Click here to access the November 2024 newsletter for cumorah.com. My goal is to produce these monthly newsletters again after a 16-month hiatus to chronicle church growth developments and announce new resources on cumorah.com.
Click here to access the November 2024 newsletter for cumorah.com. My goal is to produce these monthly newsletters again after a 16-month hiatus to chronicle church growth developments and announce new resources on cumorah.com.
33 comments:
Matt, you may want to edit the November 2024 Newsletter. The listed Stakes recently closed listed were from some time ago in Hong Kong. And repost the edited corrections version. Just a friendly reminder. Thanks for all your great work here in keeping us informed of the Growth of the Kingdom in different parts of the world.
I have the Salt Lake Jordan and Hong Kong China closures from July 2023 timeframe.
That is exciting news about the Member groups in Papua New Guinea and the Juba Branch in South Sudan now located on the Meetinghouse locator.
Also, about the 2nd branch now in Banjul, The Gambia in west Africa.
I wonder how close the mission branches in Guinea are to organizing a Mission District in Conakry.
I wonder if we will see any Temple groundbreakings, new sites or open house and dedication dates announced this afternoon. Or if we will consider yesterday's Tallahassee Florida Temple dedication as this week's temple announcement.
Over the weekend, the Forney, Texas Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was created, marking the 28th stake in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Formed by realigning congregations from the Dallas East Stake.
facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristNorthTexas/posts/pfbid0jJU99YEJKwm7guHQLyjPpJ6Y2peWrKKFgCeafUzvRmuEt7f2592bK84dVsXJSSGl
And has been already updated on the Meetinghouse website this morning.
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/2272989
And the Ogden Utah Rock Cliff Stake (503460) has been renamed and updated as the Ogden Utah East Ridge Stake (503460) on the website.
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/503460
And the Ogden Utah Lorin Farr Stake (502154) has been discontinued.
The newsletters haven't been coming out monthly, have they? I wonder if they aren't reflecting November news as much as news that hasn't come out in a prior newsletter.
That the new locations reached is equal in Ivory Coast and in DR Congo is impreesive. For a while new outreach had slowed in Ivory Coast. If it is picking back up again, we may soon be on tack for a 2nd temple in Yamosoukro or Daloa. I think eventually both those cities will get a temple. Based on where stakes are today Daloa would make more sense, but since Yamosoukro is the oldest stake outside the Abijan metro area and it is the capital, I could see if getting the 2nd temple. Also, Yamosoukro Stake is large enough it could be split soon, and if that happens, I think that would be the most likely location for Ivory Coast's next temple.
The groundbreaking date for the Cali Colombia Temple construction was announced today.
"First Presidency sets groundbreaking date for Cali Colombia Temple
Elder Jorge T. Becerra will preside at the Saturday, March 1, 2025, groundbreaking for one of Colombia’s 4 houses of the Lord."
https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2024/12/09/cali-colombia-temple-groundbreaking-date-set-elder-jorge-becerra/
Oh, thank you Chris D. You beat me to sharing the news!
Exciting developments in the Midwest—a Swahili-speaking branch is being organized in Des Moines. I believe it will be in the Des Moines Stake.
Matt, for the record, the stake #55 you just updated for 2024. According to the Meetinghouse Locator website, the name Kinshasa was dropped and just called the Kintambo Democratic Republic of the Congo Stake (2285118).
https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/stakes/2285118
Sorry, i forgot again to login. This was me, Chris D.
Kintambo is a municipality with 106,000 people (well, as of 2004, it probably has way more now, I am shocked Wikipedia is using 2004 estimates). It is part of the city-province of Kinshasa. Kinshasa has an area of 3,848 square miles. That is bigger than Delaware. The urban area of Kinshasa that has over 16 million of the 17 million inhabitants as of 2021 is 200 square miles.
Kintambo is part of that urban core. Most of the city-province of Kinshasa is significantly further east than the city core. It is the furthest west commune of Kinshasa that is fully in the urban core. It covers about 1 square mile. To its west is Ngaliema which covers 86 square miles. It is not clear to me which Commune the Kinshasa Temple is in (it would help if someone could figure this out and indicate that information in the Kinshasa Temple article).
I had given up hope last night that temple annoucements would come out, but I guess I despaired too soon. I am very exited that the Cali Colombia Temple groundbreaking is happening. Hopefully some more will happen soon.
The groundbreaking happened in Grand Rapids. I was not able to watch since I was working at the Detroit Temple at the time.
The design of Tacloban has been released.
The Wikipedia article on the Kinshasa Temple says "Unlike most of the church's other temples, the building is not topped with a statue of the angel Moroni," This is an outdated statement at this point. There has been no new temple with a statue on the angle Moroni released for a few years. We are on course to have a majority of temples without a statue of the angel Moroni in not too long.
79% of Kinshsa state-province is in Maluku. It is basically the eastern 3/4ths of the province and also goes further south than the rest of the province. It also goes further north than the rest of the province. It is the only part of the province that borders other parts of DR Congo along the north. It has a hue game preseve in its boundaries, but lots of other stuff, and had almost 200,000 people in 2004 (when Kinshsas had 7 million and opposed to 17 million people).
There appear to be no branches in the Maluka area of Kinshasa at present. The furthest west commune is actually Mont Ngafula, it is west and south of the one I mentioned before. There is a ward that meets in the Kimbondo neighborhood of that commune. There may be a few other wards in that commune. However there is urbanized area in that commune well beyond where wards meet. There is not another branch going west until you get to Kimpese, a city of maybe 40,000 or maybe more considering how outdated Wikipedia info on DR Congo is. That is in Congo Central Province, which is basically the area of Congo west of Kinshasa.
To the west from Kinshsa you have to make it to Bandundu to find a new branch. That is about 220 miles driver from the furthest east ward meetinghouse in Kinshsa (it is 400 km drive from the airport, there are a few wakrds that meet a little east of the airport). Evidently 3 brnaches meet in Bandundu though.
JPL, here is a wikipedia map of Ngaliema Commune. The Temple compound with the adjacent Meetinghouse is located in the top right corner of the Commune (Municipality). and within the "Quartier Basoko"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaliema#/map/0
Here is the OSM boundary map of the "Quartier Basoko" (OSM Level 8), and of Ngaliema Commune (OSM Level 7).
https://global.mapit.mysociety.org/area/1273153.html
https://global.mapit.mysociety.org/area/988285.html
The Church has to report membership to the UK for tax purposes. It reports a decline from 2022 to 2023:
2022: 186,933
2023: 186,350
Not a huge decline, but the decline within Scotland in particular was more sharp (7% decline):
2022: 15,548
2023: 14,428
The statistic about the UK is already on the Church's country website, but it doesn't break things down into sections of the UK, so it's interesting to see that what appears to be driving the decline in membership is a decline in membership in Scotland.
I would assume that this is largely driven by out-migration, as Scotland is struggling quite a bit economically. Outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh, career opportunities are very scarce. There is actually quite a bit of outmigration of British members as well, especially to mainland Europe since Brexit, and likewise a fairly high rate of remigration of mainland Europeans who had previously resided in the UK. There are actually several families in my ward that this applies to.
That said, there are also issues with low activity rates, a relatively overaged Church membership (the British Isles had significant membership growth in the 1970s and 80s, but this generation of converts is gradually dying out), and low birth rates. I would not be surprised to see membership drop further, but it is somewhat encouraging to see some very modest growth outside of Scotland.
Interesting statistics. That would actually suggest the membership in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland increased (at least slightly), even as Scotland decreased by over 1,000. Scotland is a very secular place (even moreso than the UK as a whole), so it wouldn't surprise me if many have become disaffliated with the church there over the years and a purge of the membership roles took place between 2022 and 2023
@ Pascal and Cfunk: I think the outmigration story would make more sense than low activity rates or secularization, unless people actively removed their records from the church. That's because these are the church's reported numbers, which express nominal membership and not active/participating membership.
It would be interesting to juxtapose the correlation between active membership (through, say, Census data) and church reported membership when church reported membership is falling vs. rising. We've seen lots of instances of countries where the church reports strong growth, but the census data suggest stagnant growth or even shrinking in some areas. My guess is that because the hurdle to REDUCE church reported membership is higher (people have to actively remove their records, die, or move out and the church has to NOTICE that they die/moved out), any time we see a decline in church reported membership it is a pretty reliable figure of a geographic region where the church is shrinking.
Great news in Cote d'Ivoire. Any news on new towns in Chile getting missionaries in northern Chile since the La Serena Mission opened last summer?
How many languages are being used by the Church in Africa now?
I live in London right now (I'm attending the Britannia YSA Ward) and this is very unsurprising. Within the last couple of years, the Church has closed two stakes in the London metro area and has gone from somewhere in the ~20 ward range down to 9. Our YSA has actually baptized something like 8 converts in the three months I've been here, with three more baptisms scheduled in the next two weeks, but virtually every other congregation in the London metro area is shrinking, not growing, and a massive percentage of Church leaders in the area--including our stake president and area seventy and my bishop--are Americans. The number of native British Church members has declined even more precipitously than the overall total.
@Jonathon F. - I have friends in the South Kensington area of London, and they say similar things. It seems the decline the church reported in the UK (especially when adjusting for the decline in Scotland) is severely understating the decline in active/participating membership in the area, unless other areas of England are going gangbusters.
I have heard anecdotally from a missionary who served here that central England (Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds especially) is doing very well with baptisms by European standards. He has also posted some pictures of baptisms in his home ward on social media since returning home about a year ago so it seems generally believable. Whether it translates well to more active members is hard to say, but it is noteworthy that there are not the same numbers of discontinued units as elsewhere.
I have just been listening to a podcast with Elder Gilbert and Elder Christofferson. We are at all time highs by percentage of enrollment in seminary and institute. I am hoping that positive turn around can be implemented even more places.
I am hoping that we see a temple in Wales soon.
I am actually wondering if a Senegal mission might be organized. With growth there, the Gambia and Guinea, it might make sense to have a mission just there. Mali might also go there. This would allow the missions that currently cover there to focus their efforts on continued expansion in their own countries.
In the interview by the Church News with the leaders of the missionary department those leaders said the current number if missionaries is above estimates.
That suggests to me we may well see the number of missions rise again. Which may mean that the day that we have an equal number of temples and missions. That day will come, although I think 2024 had more new missions than new temples.
With the groundbreaking on the Grabd Rapids Temple we are at 51 temple under construction. With 202 dedicated we only need 48 more to get to 250.
The current 50 temple dedicated record is from June 1 1997 to October 1, 2000 from St. Louis to Boston. With Deseret Peak dedicated on November 10, 2024 that puts the deadline yo tie that previous 50 record on March 10, 2028. I hope we can beat that record. It looks like Clevrland Ohio Temple may be dedicated less than 2 years after groundbreaking. If the equal size Cali Colombia Temple can be built as fast, it should be dedicated about March 2027. So we may actually be able to see 250 temples reached some time in 2027 if all goes well.
Certainly do-able, considering current projections. Looking at a list of their construction status and counting them in order, the Londrina Brazil Temple (#248) is currently estimated to be completed in late 2027, likely having a dedication in early 2028. The Cagayan de Oro Philippines Temple (#249) is the only one currently estimated to be completed in 2028. Four other temples do not have estimates and could easily jump in order once construction commences: Heber Valley Utah Temple (#250), Santiago West Chile Temple (#251), Tarawa Kiribati Temple (#252), and Grand Rapids Michigan Temple (#253). We can also add the two with groundbreaking dates - Tacloban City Philippines (#254) and Cali Colombia Temple (#255).
The new Kearns Utah North and South Stakes have been formally updated on the meetinghouse locator. The Kearns Utah North Stake was a reorganization of the Kearns Utah Stake, not the Kearns Utah East Stake like I imagined. It was commented in the last post what wards were part of these two stakes, and I compared it with what the old five stakes had, and I discovered six wards that were part of the five stakes, but were not included in the two stakes (Georgetown, Sun Ridge, Valley View, Western Hills 2nd, Western Hills 3rd, and Western Hills 8th (Spanish)). Sadly, it appears these six wards were all discontinued when the stakes were reorganized. That would have put the Kearns Utah Central Stake down to five wards, the Kearns Utah Stake down to two wards, and the Kearns Utah West Stake down to two wards and a branch.
This also brings up a question, will this mean that some chapels will be closed? Among the two stakes, there are fifteen chapels (excluding the one the Tongan Wards meet in), and sixteen wards. One chapel now sits empty (the only ward meeting there was discontinued), the Kearns 14th ward meets in the same chapel as the Kearns YSA Ward (in the Taylorsville Utah YSA Stake), the Olympic Park 1st and 3rd (Spanish) Wards meet in the same chapel as well as the Fox Hills and Kearns 21st Wards. The remaining eleven chapels have only one ward each.
When you look at past Church reported membeship in Scotland it is even worse. In 2013 it was 26598 and in 2017 22895. And now in 2023 it is 14428. That is a deline of 12000 in 10 years.
https://www.cumorah.com/countries/viewStats/United%20Kingdom/334/UK%20-%20Scotland
I wonder if the 14,428 numer form the uk tax report excludes members not assigned to units (if the ones in the "address unkonw file" are only counted as UK instead of Scotland)
Ohterwise it is difficult to explain such a huche decline.
Overaging is very likely a problem for the church in Scotland. Another one is members moving away. Mostly to other UK countries, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I served my mission in London in 2004 - 2006. The stakes there where small often only 5 - 7 wards with around 400-600 attending stake conference. Most wards i seved in had between 50-100 attending on sunday. The former Wandsworth stake had hardly any "British" members. The stake was very international.
Some former Church members reported a large decline in the UK in sacrament meeting attendace between 2015 and 2020.
I think in the past the baptism keeped attendance up, but they declined a lot since i served. In the 2023 tax report they mentioned around 900 baptism for the UK. When I served in 2004-2006 my mission alone had between 400 and 500 every year.
But i am very confident in estimating that church attendance hat a tournaround in the UK in 2023 and 2024
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