First New Stake Created in Chile Since 1998

Last Sunday, the Church organized a new stake in Chile. The Coquimbo Chile Stake was organized from the Coquimbo Chile District and most of the six branches became wards. This marks a significant development for the Church in Chile as no new stakes have been organized in the country since the massive consolidation of 42 stakes between 2000 and 2005. The creation of the Coquimbo Chile Stake may signal at least some tangible improvements in member activity rates in some locations. However, the Church in Chile has experienced a net decline in the number of wards and branches thus far in 2014, indicating ongoing problems with rectifying some of the most problematic member activity and convert retention problems ever experienced in the worldwide Church.

There are now 75 stakes and 21 districts in Chile.

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.

New Mission in Guatemala

Missionaries report that the fifth mission in Guatemala will be organized this summer from the Guatemala Quetzaltenango and Guatemala City Central Missions. The new mission will be named the Guatemala Retahuleu Mission. The decision to create a second mission in the highlands of western Guatemala was likely due to continue to expand outreach into small, Amerindian communities. Many of these communities have members, some of which meet in small branches or groups. Like the creation of Chile Concepcion South Mission in the mid-2000s, the new mission will likely be created to have mission leadership and missionaries work with areas with high inactivity. There are also several districts close to becoming stakes which the new mission may facilitate becoming stakes in the coming years.

Assessing Inactivity

I have discussed recently how inactivity can be expressed by a ratio of Church membership over congregations. The logic for this statistic is that you have to have a certain number of active members to have a congregation and once the congregation grows too large it is divided. This also assumes that the Church has kept congregations the same size over time. The above graph shows how this ratio has fluctuated over time. Notice how members per congregation today is about what it was in the 1940s. Much of the recent increase in members per congregation is due to inactivity in Central and South America, which unfortunately is worsening overall considering this ratio. Most countries in Latin America add around 10-20 members per congregation because new congregations are not being created at the same rate membership is increasing.

Countries With High Inactivity

A good indicator for how many members of the Church participate in worship services in a particular country is by taking the ratio of members to congregations. Wards and branches need to have leadership in order to function and if that leadership is absent or small, new congregations do not get formed as often or congregations combine. This indicator works well for countries that have more stakes and districts. In places like Russia or Thailand, it does not provide as accurate of a picture because of the large number of branches in those countries.

Here is a list of the 15 countries with the highest members to congregation ratio. Countries with less than 1,000 have been omitted from the list.

1. Chile - 888
2. Hong Kong - 684
3. Bolivia - 632
4. El Salvador - 619
5. Nicaragua - 615
6. Ecuador - 598
7. Peru - 588
8. Colombia - 560
9. Mexico - 559
10. Brazil - 553
11. Honduras - 552
12. Uruguay - 551
13. South Korea - 546
14. Dominican Republic - 543
15. Philippines - 533