Stokes Sounds Off: LDS Church Growth Reddit Created; Several New Developments Reported on the LDS Church Growth Blog

Search This Blog

Leaderboard

Saturday, August 25, 2018

LDS Church Growth Reddit Created; Several New Developments Reported on the LDS Church Growth Blog

Hello again, everyone! In a recent post on the LDS Church Growth Blog, Matthew Martinich announced the creation of an LDS Church Growth reddit to more fully discuss matters relating to Church growth. This will not replace the discussion threads on the blog; rather, it will give us all an opportunity to have more deep discussions on specific Church growth matters than the threads of that blog might otherwise allow.

I have started a subject covering President Nelson's temple-building plans. In the comments of that discussion, it was noted by someone (Matt himself, unless I am mistaken) that he had talked to a stake president who recently spoke to President Oaks. According to what President Oaks shared with that stake president (who relayed it to Matt), part of that plan will indeed involve an acceleration of the process of constructing temples, which will include some way in which the current backlog of 19 announced temples will begin construction fairly quickly.

The extent of those plans is unknown, but it is nice to have that at least confirmed. If that turns out to be the case, then I have no doubts whatsoever that new temples will be announced during General Conference in around a month. That said, I am still evaluating which of the four lists I referenced in this post should be the one I use for the upcoming General Conference.

In the meantime, I also wanted to share that Matt has published a number of to other new posts within the last week, all of which may be of interest to some of you here. You can find those newly-published posts here. I continue to monitor the discussions on the new reddit and new content on the LDS Church Growth Blog and will pass new developments and insights along to you which may be of interest to you all.

That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

2 comments:

  1. Those comments from temple and stake presidents about President Nelson's goals and desires along with Sister Jones and Elder Bednar are so exciting. I hope he's goals are far enough along in the planning that we will see the starting of it all in announcements come Oct.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Kenny! Thanks for stopping by to comment. I always appreciate hearing from you. My biggest take-away from those comments is that the plans involve both expediting the process whereby temples go from announcement to groundbreaking and construction to dedication (which is very good news for the 19 temples which have currently not gone beyond an announcement), but also some way in which the number of temples worldwide will be greatly expanded.

    During President Hinckley's administration, we saw the number of temples increase from 47 to 124, which increased the number of temples by roughly 264 percent. I was curious, so I ran the numbers. If President Nelson matches what President Hinckley does, then within the next 5-10 years, the number of temples could increase to around 420. But since President Nelson's plans are anticipated to seemingly outpace and overshadow President Hinckley's previous legacy, we could be looking at a bunch of smaller temples being built rapidly, which may mean a higher number than that could be in place within that same period of time. It will surely be interesting to see.

    But you raise another interesting point, Kenny. Would President Nelson wait until October to detail how all of that will occur, or is it possible that the Church could announce within the next month that several groundbreakings will occur before the end of this year?

    Another interesting thing to consider in all of this is something I have previously wondered: How extensive should my list of potential temple locations be for next General Conference? If President Nelson's plans involve expediting the process of temple construction in addition to announcing several dozen new temple locations, then nothing can be ruled out. At the same time, with a backlog of 19 announced temples, I would understand if the Church held off on announcing new temples until that backlog had cleared somewhat. Whether or not we find out anything before the October General Conference, it will be interesting to see it all unfold. Thanks, Kenny, for taking time to comment.

    ReplyDelete

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.