Episode 304

Ep304: Growing or Shrinking? Let's Look at the Real LDS Membership Numbers

While the Church reported over 17.5 million members by the end of 2024, researchers and analysts—often relying on congregation counts, surveys, and academic analysis—frequently estimate the number of active, attending members to be significantly lower, sometimes suggesting it is closer to 4–5 million worldwide. This gap exists because the official figures include anyone with a baptismal record who has not formally resigned, meaning inactive members, or "jack-mormons," are counted until they turn 110 years old. Observers seeking the true, engaged population often ignore the total membership number entirely, focusing instead on the slower-growing, more telling metrics of ward and stake counts to gauge the actual growth or decline of the religion. Let's unpack the data with Mormonish and Master Peace! You will be amazed! Thank you so much for watching Mormonish Podcast! ***How to DONATE to Mormonish Podcast: If you would like to help financially support our podcast, you can DONATE to support Mormonish Podcast here: Mormonish Podcast is a 501(c) (3) https://donorbox.org/mormonish-podcast ****WE HAVE MERCH! **** If you’d like to purchase Mormonish Merch, you can visit our Merch store here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mormonishmerch You can get your own quote to attend our Post-Mormon Celebration Cruise by visiting - https://kheskethtravel.com/post-mormon-celebration-cruise And you can get more info on the cruise by visiting - https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/post-mormon-celebration-cruise/ We appreciate our Mormonish viewers and listeners so much! Don't forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to Mormonish Podcast! Contact Mormonish Podcast: mormonishpodcast@gmail.com #mormonish #lds #mormon #exmormon #postmormon #religion #news, #ldschurch #comeuntochrist #churchofjesuschrist #churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints #byu #byui #josephsmith #comefollowme #polygamy #bookofmormon #becauseofhim #hearhim #ldstemple FAIR USE DISCLAIMER All Media in this video (including the thumbnail) is used for the purpose of review and critique. The images in the thumbnail are used as the primary means of visually identifying the subject matter of the video.



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Rebecca Bibliotheca

Rebecca Bibliotheca is a mother or three boys, co-founder of "The Good Book Club," a virtual reading group for post and nuanced Mormons, cohost of "Mormon Media Reviews," and leader of the "Mormon Stories Book Club." She has a Masters of Library and Information Science from BYU and worked for many years at the BYU Library. She and her husband, Tom, also founded a youth theater program that is in its 19th year. Rebecca loves the theater, reading, film, spending times outdoors, church watching and iced coffee!
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Landon Brophy

Landon Brophy is the proud father of four children, two grandchildren, three ATVs and a boat. He's a former military officer, the co-founder of The Good Book Club, a reading group for post and nuanced Mormons, ann international manager for a global defense contractor, and a worldwide traveler. He and his wife founded "Utah Wanderers," an online travel guide to exploring Utah. Landon loves the outdoors, ATVing, boating, flying, reading, observing the "ongoing restoration" and second Saturdays!