For what they may be worth to any of you, here are some
musings I put together regarding Church growth that has happened thus far this
year, and how the whole picture of overall Church growth may look by the end of
this year. These are no more and no less than my own thoughts, and I hope to
always be the first to recognize my own need to open up any line of thought to
suggestion, clarification, and correction from you, my readers, as any of you are
likely far better qualified to know whether or not I am off-base than I might
consider myself to be. With that hope, I wanted to note the fact that there
will be 53 Sundays in 2017, I have calculated that 37 of them have come and
gone, which totals roughly 70% of all Sundays that will take place this year.
Therefore, the 16 Sundays that are left will comprise the remaining 30% of this
year.
Thus far, the Church has seen a net increase of 41 stakes
this year, which works out to roughly 1.1 stakes created each Sunday. If the Church
continues stake creations at the same rate during the remainder of this year,
then the Church will have added another 18 stakes or so within the last 16
Sundays that are left this year, for a net increase of 59 stakes total this
year. That said, as I have noted elsewhere, August and September are often
banner months for new stake creations. This year has been no different. With
the six Sundays that have happened thus far in that August/September period, 9
new stakes have been created, which is an average of 1.5 stakes per week. If
that follows for the next two weeks, we will have 3 additional new stakes. And
if the rate of 1.1 new stakes cited above continues for the remaining 14
Sundays that will then be left in 2017 (for the final third of the year), then the
rest of the year will see a net increase of 16 new stakes by the time the last
day of 2016 rolls around. That means that we will then have seen a net increase
of 78 stakes during 2016, and would bring the total number of stakes at the end
of 2017 to 3,385.
In the meantime, the Church has seen a net decrease of 11
districts during this year thus far, which means the Church has lost an average
of 0.3 districts per week. If that average continues, then the Church will lose
5 more districts by the end of this year, and will have thus marked a net
decrease of 16 districts during 2017, bringing the year-end total number of
districts to 540.
The Church has, as always, seen a substantial increase in
wards and branches thus far in 2017, having marked a net increase of 32
congregations over the 37 Sundays that have passed, for an average increase of
0.86 per week. If that continues, the Church will add 14 more congregations
minimum, which will then bring the total number of those congregations to a
year-end net increase of 46, and the total number of congregations at the end
of the year to a grand total of 30,350. I have previously mentioned the
feedback I got from a few of you to the effect that there are around 100 “sensitive
units” counted among the total number given each year in the Church’s
statistical report (though not included in most people’s “running totals”), and
I have rounded that to a rough 75. With that in mind, it is not hard to
estimate the year-end number of wards and branches at being somewhere around
30,425. Time will tell how accurate that might be. I for one am hoping that
each of those numbers will be slightly higher at the end of this year.
Again, though I am by no stretch of anyone’s imagination
able to be considered a Church growth expert, these are some musings I had on
the subject, for what they may be worth to any of you. As with anything else I
publish on this blog, I am always open to suggestion and correction as they
relate to these musings. So, feel free to comment away! In the meantime, thank
you for the privilege of your time, and may the Lord bless you all until my
next post. Until that time, I wish you all the best.
How many district are lost due to becoming stakes and how many because they were discontinued? In a few cases I think two nearby districts have been united to become a stake.
ReplyDeleteChris, that is a good question, but, as I have said, some questions, especially those of that nature, are not within my expertise. I have mainly undertaken reporting on Church unit changes because I use the end-of-year totals I can get my hands on to refine my estimates for what the statistical report presented in April might look like. The transitions that have been made in terms of districts (whether being discontinued to form a stake, or being abolished) have been well documented by others, and I feel more confident in leaving it to them to answer that question. But what I do know is that, since writing this post late last night, the report of one more stake came in, this one in Brazil. I am sure that the Church growth experts that document these kinds of things so well will be doing posts on these new stakes, and then we will know more. Hope my response does not offend you, Chris, and thanks for your question. I am sorry that I don't feel qualified enough to give you a good answer. I haven't followed these things that extensively. Thanks again.
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