Mormon Global Growth Rates 2015-2019

This article builds on an earlier post about growth rates per US state from 2015 to 2018. It is now expanded to cover all regions as defined by the Mormon Church in its statistical reporting at mormonnewsroom.org. Also, a prediction for 2019 has been added by extending the trend of the previous years using the least squares method. Finally, the growth patterns are now calculated from a moving average rather than estimated on sight.

Heat map of US growth rates 2015-2018

Below is a heatmap of growth rates per US state from 2015 to 2018. These are based on the number of active members from 2014 till 2018, assuming an overall activity rate of 40%. A few observations:

Mormon Membership and Congregation Growth Rates 2015-2017

Mormon congregations are run by volunteers, and the Church aims to provide a suitable volunteer job – a “calling” – to every member. There is a more or less fixed number of such callings per congregation. By the time people get assigned to ring the proverbial Sunday school bell, it’s time to create a new congregation with new leadership opportunities and teaching positions.

The Disproportionate Mormon Missionary Effort

Besides polygamy, the Mormon Church is best known for its missionaries. That may be because there are so many of them. Consider these numbers:

Updated: A Quantitative Model of Mormon Tithing Revenue

In his book “The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power”, historian D. Michael Quinn estimates the Mormon Church’s revenue from tithing in 2010 at $33 billion. This article is an attempt to explain two things: why Quinn’s estimate is wrong, and how to arrive at a more realistic number. For the second part, the results of an updated version of mormonism101.com's quantitative model of Mormon tithing revenue will be presented here.

Key Figures 2014-2015

To see longer-term trends, check out the statistics page on this site. The numbers below are screenshots of an Excel-document because the Blogger platform on which this site runs is bad with tables - and I am bad at HTML.

LDS Growth Trends 2014-2015

In 2015, the Mormon Church grew by 1.70%, the lowest growth rate since 1937. In the 186-year history of the Church, only 19 years had lower growth rates:

Mormon Attrition 1975-2014

At the Mormon church’s April General Conference, church leader Quentin Cook remarked the following on the number of members leaving the church:

Number of Mormons to Peak at 20 Million in 2045

The Mormon church traditionally announces a statistical update during its April General Conference. For many years now, these numbers seem to show consistent, even exponential growth, making church leader Quentin Cook recently proclaim that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never been stronger. The increase in demonstrably measurable areas, such as endowed members with a current temple recommend, adult full-tithe payers, and those serving missions, has been dramatic. Let me say again, the Church has never been stronger”.

Limitations of the Model for Mormon Growth

Mormonism101.com’s model for the growth of the Mormon church predicts that the total membership number will level off at about 20 million members in 2045. This prediction is based on two assumptions which will be discussed in this article:

A Predictive Model for Mormon Temple Locations 1997-2008

In October 1997, Mormon church president Gordon Hinckley announced that the church would start constructing small temples in areas “that are remote, where the membership is small and not likely to grow very much in the near future” (Hinckley 1997). Two years later, however, he stated:

“In view of the fact that we do not build a temple until there are sufficient people in the area, until there are sufficient tithe payers, and until there is sufficient faith, the very construction of these sacred buildings becomes an indicator of the increase of faith and obedience to the principles of the gospel” (Hinckley 1999).

How Big is the Mormon Church?

In 2014, the Mormon church claimed 15 million members. Most of these members, however, hardly ever go to a Mormon church. A significant number don’t consider themselves Mormon. Some may not even know they are counted as members by the Mormon church. This article takes a closer look at some of the underlying statistics.

A Quantitative Model of Mormon Tithing Revenue

All Mormons are expected to donate at least 10% of their income to the Mormon church (additional opportunities for charitable giving with varying degrees of obligation are numerous). This is called “tithing” and is required to gain access to religious privileges like baptism and temple rituals.