Saturday, June 27, 2020

Updated Country Profile - The Netherlands

Click here to access the updated Reaching the Nations country profile for the Netherlands. The Church in the Netherlands has experienced one of the most dramatic declines in the past two decades in regards to the number of congregations and the number of cities with a Church presence. Approximately half of the cities with a Church presence in 1999 currently have a Church presence today. This decline in national outreach has been primarily driven by stagnant growth in the number of active members for many decades combined with concerns that the few active members in smaller congregations may become burned out with leadership responsibilities. Unfortunately, this decision has come at a significant cost that not only retracts the scope of the Church's missionary reach, but it also poses difficulties for Latter-day Saints to assimilate into new congregations and continue to attend church despite longer travel times to reach the nearest meetinghouse. See below for the Future Prospects section of this article.

Until the 2010s, the Church in the Netherlands reported more significant rates of membership growth than many other secularized European nations, but the outlook for future growth appears bleak given the ongoing trend of congregation consolidations. The doubling of the average number of members per congregation since 1999 points to significant member inactivity and convert retention problems that have compounded for decades. The Church has dramatically halved its national outreach capabilities in terms of the number of cities with congregations. Combined with the consolidation of the Netherlands Amsterdam Mission and the Belgium Brussels Mission into a single mission back in 2002, the Church allocates much fewer resources to the Netherlands than in previous decades even though the size of the population continues to increase and more receptive immigrant groups have become a larger percentage of the national population. Perhaps the greatest failure of the Church in the Netherlands has been the inability for the Church to find, teach, baptize, and retain for life new converts in appreciable numbers to not only expand into previously lesser-reached or unreached areas, but to maintain the cities where the Church has already established a presence. Although recent efforts by stake, mission, and area leaders have focused on the establishment of congregations with larger numbers of active members to reduce member burnout and promote more socializations opportunities at church, the size of active Church membership in individual congregations has not appeared to be the primary barrier for member inactivity and convert attrition in previous decades. Rather, a lack of member-missionary participation, reduced national outreach capabilities, insufficient pre-baptismal teaching and preparation for new converts, reliance on foreign full-time missionaries to staff local missionary needs, a highly secularized society, and the lack of language-specific congregations for immigrant groups appear primarily to blame for the Church’s floundering progress in the Netherlands. Establishing a strong Latter-day Saint presence among immigrant groups will be crucial to improve member activity and convert retention rates among the most receptive populations. Stagnant growth and low receptivity exhibited by the indigenous Dutch population is concerning and appears to be at the forefront of the decline in national outreach in recent years together with fewer full-time missionaries assigned. Greater self-sustainability of full-time missionary numbers as well as minimizing emigration among Dutch members will be required to maintain membership growth, expand national outreach, and preserve what remains of the Dutch Latter-day Saint community.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

It's unfortunate to hear this is happening. I wonder how much The Hague temple was being used prior to coronavirus.

Anonymous said...

The temple in The Hague may be the least-used and also least-staffed temple in the Church. Attending it really feels like an experiment on how few workers can be at the temple while there are sessions going on (my estimate is less than 5). I've also never seen more than 10 patrons in a session there, except for the one time my ward brought 15 people, which posed a real logistical challenge to the workers (leading me to think this does not happen very often).

James G. Stokes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James G. Stokes said...

In thinking things over, most of my last comment was not in keeping with the spirit that should have attended these threads, But I would like to now reiterate my thanks to you, Chris, for the analysis you provieded on changes to missions in Texas with the creation of two new missions that will go into effect in July. It makes sense that the Church would want to utilize the two newest Txas missions to split that region into three groups with a similar number of stakes in each. Hopefully we can soon find similar information for the other new missions, as well s adjusted bounadry information for the missions which have been consolidated. Thanks for the information, Chirs! I appreciate it.

Cam Nhung Dinh said...

Thanks for your information. I read in a book that the Church would want to utilize the two newest Texas missions to split that region into three groups with a similar number of stakes in each.

Eduardo said...

Too bad about Holland. Does anyone know why Orson Scott Card uses characters from there in his literature? He served a mission in Brazil, I think.
We have had a least one General Authority from Netherlands, right?

James G. Stokes said...

Eduardo, there have been two: Elders Jacob de Jager previously served (is now deceased, unless I'm mistaken) and Hans T. Boom (who was called to so serve in April of last year). Hope that helps. Sorry about my delayed response.

twinnumerouno said...

I know of at least two: Jacob de Jager, who served from 1976-1993, and Elder Hans T. Boom who was called in 2019.