I wanted to use this post to weigh in on some important posts done by Matthew Martinich, the blogger of the LDS Church Growth blog.
This one discusses potential new missions that may be announced and created next year. There follows in the comments an excellent and instructive series of comments regarding the growth in the Church resulting from the creation of new church units.
This one was supposed to highlight the creation of new stakes recently in Arizona, Brazil and Utah, along with the creation of a new district in the Ivory Coast. For some reason, and for the first time in all the time I've followed Matt's blog, the information about the new Utah stake was not included in that post. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I only mention this next part reluctantly. Since the new stake was in St. George, the birth city of my father, and since I was curious about the new stake that was referenced, I dug as deeply as I could. It occurred to me after a few minutes that I could find the information on Rick Satterfield's excellent LDS Church Temples site by looking under the St. George Temple District. There I found the information on the wards in that stake, and I reported my findings in my next comment on that post. Matt initially promised to include the information in the post later last week, but he must have decided against doing so.
As Matt noted in an earlier post this month, the Church is well on track to have created 100 stakes this year. That's the most stake creations in a single year within the past decade. And as has been noted on Matt's blog itself, only nine more stakes need to be created in the four weeks between now and then. With about 3 weeks to get those stakes created (no stakes are likely to be created on Christmas Day), only 3 per week is the magic number to reach that milestone.
Church growth is significant, of that there is no doubt. And we are blessed to live in a time when the growth of the Church can be found at the click of a button. Matt's strength seems to be noting overall Church growth. With Rick's excellent site, you can easily learn of the latest Church units created, and especially the latest in temple news. I hope this blog is one that can also be looked to for the latest news, whatever it is, about the LDS Church. If that can be my lifelong labor of love, and if I can make a difference for just one person by blogging about such things, I will count myself most lucky.
Thanks for reading and (if you feel so inclined), giving me your feedback on my posts. It always helps to hear about people who follow this blog and to have their insights into what I have to report. Thanks to you all.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Important posts by Matthew Martinich
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
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In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.
At the same time, however, I recognize that we live in a time when incivility, discourtesy, unkindness, and even cyber-bullying has regrettably become part of online interactions. With that in mind, while anyone who wishes can comment on anything if they choose to do so, I hereby reserve the right to immediately delete any comments which are critical, unkind, lack civility, or promote prodcuts, services, and values contrary to either the Church, or to the rules of online etiquette.
I'd also like to remind all who comment here that I try to respond personally to each individual comment as I feel is appropriate. Such replies are not meant to end the conversation, but to acknowledge earnest feedback as it is submitted.
And in order to better preserve the spirit and pure intentions for which this blog was established, I also hereby request that anyone not commenting with a regular user name (particularly those whose comments appear under the "Unknown" or "Anonymous" monikers, give the rest of us a name to work with in addressing any replies. If such individuals do not wish to disclose their actual given names, a pseudonym or nickname would suffice.
Any comments made by individuals who opt to not give a name by which they can ber identified may, depending on the substance and tone of such comments, be subject to deletion as well. I would respectfully ask that all of us do all we can to keep the dialogue positive, polite, and without malice or ill-will. May the Lord bless us all in our discussion of these important matters.