Inactivity

Over the past decade, the Church has taken several steps to help increase the number of converts retained and to improve the depth of conversion of new members. The Preach My Gospel missionary guide was implemented in 2004 and new emphasis has been placed on training local leadership.

Although some progress has been made improving convert retention, little if any progress has been made in reactivating inactive members and increasing growth rates. Improving convert retention rates should not result in fewer members joining the Church, but many missions who make major adjustments to curb poor convert retention often see a major slow down in growth. We have seen these results recently in Armenia, the Philippines, and the West Indies Mission. Some missions purposefully reduce convert baptisms in an effort to improve convert retention by lessening the demands of local and mission Church leaders on supporting and teaching new converts. Although new converts should receive adequate teaching and fellowshipping from missionaries and members before and after baptism, with proper planning and foresight missionary work does not have to sacrifice greater amounts of time to increase convert retention rates. Holding cottage meetings is typically an effective activity which helps find, teach, fellowship, reactivate, and retain members. Cottage meetings are usually held by missionaries or local Church leaders who teach a small group of individuals (a mix of active, less active, and investigators) a Sunday school lesson or missionary lesson. Many missions report success using this tactic which often greatly assists in expanding national outreach, particularly in Africa.

Below is a list of the countries which likely experience the highest member inactivity. Ascertaining activity rates per country can be difficult as the Church does not publish sacrament meeting attendance or other indicators of Church attendance and activity. However, comparing congregation and membership growth rates provides some insight into activity rates. Countries are provided with the average number of members per congregation for 2009. Typically countries with more nominal members per congregation have lower activity rates as congregations require a certain number of active members to function and divide once active membership grows too large for one congregation to administer.

1. Chile - 915
2. China (Hong Kong) - 754
3. Northern Mariana Islands - 735
   
4. Nicaragua - 673
5. Bolivia - 671
6. El Salvador - 655
7. Ecuador - 641
8. Peru - 628
9. Colombia - 622
10. Honduras - 620
11. Mexico - 597
12. South Korea - 593
13. Brazil - 585
14. Uruguay - 580
15. The Philippines - 577
16. Dominican Republic - 573
17. Kiribati - 567
18. Portugal - 566
19. United Kingdom - 554
20. Venezuela - 538
21. Paraguay - 532
22. Guatemala - 531

We have experienced a major increase over the past decade in this statistic. Below is a list of the countries with the most members per congregation in 2000.

1. Northern Mariana Islands - 856
2. Chile - 579
3. El Salvador - 567
4. China (Hong Kong) - 531
5. Bolivia - 503
6. Mexico - 499
7. Colombia - 465
8. China (Macau) - 464
9. Haiti - 463
10. Honduras - 458
11. United Kingdom - 458
12. Samoa - 455
13. Peru - 454
14. Ecuador - 453
15. Puerto Rico - 447
16. Brazil - 440
17. Uruguay - 438
18. Suriname - 438
19. Venezuela - 438
20. Dominican Republic - 436
21. Nicaragua - 430
22. South Korea - 426

Comparing and contrasting these two lists reveals that over the past decade, most of the nations with the largest Church memberships have seen much lower congregational growth compared to membership growth. Reasons for slow congregational growth include smaller units combining to form larger congregations, new converts in many of these nations not remaining active, problems developing local leadership to lead new congregations, and increased standards by the Church in many areas for groups to become branches and the number of active members required to divide congregations. In Chile for example, many of the congregations which were discontinued in the early 2000s had less than 50 active members and were wards. Today, we see many wards which have between 100 and 200 active members in Chile.