{"id":348,"date":"2005-12-08T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-08T16:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/?p=348"},"modified":"2007-03-31T09:49:35","modified_gmt":"2007-03-31T16:49:35","slug":"30-year-church-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/2005\/12\/08\/30-year-church-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"30 Year Church Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to go through the reports of the April general conferences since 1974 and track the number of converts reported each year. I noticed some interesting things.<\/p>\n

\"Church<\/a><\/p>\n

First of all, there was a huge amount of growth from 1974-1990. The bulk of this time was under President Kimball’s administration and five years of it was under President Benson’s.<\/p>\n

Second, there appear to be small pockets of growth decline every few years.<\/p>\n

Third, from 1978 to 1982, the reported number of converts was rounded to the thousands place (152,000, 193,000, etc).<\/p>\n

Finally, and perhaps most notably, the number of converts has been on a general decline since 1990, when it had reached a record 330,877 converts. In fact, last year, the number of converts reported was at the lowest it has been in 16 years.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (02 April 2006): Added 2005 stats. Annual growth for 2003?\u00a2\u201a\u00c7\u00a8\u201a\u00c4\u00fa2005 has been stable at roughly 240,000. I could not find stability trends in other years.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (31 March 2007): Added 2006 stats. Convert growth is back on the rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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