
Expenses
Program Expenses $145,901,267
Administrative Expenses $2,293,299
Fundraising Expenses $19,705,258
Total Functional Expenses $167,899,824
Payments to Affiliates $0
Excess (or Deficit) for the year $-7,687,154
Net Assets $84,537,146
Kari,
I realize that in the absence of real data, it is trendy to be critical of where the money goes.
If we are to believe the Church’s data on the website, we have provided more than a Billion $ in humanitarian aid in the past 20 years when the program started. In addition, there have been thousands of people who have given of their time and talent around the world.
You are complaining about 1.6M pounds not distributed out of the UK? That is really a small amount of money in the overall scheme. Thank goodness you have not had the kind of disaster that would necessitate the expenditure of that money. perhaps the money is destined to stay in the UK for use when and if there is a need who knows.
Maybe I am jaded, but 2.5M is a very little amount of money these days.
Do you think the development of downtown SLC is being financed by member contributions? it is my understanding it is not.
Jeff,
I’d like to give a detailed response to your comment because I think you fail to realize how significant this amount of money truly is for saints in the UK.
However, I don’t have the time right now because of work commitments. But I’ll get back to you.
#47 jmb275 said referring to my #46:
You explained why we don’t experience the divine, by referencing a quote that says it’s because we don’t understand (underscoring my point). That is, you’re preaching the doctrine that the current church adheres to, that by teaching doctrine people will experience God. I simply don’t think that knowledge equates to experience, and I’d be surprised if you did. In your own testimony it is the EXPERIENCE that changed you, not the knowledge that you could have an experience, or the knowledge that there is a God. No, you felt, you witnessed, you experienced – and that changed your life.
——————————————–
My thoughts in #46 need to be expanded. I agree that knowledge by itself doesn’t equate to experience. Over the years, I’ve known people who know the doctrine of Christ but have little interest in following the Savior. I think they are exceptions to the rule though. Members who diligently acquire knowledge from prayerful study of the scriptures and the words of the living prophets begin to have a heightened desire to acquire greater degrees of righteousness. They know more about their fallen condition and their need for the Savior.
Having said this, the Lord also works with us individually. The general statement I made above allows members to view the things of God (see the kingdom of God), the Lord then works with us as individuals, knowing our deeper needs. He provides each of us customized experiences based on His knowledge of us as individuals that can bring us to the point where we are “justified” (clean hands-an event). Then we will have greater access to things of the Spirit also known as “sanctification” (pure in heart-a process). This is where we become eligible to enter into the Kingdom of God.
I think the reason we don’t experience more of the divine in our meetings comes from individual members treating lightly the doctrine of Christ (Alma 33:16).
I am not trying to be critical or find fault. I am using the scripture to explain what I think are challenges of the modern church.
James & David, etc.
Ok, the net revenues of the Church in England were negative, to about three million pounds (page 11 of the report).
Page 17 has a nice table of income.
Restricted income is listed on page 22 (that is income for restricted purposes).
24 teachers, 202 administration/staff (down to 163 by 2009), 236 janitors.
70k-80k salary band was the larger one (page 23) with 7 employees.
Fast offering expenditures were significantly higher than income in that area (page 24), though for that particular year humanitarian expenditures were flat (e.g. close to only 11 million). Note that humanitarian expenditures was the amount spent in the UK and Ireland on same. (page 25) and separate from the fast offering expenditures for those areas which dwarfed the donations, etc. for the humanitarian funds.
(pages are .pdf page locations, not document page numbers).
Employment figures include legal and audit/accounting staff and educators.
Some interesting numbers.
I did not see a 100k pound salary band, maybe I overlooked it. But the numbers made sense, especially when I looked at the fast offering and welfare payment numbers and that the humanitarian aid accounting was only for internal project payments.
Jeff:
Are we really comparing lawyer salaries? Seriously?
As to the sinister nature of the information, I think you’re overreacting. I certainly didn’t mean to ascribe anything sinister to it, but I am certainly flummoxed at the information. I’ve worked analyzing these sorts of documents for years, and while the information is useful to a degree – everyone who uses them is very good at hiding the “meat”. That’s the nature of the game. And, every single one of these audits is pre-programmed to come out looking as if the entity in question either lost money, or barely broke even. I would be absolutely shocked to see an audit by the Church in England that professed a $15 million net profit…that’s just not how the business of audits works.
Now, while it’s not likely sinister, and while it isn’t that much money in the grand scheme of things, you’d have to employ some pretty pollyanish thinking to believe that this same sort of document [and results] couldn’t be replicated in more than a few areas where the church operates. The Church is built on a platform very similar to the “profit centers” in the business world. Each center (be it a unit, a country or a division) is charged with making a profit. That is how it is run from the business perspective. Or, as Paul Toscano says, “Individually the Church is made up of great men, but get them together and they act like a corporation,” or something like that.
As a member of the Church, when I see figures like the Humanitarian Aid figures, it does bother me because it speaks to a larger issue [and Stephen, it wasn’t 11 million, it was 11 thousand pounds spent in 2009]. Namely, if I were an individual and I gave some charity the equivalent of $557,000 as a donation, and that charity reported back that they managed to only spend $17,000 of the donation towards its specified use, I would be more than a little bothered. If I did this over the course of 6 years, such that the charity’s track record was that it spent less than 10% of my donations towards its specified use, then I’d be dumb not to realize that past history generally predicts what an entity will do in the future. As such, if in the 7th year I donate $600,000 and only $15,000 was spent as I had intended it, people would start calling me stupid if I expected a different result.
However, with the church you get a pile of individuals pooling their funds together. In the issue at hand, say you have 10,000 people donating $55 each. You end up with the same $557,000 aggregate investment. This time, of that $55 each individual donates, the church invests only $1.70. The remaining $53.30 is sitting in some unknown account doing little other than not being used as I intended it to be used as a donation.
In the church we have this uncanny ability to give the church a pass on everything it does in the financial world.
Invest $400,000,000 in each new temple? No biggie. The Lord needs the best money can buy.
Invest $300,000,000 to re-build downtown Ogden? No biggie. The church needs to “shield” its temple.
Invest $3,000,000,000 to build City Creek Center? No biggie, they’re not using tithing funds… only, without tithing funds, they’d never have the $3 billion to build it in the first place. The circular logic to justify how CCC is being paid for is dizzying.
With 1 in 6 people in Utah living in poverty [and a similar ratio nation wide], the Church gets a pass while building a $3 BILLION for-profit venture with money earned directly on the back of tithing funds [interest proceeds]. Pass.
Take in $2,500,000 in Humanitarian donations, and only spend $200,000 over a six year period? No biggie. $2.5 million isn’t that much money to begin with.
Re: #66 – there isn’t a 100k salary band, but if you take the salary band they provide and multiply it by the exchange rate, then you get a band of $112k-$130k.
Here is how it is being financed.
You, Jeff, paid the following in tithing over 3 years:
2000: $10,000,000,000 (BILLION)
2001: $10,000,000,000 (BILLION)
2002: $10,000,000,000 (BILLION)
The money you donated as tithing in 2000 is invested in interest bearing accounts – stocks, bonds, REITS, Hedge funds, money market accounts, something – for 3 years. So, in 2003 the interest earned on that tithing money is siphoned off and is given to the Corporation to use and spend as it sees fit, for for profit ventures. So, assume you earn 5% interest on that money.
So the $10 billion you donate in 2000 earns $1.572 billion in interest over the 3 years it’s invested. Do that same calculation for 3 years, and at the end it you have $4.728 BILLION in interest proceeds that gets siphoned off from the “Restricted Funds” portion of some random audit and given to various for-profit ventures controlled by the Church.
Now that it’s siphoned off, the money is off any balance sheet that any of us would ever have access to. So, to relate this to the spiritual realm, is it possible to mingle God and Mammon? It’s incontrovertible that the Church clearly thinks it is (or at least is acting in a manner that it’s impossible to conclude otherwise).
And yes, that is a LOT of money.
True, that $4.728 BILLION money is not technically “tithing funds”, but without the “tithing donations” it would simply NEVER exist, and the Church would not likely be building things like City Creek Center because I doubt members would OK spending that much tithing money on it…especially when you consider the poverty people in South America or other 3rd world countries are living in every day. Very few people actually look at the circular logic used to justify how and where the money came from.
OK, here is my response to the whole situation.
I want, like you, for the Church to be more open about its finances.
I want, like you, for the Church to start acting more like a charity and less like a Fortune 200 company. This behavior certainly affects the ecclesiastical side as well as the temporal side.
I want, like you, to know where my money goes and to go more to helping people than to build giant shopping centers and “shooting fish in a barrel” hunting facilities.
I think the Church does a lot of good throughout the world with our funds. We have nice places to meet and beautiful Temple in which to perform our highest levels of worship. We were in Hawaii recently and enjoyed a beautiful Temple experience in a 10,700 sq ft Temple more than in a 200,000 sq ft one.
I have seen a lot of people try to take advantage of church resources. But, I also think we can do more.
BTW, I also think there is no reason why anyone in the world should go hungry, sick or not have a safe place to sleep each night. But you cannot always equate being poor or in poverty with not having the essentials of life.
David, the 11k was on humanitarian projects in the UK/Ireland, and, of course, the amounts in question are dwarfed by the fast offering funds spent.
I gather you object to the thought of reserves being built, but I don’t see it as so bad. That sort of thing fluctuates, between entities living off credit and entities that have too much in reserves.
But I don’t see the numbers, when I look at them in total, as telling the same story you do.
To me, perhaps, it’s not the absolute numbers but the principle that is the most important. The widow’s mite was worth a lot more (in principle) than a much large donation of a rich man.
Here are the best numbers I can find (from the Welfare Services Fact Sheet – 2009):
For cash donations from 1985-2009, the Church actually spent $327.6 million, or $13.1 million annually.
They then list “value of material assistance” as $884.6 million, or an additional $35.4 million annually. This is NOT money they spent. This is the value of our time and things we contribute. For example, at the top of the same column on that sheet they list 763,737 days of labor donated by Church members. They track that and count that as a “donation” the Church gives. They list missionaries serving in Welfare Services and count that.
So, at the end of the day, the Church spends $13.1 million annually on humanitarian projects (or $48.5 million if you include the value of our time).
While this seems a lot, it pales in comparison to the BILLIONS they take in each year, or the BILLIONS they spent on the Mall, or the tens of millions they spent last year just buying up random lots of property in downtown SLC last year alone.
And some may say that this is not an accurate figure, that the Church does a lot more that isn’t counted, like fast offerings, etc. Look at the left column of the referenced sheet. They list the types of things they are counting as “Welfare Services”. They include the bishop’s storehouse, fast offerings, thrift stores, etc. So the money we give for fast offerings which is redistributed by the Church is counted in these numbers. The money we give which is redistributed to the Red Cross in Japan is counted in these numbers.
So from their own information sheet, at the end of the day, the $13.1 million the Church gives a year INCLUDES fast offerings. Again, this may be a lot, but it pales in comparison to the $3 billion mall or other things listed above.
The Church feels bad about this, as it is really non-justifiable. Like they have done with everything else, they want to hide this information. Look at the fact sheet from 2010. They NO LONGER BREAK OUT the amount of cash they actually spend. Instead, they lump it into the other numbers in list it as $1.3 billion from 1985-2010. This probably looks a lot better in their eyes.
Stephen:
I get the rainy day mentality, but if you’re going to use that excuse, then sell the Humanitarian Fund as a “rainy day” fund. Be upfront about it. Say that the money may or may not be used in a timely fashion.
But, the implicit understanding is that it is going out on an ongoing, regular basis. The implicit understanding for those donating to the “Humanitarian Fund” is that the Church is donating funds/goods, and not storing that money up.
For example, the Church itself sells the Fund as this:
If they are urgent [and I’d argue there have been MANY urgent requests from 2004-2009], and if they are ongoing [and I’d argue they are], then there is simply no way to justify the “rainy day” figure.
George [above] provided a link to an article on what tithing was supposed [and is supposed] to be used for I’d recommend. Tithing, as evidenced by the vast amount of resources committed to the City Creek Center, is a perfect example of the Church using “rainy day” funds for whatever project they choose to spend it on, with no say from the members who donate the money.
If you want rainy day money, use the tithing funds…that is what they’re there for. If you want to establish a fund for “urgent and ongoing” temporal requests, use the Humanitarian Fund. But, don’t masquerade the Humanitarian Fund as providing for “urgent and ongoing” requests when you’re using it to justify more donations, or to use tithing for other things.
Mike has raised another interesting point, in that we no longer break out the actual cash donated. The reason why businesses do that sort of thing is because they’ve gotten flack for something they should be doing, but aren’t, and they’ve found out that if they hide the information in with a bigger number, most people stop asking questions. I’m not saying that that is what the Church is doing, but that is what Fortune 500 businesses (and others) do all the time in the business world.
P.S. Forgot to add the following on how the Humanitarian Fund is billed:
Regarding comment #72, what I would like to see announced this conference is a bit of transparency. I would like to see them say that we aren’t growing as fast as we used to, so it perhaps doesn’t make sense to keep building temples costing $50-100 million that aren’t fully utilized.
Therefore, we are going to take a 2-3 year pause in building temples and use the several hundreds of million saved for true humanitarian needs. If we can just save $324 million by not building a few temples, we can match the entire total of cash spent on humanitarian things for the past quarter of a century combined. The money could be better spent on people who are in dire straits. When/if the economy turns around in a few years, we can resume building temples again. But for now, we are going to help people more directly.
well three temples were announced, and President Monson is talking about Japan.
Mike S,
Your guess: 14,110,917
Actual number: 14,131,467
You were only off by 22,550 (quite a nice round number, I might add).
Kudos to you!!
Actually, Mike S. was off by 20 550, which is 0.14%!
Convert Baptisms were at 272 814, or 23 342 more than your prediction, which more than accounts for the (very little) he missed.
Good job!
Oops. Yeah. 20550.
Statical report on today’s conference was odd for me today. Maybe because this is my first as a non member, but, they keep and verbalize the amount of convert baptisms, they keep and verbalize child baptisms, but they don’t say how many have left. I guess they don’t really care
Sunshine,
Or perhaps they care *too much*!
If you follow Mike’s (winning) strategy, you can roughly put the number of people “leaving” the Church in the past six years thusly:
2010: 86,729
2009: 83,483
2008: 74,585
2007: 47,523
2006: 59,114
2005: 51,211
I suppose this represents a trend upward, but of course one would have to go farther back than six years (which I don’t want to do right now).
It also doesn’t mean this trend will be sustained in the future, but it’s not something that the Brethren would be happy to report.
Also, before 2008 it seemed annual desertion rates swung around 50k, whereas since 2008 it’s been swinging around 80k. I wonder how much Prop 8 has contributed to this… I also imagine the Brethren are wondering (worrying) about the same thing…
I would like to take a moment and brag about how close I was on some figures.
Category … My Prediction … Actual Report … Difference
Total Church Membership … 14,142,817 … 14,131,467 … 11,350 (0.08%)
Convert Baptisms … 286,365 … 272,814 … 13,551 (4.97%)
Increase in Children of Record … 125,252 … 120,528 … 4,724 (3.92%)
Member loss … 93,654 … 86,729 … 6,925 (7.98%)
Wards/Branches … 28,742 … 28,660 … 82 (0.29%)
Full-time Missionaries … 51,230 … 52,225 … 995 (1.9%)
Marcello,
That’s quite a jump from 2007 to 2008. It would definitely seem that Prop 8 had a very negative impact on church membership.
Now that the numbers are in, a few comments:
Total Members: Prediction 14,110,917. Actual 14,131,467. I was off by 20,550 (0.15%). Most of this came from being off in the Converts category. More on that below. This is a net growth of 306,613 members since last year, or 2.22%. While this is better than going backwards, it is still the lowest percentage in at least the several decades for which I have data. Around year 2000, the net growth was around 3%. Around year 1990, net growth was around 4-5%. So our growth rate is slowing down.
Converts: Prediction 249,472. Actual 272,814. I was off by 23,342 (8.5%). Ouch. The trend for the past decade plus was negative, but for the past few years, we’ve flattened out here. Just for comparison, the number of converts for 2009 was 280,106 and for 2008 was 265,593. While my prediction was off as the number flattened instead of decreasing, as a percentage of membership, the convert rate is also the lowest it has ever been at 1.97%. Again, just 10 years ago it was around 3%, or 50% higher. It will be interesting to see which way this goes in the future.
Children Born: Prediction 116,603. Actual 120,528. I was off by 3,925 (3.3%). This was the hardest number to predict as it bounces around a lot as a percentage of membership. The last 3 years have been higher than the previous 10 for whatever reason. I take my estimate here as just lucky.
Loss: Prediction 80,012. Actual 86,729. I was off by 6,717 (7.7%). More people left the Church/died than any previous year. Around the year 2000, this number was around 30-40,000. It is now more than double that. I’ll let people speculate as to why.
Analysis: A few comments:
– Given the continued decrease in missionary work and the increase in loss, the latest predictions are that in 21 years, around 2032, there will be as many people leaving the Church as converting to the Church. The only net growth at that point will be children born into the Church.
– Given the fact that only around 30% of converts are active 1 year after their baptism, this suggests that of the 272,814 converts, there will be 81,844 active in one year. With 86,729 leaving the Church (and an assumed 0% activity rate for this group), there is a net loss ALREADY, except for children born into the Church.
– Given this, I still hold to my premise in comments above that the current program is broken. We are already getting a net neutral change in active membership by the missionary program. And in not very much time, we will get an absolute net neutral change.
Something needs to change.
Mike S,
I apologize if you’ve covered this before, but where are you getting your 30% activity rate from?
I am aware that overseas census data indicate the numbers of self-professed Mormons at around 20-30% of official LDS total membership numbers for said countries, but I wasn’t aware of U.S. data that would suggest the same.
The 2007 PEW FORUM survey placed American “self-professed” Mormon rates at 1.7% of the U.S. population (or around 70% activity rate) and the 2008 ARIS survey at 1.4% of the U.S. population (or around 50% activity rate), which would raise the overall mean activity rate to around 40-50%.
Would you mind clarifying this a bit further?
(Which has no bearing on your general conclusion, with which I personally agree. I’d just like to check your data, IYDM.)
Marcello:
The 30% is obviously an estimate, as the Church doesn’t officially release that information. However, there is an extremely thorough website that covers this (and many, many more issues). To specifically answer your question, you can click here
Many people might claim that this is due to a general disinterest in religion throughout the world, but there is quite a bit of data that shows this is not true. From the same website:
And, finally, one more quote from the same site (with references there):
Interestingly, since some of these references, the growth rate has slowed even further from the 3% down to closer to 2%.
I’d still claim that we are trending the wrong direction. We need some game-changing alteration to our approach. I don’t claim to know what this is, as I’m just a lowly member not entitled to second-guess our leaders, but the simple fact that is if something doesn’t change, we are going to stagnate.
@Marcello – Keep in mind the keywords of the Pew Forum ARIS (American Religious IDENTIFICATION Survey). Identifying yourself with a particular religion is not the same as actually actively attending. There are many inactive Mormons who still claim to be Mormon. You see this a lot in Utah, where Mormonism is the predominant cultural demographic.
Additionally, the numbers for Mormon identification were only for United States residents. The US probably has the highest rate of church activity of any nation on earth. In many wards throughout Utah, activity is in the neighborhood of 60-70%.
BUT
There are still more church members OUTSIDE the US than in. And in many of those countries, activity rates are in the neighborhood of 20%. According to a PRO-Mormon website (http://www.cumorah.com/), one statistical study shows that in a country like Chile, LDS membership may even be as low as 10% active.
Based on studies I have done (comparing the rate of membership growth, to the rate of ward/branch growth), I have determined that LDS activity is about 38% worldwide. And that number is slowly declining each year.
Bottom line: Don’t confuse the terms “Activity” and “Identification”.