Talk:Membership statistics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Request to delete article
This article has been tagged for deletion with the concern "WP:NOT a repository for randomly arbitrary datasets". I have checked WP:NOT and associated Wikipedia guidelines and find nothing that would indicate this article should be deleted for this reason. This article is similar to other articles in that it defines population data for geographic areas and illustrates it with a colored map. A difference is that this article defines a religion population, which should make no difference. On this basis and as a follower of Inclusionism, I believe this article should not be deleted, at least until the Wikipedia community has had a chance to adequately discuss it. I am therefore removing the delete tag. If User:Ravenna1961 (the user who tagged this article) or someone else believes it should be deleted, would you please follow the procedures described in Articles for deletion. Truthanado 02:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It is six years later and I found the article with a Google-search, wanting to know if Norway has more than 4,000 members as mention in the Norway article. Turns out they have 4,566 members so that was good for me to find out.  I agree that the information in this article is excellent and not 'random info'. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 17:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)  Hence, I set a 'watch' here — excellent WP work here; congrats!

Pew Forum - U.S. Religious Landscape Survey
Did anyone happen to notice how close the numbers are from the Pew Forum and the church's official statistics. Self identified members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make up 1.6% of the US population according to the report - see http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations. At 300,300,000 estimated Americans at the end of 2007 (see http://www.census.gov/popest/national/NA-EST2007-01.html). That means Pew estimates that there are 4,820,800 members of the LDS church - not too far from the church reported figure of 5,779,316. However the Pew estimates are only for adults so that means that there are about 3,643,500 adults over 18 that are self identified members of the LDS church. Here is the front page for the report http://religions.pewforum.org/ -- Trödel 22:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw parts of the article. I also thought it was interesting. Surveys rarely take into account statistics geographically. I remember the Salt Lake Tribune did an article about mormon statistics and refered to a phone survey. They forgot to mention Phone surveys aren't very accurate when 25% of the mormon population lives in a tiny part of the country.

So i guess the church has some pretty accurate statistics afterall... especially when you factor in the MLS program.


 * For WP editors that may not know, the MLS (membership) computer software links from every worldwide branch/ward to SLC—so when someone is born or baptized at age 8 (or convert baptisms) the info is uploaded. It is not unexpected that stats are very accurate since the data is considered very important by those involved. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 17:27, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Missing the single most important piece of information
So I came to this article looking for one thing - a total count of members. How is it that the single most important piece of information relative to this article is nowhere to be found? Ridiculous. In before fix it yourself. I am moving on from this article which strikes me as a waste of space. --75.71.29.193 (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * See The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints membership history or https://lds.org/church/statistics?lang=eng Dmm1169 (talk) 01:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

✅ — Thanks to reader 75...193 (hope reader comes back) and to DMM-1169 for the excellent links. I used the second link for "In 2013, the membership of the LDS Church surpassed 15 million" adding to the introductory paragraph (Lede). — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

hi
i have been looking for a way to locate and contact the branch but no way i am from africa i but i am here in malaysia pls; can i get the location pls — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.82.80.36 (talk) 01:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ — Go to http://mormon.org/meetinghouse and put your city in the search box. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 20:45, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Trustworthy Source?
This article should NOT use data provided by the LDS church, but should use verifiable numbers. The Salt Lake Tribune has successfully filed freedom of information acts requesting actual data, that shows huge differences between reported numbers and the real data. An article titled the Shrinking Majority published on July 24, 2005 in the Salt Lake Tribune had clear referenced data on not only US population Statistics, but World Wide numbers as well. They showed MASSIVE falsifications by the LDS church. They compared local census to church numbers and found that the LDS church to be off by factors of 4 or 5 times in 14 countries from around the world. They placed World Wide estimates of LDS membership at just over 1-million. US estimates were in the 4-million range and shrinking. I have the graphics but can't figure out how to upload them. And of course, the article has been pulled down out of the archives of the Tribune. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.121.70 (talk) 22:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * User 76.94.121.70, This article shows the geographic the consecrations of members, wards, stakes, etc., which includes active and less active members. This is better explained at Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tonga. I have not found any world-wide surveys other than what the church reports, and nobody has posted any on the page (please post it if you have any reliable data of this sort - using wikipedia guidelines).  U.S. Nationwide surveys are found at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints membership statistics (United States) which shows the percentage of adults that claim LDS or Mormon.


 * Also, the LDS church does not openly publish sacrament meeting attendance, temple attendance, etc. Where I'm located as well as other areas I know, sacrament meeting attendance has continually been on the rise.  So it would be interesting to see where it's suppositively shrinking. Dmm1169 (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * To upload graphics under toolbox select Upload File and follow the instructions. Dmm1169 (talk) 01:12, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I would question the trustworthiness of a source that would place the Maldives and the Seyshelles in the South Pacific area. These islands are in the Indian Ocean and should not be considered part of the South Pacific. Who checks this stuff? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.4.188.206 (talk) 00:55, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's been a year and this question is unanswered. Can someone 'watching' this page check? -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 23:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 08:08, 8 October 2019 (UTC)75.169.148.17 (talk) Seyshelles has been added to Africa table.

I propose that the tile be changed to "self-reported membership statistics." Matters would be clarified. All readers would know who/what compiled the numbers and be able to evaluate the numbers' significance for themselves. Tapered (talk) 00:30, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Clarity, Neutral language, Lede
The changes I made to the lede in no way changed the information, but emphasized the statistics are self-reported by LDS. The phrase 'active and less active' verges on euphemism, implying no 'inactive' members. Although there are undoubtedly degrees of participation, 'active and inactive' is clear. I'll add more info later, but Wikpedia 'search' is down right now. Tapered (talk) 08:33, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Citation verification failed
The figures shown in this table are not available at the source cited at the beginning of the article. So I'm not sure where these numbers have come from. If someone can clarify this, they can feel free to remove the citation tag I stuck at the beginning of the table. --Trevdna (talk) 23:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Trevdna, Thank you for your feedback! I'm assuming when you state figures, you mean data in table rather than the maps at the bottom. While I was the one that posted this table/page in 2007, other than some recent formatting, I have not updated the table data for more than 8 years. The church newsroom site is still showing December 31, 2019 stats which appears to be what the table is showing. December 31, 2000 churchwide was released at general conference, but this is not divided in individual countries/territories. I believe the source information should be listed above the table in the section rather than in the header. Especially if other info is added to the page (ie. if public survey info between countries becomes available).--Dmm1169 (talk) 14:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Space between column header and reference indicator
I've inserted a space between column header and reference indicator (for lack of better term) in effort to keep header word from splitting unless needed. When a space is inserted, the reference indicator will drop below the text in the column header when the column is slightly two narrow. When it's more narrow, the word would then hyphenate. When there's no space, the word automatically gets hyphenated. Essentially, the space is to reduce splitting and hyphenating header words until it's absolutely needed. Let me know if there's a better way to do this. Thanks. -Dmm1169 (talk) 23:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

While it can matter the difference between splitting or keeping words together on smaller pcs and laptops, when there is no space between the last syllable and the footnote indicator, it lengthens the width of the column making more scrolling for those viewing from small devices such as phones and tablets.-Dmm1169 (talk) 03:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Separating table to Membership and Congregational info
Considering separating main table to "Membership" and "Congregations and Facilities". "Membership" would include membership/population data in main table and include the auto-hidden table of "Membership Growth" into "Membership". Country/Territory Flags would be added in front of name. There is currently 13 columns and reducing the number of columns would make it a little easier to be seen by smaller screens such as tablets and mobile devices.

Membership table would include the following 8 columns: Note: Churchwide membership info has its own page.
 * Country (Flag icon would be included before each country/territory)
 * Area (See explanation in "Replace..." below)
 * 2009 (As shown currently in Membership Growth Table) (Date is intended to be for membership at or close to a decade prior, for most to most recent)
 * 2019 (As shown currently in Membership Growth Table) (Use date of most recent. 2019 membership info is the latest released -will adjust accordingly if additional gets released. Last year, the church did not release the previous year's membership info by country for the year prior [2020] like they usually do.)
 * Change (As shown currently in Membership Growth Table)
 * % of total growth (As shown currently in Membership Growth Table)
 * Population (As shown currently) (For better accuracy, Population counts/estimates used correspond as closely to year of most recent membership count. Note: this is a count of those having membership "records" and not polling data.)
 * %LDS (As shown currently)

Congregations and Facilities table (10 columns)
 * Country (Flag icon would be included before each country/territory)
 * Area (See explanation in "Replace..." below)
 * Tem­ples (As shown currently)
 * Mis­sions (As shown currently)
 * Dis­tricts (As shown currently)
 * Stakes (As shown currently)
 * Wards (As shown currently)
 * Bran­ches (As shown currently)
 * Con­gre­ga­tions (As shown currently)
 * FHC (As shown currently)

Replace "Continent" with Church "Area"

As mentioned in List of Missions talk page, recommend using "Area" rather than "Continent". The six US & Canada areas would simply be listed as "North America" besides US & Canada. Church Areas tend to group large area culturally than just by continent. Examples: This also utilizes "Area" in stats page which is the only significant congregational group not shown in table. I don't see the need to have both area and continent on the table because area has the continent in its name (with exception of above and Brazil, Mexico, and Philippines which have their own areas named after them). There is currently no intention to change continent templates to Area as other "religion/faith/denomination in" templates uses continents and church Areas change from time to time.
 * Europe East Area is geographically mostly in Asia. But culturally, these Asian countries tend to be more similar to Eastern European countries than with other Asian countries.
 * Middle East/North Africa countries are far closer to each other than the rest of Africa or Asia.
 * Caribbean Area consists of countries/territories in South America that is geographically and culturally closer to the Caribbean than to the rest of Latin America.

Any additional input, suggestions? Anything I'm missing or is something too much? Please comment with your suggestions-Dmm1169 (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Formal resignation
I note the section on membership definition does not mention formal resignation (asked to have their name removed) from the church. The section should probably make clear whether those who've resigned are still counted or not. Erp (talk) 00:57, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I was hoping to respond with an easy straight-forward answer.
 * My first assumption is that when one resigns their membership, it's removed and therefore not counted. But it doesn't appear to be that clear after reading General Handbook section 32.14.9. According to this section, resigning Church membership
 * Revokes all ordinances.
 * Removes all membership privileges.
 * Readmission by baptism and confirmation can occur only after a thorough interview and, in many cases, a membership council (see 32.16.2).
 * A previously endowed person is eligible to receive a restoration of priesthood and temple blessings only with First Presidency approval and after at least one full year from readmission
 * So I'm not sure if record is fully removed and if not, if its still counted in stats. I'm thinking the answer is that it's not counted, but nothing I've found states one way or the other.
 * Also, for members not regularly attending, there maybe a lapse in time between a death of a member and the church finding out. The church tries to keep their records updated, but situations like this can skew numbers of what should have been counted to some degree. Those born in the covenant to members not regularly attending may not get recorded. So there is a number of issues that can skew what is reported and what's actual due to lack of reporting to the church. -- Dmm1169 (talk) 18:52, 30 June 2022 (UTC)