Low LDS Convert Retention Rate

The Growth of the Mormon Church Now Relies on People Born into Faith

Jul 5, 2008

Although the number of baptisms reported has remained fairly steady, most people baptized into the Mormon faith become inactive shortly after joining the church.

The missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints work hard to bring new people into the fold and to spread the gospel worldwide. The task of spreading the word of the Lord has become a difficult task for the the young Mormon missionaries. Even if a missionary is successful and baptizes a new convert.

The trend toward negative church growth in industrialized countries has not gone unnoticed by the largest Salt Lake based Mormon denomination. The October 2006 issue of The Ensign was devoted specifically to new members of the church. LDS leadership acknowledges the poor convert retention rate and has taken steps to change this, including changing the discussions that the missionaries teach to perspective converts, according to John Charles Duffy's article "Preach My Gospel" that appears in Sunstone Issue 138.

LDS Convert Retention Rate

The Mormon Wiki reports that the church is now the second fastest growing church in America, but this includes the total number of members the church has on its records. This includes many people who have passed away or no longer consider themselves to be Mormon. The Mormoninformation.org web site reports that the Church includes voluntary name removals as part of its membership numbers.

The LDS Church News web site reports an increase in the total membership numbers, but a reduction in the number of stakes that the church owns worldwide. The number of Mormon temples in operation has increased to 122, but this has no impact on the actual number of people who consider themselves to be Mormon.

The convert retention rate for first generation Mormons is zero percent, according to a Peggy Stack's June 22, 2006 aticle, "Kepping Members a Challenge for the LDS Church" that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune. The Mormon Wiki reports that this makes up 64% of the church total membership. Of the 8 million people who still consider themselves to be Mormon, about half of those are active, according to John Dehlin's presentation "Why People Leave the LDS Church."

Church Efforts to Improve Convert Retention Rate

The leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has responded to this trend by trying to increase the quality of converts, instead of focusing merely on the number of baptisms. This includes missionary training materials that are designed to be more focused on the promptings of the spirit in order to gain quality converts.

Although no studies have been done to show a correlation, charts on the LDS Church News web site show a reduction in the rate of growth that coincides with the increase of the popularity of the World Wide Web. It is hard to know whether the decline is due to easily accessible information that is not always favorable to the Mormon faith or if the advent of the popular Internet service is merely a coincidence that happened at the same time as the slowdown in church growth.

The copyright of the article Low LDS Convert Retention Rate in Mormonism is owned by Shawn Landis. Permission to republish Low LDS Convert Retention Rate in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.