While I think the shift does indeed get tied to generational shifts starting in the 90’s, it’s important to note that this takes time. Public views on say gay marriage really didn’t shift dramatically until the last 10 years. Which is a way of saying that I suspect this is part of the change – especially at the generational level. (20 – 30 year olds) But I personally am skeptical it’s a major fact. Although I’d hold off making judgements until the latest ARIS data gets released in a year or so.

The difficulty of course is that sects that are more positive towards issues of gender politics tend to be hemorrhaging members much faster than conservative sects. That’s been true since at least the early 80 but especially since the 90’s. So what people are interested in just isn’t Christianity period but a relatively loose and vague notion of spirituality.

Africa, where it’s quite possible we’ll have our next growth spurt unless we figure out Asia, will likely be poor for a while. But I could easily see the day within my lifetime where there are far more tithing dollars from outside the US than inside.

Of course while I feel somewhat informed about Canada and the US and perhaps even Europe (where I’m sure we’ll shrink) the rest of the world I feel completely unable to have much of an opinion.

For the US, I suspect we’ll match growth in the future. That is as the growth rate of the US decreases we’ll tend to decrease as well. That assumes no big immigration surges as in the 90’s. (Although we caught up with that one too)

Death rate = 0.9% (approximately equal to world death rate)
Growth rate = (Overall activity rate) * (Children of Record + Converts per year)
Overall activity rate = 0.33 (generous estimate)
Children of Record = 150,000 per year (generous estimate)
Convert baptisms = 300,000 per year

So, 0.009 * (MAX STEADY STATE ACTIVE MEMBERS) = (0.33) * (150,000 + 300,000)

Solving gives MAX STEADY STATE ACTIVE MEMBERS = 16.8 million
Relatedly, the Max for TOTAL MEMBERS ~ 50 million

I welcome corrections on my math – (Clark, please feel free to edit out any mistakes!) Given that active membership is currently about 5 million, we will continue growing for many years to come, but will be unlikely to grow beyond 50 million total members (or 17 million active members), based on current trajectories.

While we don’t have the data to establish it I think there is a narrative that explains the data well. Not everyone will agree with it of course. That is that as the immature missionaries come out in 2013 they are spread among companionships with the older and also experienced missionaries. Mixed in with the 2013 are older new missionaries. I think the drop is partially to not having enough work for the influx of missionaries. (According to many reports the western US got a disproportionate number of them and they were primarily used for reactivation efforts)

A plausible explanation is that the first half of 2013 was more like 2012, perhaps with a slight drop in efficiency (.20 – .30) and then the second half of 2012 was extremely disruptive dropping efficiency a great deal. The average ends up giving us 3.41. In 2014 the disruption is adjusted for and the efficiency improves a bit, but not back nearly to trend. This then persists through 2014 and 2015.

Of course the test of this will be next year’s data. If it’s about the same for 2016 then my thesis is correct.

The argument that there is a fixed number of potential converts and throwing more missionaries at it doesn’t help isn’t born out by the data I think. After all we have to explain that big drop of 40,000 converts in 2015 as well as the increases of 10,000 for years 2012, 2013, and 2014.

The main argument, as I see it, against my thesis is that 2012 is the key year. That’s before the change in missionaries but already there was a drop of 10,000 converts despite an increase of around 3,000 missionaries. In that year the efficiency drops at twice the rate of prior years as well. I agree that’s a possibility but I’m not sure what’s special about 2012 and I still don’t think that explains 2015.

The point about record growth in stakes and wards is worth considering too. While it’s not as good as having activity statistics for baptized members, I suspect it’s a loose proxy for activity statistics. I am touching on that in my next demographics post.

As for right reasons, I think ultimately it’s about helping other people. I baptized far fewer people than my friends, but I saw huge differences in the lives of some of the people I baptized. At least half of the people I baptized are still active now after 20 years. (I was just contacted on Facebook recently by one convert)

That said it can sometimes be discouraging looking at effects. When I was on my mission in Louisiana we had great success in the black community. One ward went from basically no blacks to being half black just in the time I was there. Yet I see the Pew data and only 1% of the Church is black. That suggests to me that despite some success in the late 80’s that overall we as a Church have hit a wall. In my opinion there really are many people ready for the gospel but we may have to modify both how we do things but also perhaps to a degree how we do our meetings. While I tend to look askance at complaining about a “Wasatch Front cultural church” I do think one size fits all for all communities can be a problem.

All that said I have been impressed with how the Church does pay attention. They seem like they’ve become far more sophisticated in things. For instance some of David Stewart’s suggestions at Cumorah.com from several years ago have been adopted. Much faster than I’d have suspected. We had the missionaries over for dinner a couple of weeks ago (hard to do in Provo given the number of members) and I was impressed at how they are using technology. (They had iPads to show presentations) I think there was more than a little room for improvement (the speakers on iPads are insufficiently loud for instance – they should carry portable speakers) But I’m impressed at how the church is being nimble on these issues.

I just find these demographic topics fascinating. I’ve been interested it ever since the first batch of analysis in the 90’s started coming out. As I said I found those very questionable. (Extrapolating exponential growth in unrealistic ways back then) Even though I’ve not been blogging as much the past years, I do often comment on demographic issues.