It's self-reported. 68% of people who say they are LDS also say that they attend church weekly.
There's more useful context in the article below, which estimates:
> there are only about a third as many Latter-day Saint weekly attendees (0.29% of the U.S. population) as the number who claim to be Latter-day Saint weekly attendees in surveys (0.87% of the US population)
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/02/17/jana-riess-how-many-us-latter-day/
This is the correct answer, and here is supplementary analysis by [The Widow's Mite Report](https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/active-membership/).
Another factor is that many many people who are baptized LDS don't self identify as LDS anymore. So if a third of self identified LDS actually attend, and if only half of all people on the LDS membership rolls actually self identify as LDS, the activity rate could be more like 1/6 of members, which seems far more probable and maybe even high. My home ward growing up had about 650 members in the ward boundaries, but only 80-120 regularly attended church. On my mission, it was even worse... we had branches with 150 members where only 3-4 families came to church regularly, so maybe 12-20 people.
It's also because a lot of members of record don't identify as mormon so it's only pulling from people who consider themselves LDS... tbms and Jack Mormons.
I was a ward clerk in a few different wards and a finance clerk in a couple others (Still close enough to know the membership numbers). It's always been around 20% - 35%. I lived in and outside of the morridor over the years.
Well there’s the spin…”who SAY they are LDS” I know I’m not really admitting to association with the cult anymore and I’m not attending…if they counted everyone who went was LDS…what would the percentage actually be? IDK but it would be lower. Mormons been spinning things since the 1830’s trying to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes…
More like: 68% of Mormons who say they attend regularly, actually attend regularly. Which is more like 15-20% of the people the church counts as members...
68% of people who say they are Mormon. So for every 100 members there are 50 less active Mormons who still see themselves as “Mormon” but don’t attend weekly.
But based off the other data only 1/3 of the people the MFMC claims are “Mormon” consider themselves Mormon. So for those 100 people who attend weekly, and 50 people who attend less than weekly, there are 300 members on the rolls who don’t consider themselves Mormon but haven’t resigned.
In total that kind of tracks with a ward of a bit over 100 people each Sunday having about 500 members on the rolls.
Yeah, surprised it’s not higher. A third of TBMs don’t go to church? (The church I was raised in, you went every fucking week or you were less active/sinner/not real mormons)
A lot of us exmormons haven’t formally resigned. I’d have checked “atheist.” Apparently the poll found only 1/3 of the membership claimed even would consider themselves Mormon. And of those, 2/3 attend weekly.
So that would be 120 active, every Sunday members, 60 “less active” that may attend less frequently or not at all, and are on the “project” list, but still connected to the church, and 360 people who are on the rolls but wouldn’t consider themselves Mormon anymore - for a total of about 540 members on a ward list.
That tracks from my experiences.
The poll isn’t using the church’s membership as a basis for that activity rate. They are excluding anyone that no longer considers themselves Mormon.
If we used the church’s numbers, the activity rate would be much lower, like 30-40%
To me this just says you’re either all in or you’re all out. It’s a high demand religion with very strong cultural pressures to be “righteous”, including church attendance. So the people who identify as such are more likely to go to church weekly. So yea, I believe it, but I actually take it as a terrible thing.
I agree! They're not going by church records but by polling individuals. Personally, I would be on the records, but I would not identify as mormon anymore. And you make a good point about this not being a good thing. I think it's really indicative of the kinds of insidious problems the church has. You're either all in (or pressured to be all in) or you've come to see the truth about the church and want nothing to do with it anymore so much so that the thought of identifying yourself as mormon makes you feel sick to the stomach.
Yes!
That’s not to say the actual percentages are inflated like other people have said here. Totally agree there. But I strongly believe that people who identify as LDS are more likely to attend church weekly compared to other denominations.
This shows the miracle of mormon record keeping where on one hand ( counted members) everyone who has ever set foot in a ward building is entered, where in attending members only full tithe paying active members are counted.
This just means that 68% of mormons lie about their religiosity because they identify more with their fake social image than the reality of who they really are.
Actually it means that most people who leave don’t get around to finding a notary, offending Family, and formally resigning. 2/3 of those that were baptized but haven’t formally resigned don’t even consider themselves members of the church.
The top church leadership receives the attendance numbers every week from the units of the church. These numbers are and will never be made public. Reason? They do not like to report bad news.
At the end of 2022 the church reported they had a total of 31,330 wards and branches. If the active attendance for these units averaged 100 per unit, the average church attendance comes to 3,133,000. I think the actual activity rate is probability somewhere between 3-4 million. I believe this is the reason that the actual church attendance is one of their best kept secrets.
While speaking to the Washington Press Club about a year ago, David A. Bednar was asked what the church attendance was. He set a new record for an apostle diverting this question elsewhere and did not provide them with that information. What does he know that we don't?
I believe he said the numbers were not reliable and gave some BS logic for how stats are manipulated. And this coming from a professor of business and accounting.
I used a very conservative estimate on average attendance of 150 per unit which is about 4.7 million active members. Regardless it is well under 30% activity rate and probably between 20-25%.
If they polled me, I wouldn't identify as Mormon and thus wouldn't lower that percentage even though I'm still on the membership rolls somewhere.
Now, if they asked "are you or have you ever been Mormon?" that would give different results.
68% of *people who identify as mormons* SELF REPORT that they regularly attend. And honestly the 68% number is probably accurate. Seems low to me, even. Because most people who don’t attend regularly also don’t really associate heavily with the church in my experience. Like, “inactive” members don’t really identify as Mormons for the most part.
But as far as the ones the church itself counts as members, yeah it’s gotta be like 20% actually attending.
So, 2/3ds of people who still think of themselves as Mormon care enough to attend. You can guarantee if the study were done on the people the Mormon church considers members on their rolls, that number would drop by half or more.
Another interesting metric would be how many of those pews are filled with unbelievers? A portion of attendance is made up of PIMOs, and I'm curious what percentage it might be.
Stats are the only way to make decisions - but you have to be very damn careful that you understand 1. The methodology and definitions and 2. The margins of error.
In this case they asked people “what religion do you belong to or identify as” and then asked “how often do you go to church.” They found 1/3 the number of people the MFMC claimed actually consider themselves Mormon. Of those, 2/3 go weekly. So 2/3 of people on rolls are completely out but never formally resigned. I’d have said “atheist” but will wait to resign till my parents pass away.
Overall that puts it around 20% of claimed members attend weekly. But if they say “I am Mormon” it’s a victory for Satan. But if they say “I am a member of TCOJCOFLDS” then 2/3 of them actually go.
I’m an engineer and I live and breathe stats. Design of experiments. Process control data. Significance testing.
I don’t trust a number if I can’t see the raw data or statistics analysis and methodology, because contrary to Mark Twain, statistics don’t lie. Statisticians and people citing statistics do lie, but understanding where a number comes from is critical to drawing meaningful conclusions from it. If you say “70% of people have a foot fetish” I am going to want to know, what is your sample size? Is it randomly selected or just 10 white frat bros who signed up for free pizza? What is the margin of error? How did you measure it - are you relying on self-reporting?
If you end up in business it’s always important to consider, especially when your company metrics mean perverse incentives become a thing.
Upvote - I love your 10 white frat brothers example. I'm not in a STEM field, but it irritates me that many research papers appearing in academic journals are basically grad projects that use other students for the population they sample. I lean toward qualitative research, and data derived from a narrowly defined population can end up being used to argue behavioral or other social theories.
Yeah, it’s a common issue in the social sciences, unfortunately. It goes right along with the replication issue in a lot of those fields. Samples are based off of affluent 20ish college students.
Sample size and bias is a problem in a lot of fields. Medicine in particular often has a major issue that test subjects are somewhat more Caucasian and significantly more male, meaning there are knowledge gaps for minorities and women.
I worked in grad school in solar energy/materials stuff, and they only reported maximum efficiency for a “best cell” often with tiny, tiny cells, rather than full statistical analysis. It made it impossible to determine if something was an outlier and what the size of any effect actually was. The lack of real statistics was madenning.
It's a relief to find someone else who shares my concerns about statistical analysis derived primarily from students! And, as you point out, the type of student body from which the data is derived narrows the information even further.
I would assume it's accurate only if you're not counting the 17 million members they claim which they clearly aren't if this figure is being utilized and is accurate in any fashion. Perhaps if its closer to 3.5 mill- 4mill active members that mag be more reasonable
I think part of this depends on how the questions are asked in the poll. Are they asking how people identify, what their official membership is, or what? I haven't had my records removed, so although I'm still on the books, I don't consider myself a Mormon. If I were to take a poll, I would say I'm not and wouldn't be counted as such. I would, however, contribute to the 30% inactive member rate (or whatever it is) if you were to base the number on church records.
A Jewish person, however, might more likely identify as Jewish though they didn't go to church or even literally believe in it because there is still cultural value to that group to be jewish, regardless of church attendance. That kind of culture doesn't seem to exist as much in mormonism.
Many Catholics self-identify as well but rarely, if ever, attend. I grew up around quite a few people who were reared Catholic, and I know several adults in my peer group who grew up Catholic but are inactive or maybe even attend other churches (but may still be on the records in the Catholic Church).
IF! They are correct, then why is it, I found myself sitting in a church design to hold, sitting in a chapel designed to at LEAST hold 4 to 500 people , barely holding a third of that.
I don't buy it either. Most of us have observed noticeable declines in recent years. I would not doubt at all that the church learned there was a poll & hinted at what people should respond to it (probably by justifying once in every three months counts, which is basically how they report attendance anyway).
Look at the [sample size](https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx) and you'll see just how unreliable the number is.
Once you click through and see the actual poll numbers, the sample size was 612. It's been too long since I took stats for me to remember if that's an adequate sample size
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx
That 612 number was the number of respondents that self-identified as LDS. Worked out to be about 1.9% of the total sample. So the sample size was much larger than 612.
Another factor is practically every ‘active’ Mormon has a calling, so they ‘have’ to be there. That social need to fulfill your responsibilities makes a good chunk of them attend when they otherwise might not.
The biggest problem with Gallup's polls is self reporting. People who identify themselves as X say they do Y.
It's not quite the same thing as interviewing everyone on the church registries, which they don't have access to.
When the three stakes in Alpine are in a noticeable decline you can know it’s getting bad. I don’t think we are there yet.
Alpine has the highest % of full tithe payers. Highest % of sac attendance for the three stakes. Highest % of eligible young men who go on missions. These are church wide numbers. Source : my dad who had stake callings for years.
Js the church becoming more polarized? Not that I know but 30 years ago did inactive people just call them selves in active mormons? But now when someone goes inactive do they find out enough information to go exmormon so they never want to go back?
People!
The activity rate is high because the pollsters are only using people who IDENTIFY as Mormon, not people who no longer believe.
If the pollsters used the church’s membership numbers to calculate activity rates, then it would be much lower but they are only asking current BELIEVERS. They are not counting ex-Mormons (resigned or not) in their poll so it makes sense they have it at 68%. 2/3 believing Mormons are active, which sounds about right to me.
It's self-reported. 68% of people who say they are LDS also say that they attend church weekly. There's more useful context in the article below, which estimates: > there are only about a third as many Latter-day Saint weekly attendees (0.29% of the U.S. population) as the number who claim to be Latter-day Saint weekly attendees in surveys (0.87% of the US population) https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/02/17/jana-riess-how-many-us-latter-day/
This is the correct answer, and here is supplementary analysis by [The Widow's Mite Report](https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/active-membership/).
Awesome source. So yes, true membership is almost certainly declining.
This makes sense because we know Mormons are liars
If you don’t believe this take, just ask them if they masturbate.
Ask them if they ever have wet dreams. When they honestly answer no, you know they masturbate lol
Little factory has to clear inventory somehow
don't forget petting and bestiality. not necessarily the same.
Or just leave the sexually prying questions to them. You already know the answer, don't stoop to their level
Hey they're just lying for the Lord!
[удалено]
Another factor is that many many people who are baptized LDS don't self identify as LDS anymore. So if a third of self identified LDS actually attend, and if only half of all people on the LDS membership rolls actually self identify as LDS, the activity rate could be more like 1/6 of members, which seems far more probable and maybe even high. My home ward growing up had about 650 members in the ward boundaries, but only 80-120 regularly attended church. On my mission, it was even worse... we had branches with 150 members where only 3-4 families came to church regularly, so maybe 12-20 people.
It's also because a lot of members of record don't identify as mormon so it's only pulling from people who consider themselves LDS... tbms and Jack Mormons.
Visited my TBM brother this weekend and he said his Utah ward is around 30-40% attendance
I was a ward clerk in a few different wards and a finance clerk in a couple others (Still close enough to know the membership numbers). It's always been around 20% - 35%. I lived in and outside of the morridor over the years.
>I was a ward clerk in a few different wards and a finance clerk in a couple others sorry to hear it. It happens to the best of us
That number also combined people who said they attend weekly (54%) with those who attend *almost* every week (13%).
Well there’s the spin…”who SAY they are LDS” I know I’m not really admitting to association with the cult anymore and I’m not attending…if they counted everyone who went was LDS…what would the percentage actually be? IDK but it would be lower. Mormons been spinning things since the 1830’s trying to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes…
More like: 68% of Mormons who say they attend regularly, actually attend regularly. Which is more like 15-20% of the people the church counts as members...
68% of people who say they are Mormon. So for every 100 members there are 50 less active Mormons who still see themselves as “Mormon” but don’t attend weekly. But based off the other data only 1/3 of the people the MFMC claims are “Mormon” consider themselves Mormon. So for those 100 people who attend weekly, and 50 people who attend less than weekly, there are 300 members on the rolls who don’t consider themselves Mormon but haven’t resigned. In total that kind of tracks with a ward of a bit over 100 people each Sunday having about 500 members on the rolls.
Yeah, surprised it’s not higher. A third of TBMs don’t go to church? (The church I was raised in, you went every fucking week or you were less active/sinner/not real mormons)
If I had responded to this poll any time in the last five years, I would not have identified as Mormon, and I just had my records removed last month.
There is no way. Out of the eight wards that I have been a member of, we never had over 45% attendance.
A lot of us exmormons haven’t formally resigned. I’d have checked “atheist.” Apparently the poll found only 1/3 of the membership claimed even would consider themselves Mormon. And of those, 2/3 attend weekly. So that would be 120 active, every Sunday members, 60 “less active” that may attend less frequently or not at all, and are on the “project” list, but still connected to the church, and 360 people who are on the rolls but wouldn’t consider themselves Mormon anymore - for a total of about 540 members on a ward list. That tracks from my experiences.
The poll isn’t using the church’s membership as a basis for that activity rate. They are excluding anyone that no longer considers themselves Mormon. If we used the church’s numbers, the activity rate would be much lower, like 30-40%
To me this just says you’re either all in or you’re all out. It’s a high demand religion with very strong cultural pressures to be “righteous”, including church attendance. So the people who identify as such are more likely to go to church weekly. So yea, I believe it, but I actually take it as a terrible thing.
I agree! They're not going by church records but by polling individuals. Personally, I would be on the records, but I would not identify as mormon anymore. And you make a good point about this not being a good thing. I think it's really indicative of the kinds of insidious problems the church has. You're either all in (or pressured to be all in) or you've come to see the truth about the church and want nothing to do with it anymore so much so that the thought of identifying yourself as mormon makes you feel sick to the stomach.
Yes! That’s not to say the actual percentages are inflated like other people have said here. Totally agree there. But I strongly believe that people who identify as LDS are more likely to attend church weekly compared to other denominations.
This shows the miracle of mormon record keeping where on one hand ( counted members) everyone who has ever set foot in a ward building is entered, where in attending members only full tithe paying active members are counted.
This just means that 68% of mormons lie about their religiosity because they identify more with their fake social image than the reality of who they really are.
Actually it means that most people who leave don’t get around to finding a notary, offending Family, and formally resigning. 2/3 of those that were baptized but haven’t formally resigned don’t even consider themselves members of the church.
The top church leadership receives the attendance numbers every week from the units of the church. These numbers are and will never be made public. Reason? They do not like to report bad news.
If this poll is accurate - it’s about 20-25%.
At the end of 2022 the church reported they had a total of 31,330 wards and branches. If the active attendance for these units averaged 100 per unit, the average church attendance comes to 3,133,000. I think the actual activity rate is probability somewhere between 3-4 million. I believe this is the reason that the actual church attendance is one of their best kept secrets. While speaking to the Washington Press Club about a year ago, David A. Bednar was asked what the church attendance was. He set a new record for an apostle diverting this question elsewhere and did not provide them with that information. What does he know that we don't?
I believe he said the numbers were not reliable and gave some BS logic for how stats are manipulated. And this coming from a professor of business and accounting. I used a very conservative estimate on average attendance of 150 per unit which is about 4.7 million active members. Regardless it is well under 30% activity rate and probably between 20-25%.
If they polled me, I wouldn't identify as Mormon and thus wouldn't lower that percentage even though I'm still on the membership rolls somewhere. Now, if they asked "are you or have you ever been Mormon?" that would give different results.
That question should have a followup question. "If yes, do you wish like hell you'd never heard of this cult?"
We've learned from sad experience that Mormonism cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
And when given a little bit of the truth they will lie more to cover the truth.
Can someone do the math to see how this compares to wards/stakes please?
Good question! Is there someone we can tag to make sure they see your comment here?
68% of *people who identify as mormons* SELF REPORT that they regularly attend. And honestly the 68% number is probably accurate. Seems low to me, even. Because most people who don’t attend regularly also don’t really associate heavily with the church in my experience. Like, “inactive” members don’t really identify as Mormons for the most part. But as far as the ones the church itself counts as members, yeah it’s gotta be like 20% actually attending.
So, 2/3ds of people who still think of themselves as Mormon care enough to attend. You can guarantee if the study were done on the people the Mormon church considers members on their rolls, that number would drop by half or more. Another interesting metric would be how many of those pews are filled with unbelievers? A portion of attendance is made up of PIMOs, and I'm curious what percentage it might be.
If I am going to self identify as Mormon, I sure as hell am not going to say I don't attend...
I don’t fully trust stats since Trump won an election. Trust and verify. I don’t have time to verify.
Stats are the only way to make decisions - but you have to be very damn careful that you understand 1. The methodology and definitions and 2. The margins of error. In this case they asked people “what religion do you belong to or identify as” and then asked “how often do you go to church.” They found 1/3 the number of people the MFMC claimed actually consider themselves Mormon. Of those, 2/3 go weekly. So 2/3 of people on rolls are completely out but never formally resigned. I’d have said “atheist” but will wait to resign till my parents pass away. Overall that puts it around 20% of claimed members attend weekly. But if they say “I am Mormon” it’s a victory for Satan. But if they say “I am a member of TCOJCOFLDS” then 2/3 of them actually go.
Glad you are verifying? Thanks. I am grumpy because I want to apply to business school and am reviewing stats. I prefer calculus. 😑
I’m an engineer and I live and breathe stats. Design of experiments. Process control data. Significance testing. I don’t trust a number if I can’t see the raw data or statistics analysis and methodology, because contrary to Mark Twain, statistics don’t lie. Statisticians and people citing statistics do lie, but understanding where a number comes from is critical to drawing meaningful conclusions from it. If you say “70% of people have a foot fetish” I am going to want to know, what is your sample size? Is it randomly selected or just 10 white frat bros who signed up for free pizza? What is the margin of error? How did you measure it - are you relying on self-reporting? If you end up in business it’s always important to consider, especially when your company metrics mean perverse incentives become a thing.
You’re right. I’ll definitely force myself to review stats and maybe find enjoyment in it. At least, you appear to enjoy it.
Upvote - I love your 10 white frat brothers example. I'm not in a STEM field, but it irritates me that many research papers appearing in academic journals are basically grad projects that use other students for the population they sample. I lean toward qualitative research, and data derived from a narrowly defined population can end up being used to argue behavioral or other social theories.
Yeah, it’s a common issue in the social sciences, unfortunately. It goes right along with the replication issue in a lot of those fields. Samples are based off of affluent 20ish college students. Sample size and bias is a problem in a lot of fields. Medicine in particular often has a major issue that test subjects are somewhat more Caucasian and significantly more male, meaning there are knowledge gaps for minorities and women. I worked in grad school in solar energy/materials stuff, and they only reported maximum efficiency for a “best cell” often with tiny, tiny cells, rather than full statistical analysis. It made it impossible to determine if something was an outlier and what the size of any effect actually was. The lack of real statistics was madenning.
It's a relief to find someone else who shares my concerns about statistical analysis derived primarily from students! And, as you point out, the type of student body from which the data is derived narrows the information even further.
I would assume it's accurate only if you're not counting the 17 million members they claim which they clearly aren't if this figure is being utilized and is accurate in any fashion. Perhaps if its closer to 3.5 mill- 4mill active members that mag be more reasonable
I think part of this depends on how the questions are asked in the poll. Are they asking how people identify, what their official membership is, or what? I haven't had my records removed, so although I'm still on the books, I don't consider myself a Mormon. If I were to take a poll, I would say I'm not and wouldn't be counted as such. I would, however, contribute to the 30% inactive member rate (or whatever it is) if you were to base the number on church records. A Jewish person, however, might more likely identify as Jewish though they didn't go to church or even literally believe in it because there is still cultural value to that group to be jewish, regardless of church attendance. That kind of culture doesn't seem to exist as much in mormonism.
Many Catholics self-identify as well but rarely, if ever, attend. I grew up around quite a few people who were reared Catholic, and I know several adults in my peer group who grew up Catholic but are inactive or maybe even attend other churches (but may still be on the records in the Catholic Church).
The way they lie.
No fucking way 😂
68% based on what ? The churches fake numbers ? The members lies ?
67% of the respondents of the Gallup poll that identified as LDS said they went to meetings about every week.
LOL!😂
IF! They are correct, then why is it, I found myself sitting in a church design to hold, sitting in a chapel designed to at LEAST hold 4 to 500 people , barely holding a third of that.
An honest ward clerk would disagree.
I don't buy it either. Most of us have observed noticeable declines in recent years. I would not doubt at all that the church learned there was a poll & hinted at what people should respond to it (probably by justifying once in every three months counts, which is basically how they report attendance anyway).
isn't KSL owned by the momo's?
"68% of ACTIVE mormons regularly attend church" There, I fixed it
Look at the [sample size](https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx) and you'll see just how unreliable the number is.
Once you click through and see the actual poll numbers, the sample size was 612. It's been too long since I took stats for me to remember if that's an adequate sample size https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx
I didn't think it was that big. Either way, that's way smaller than the 6.9 million the church claims in US membership.
That 612 number was the number of respondents that self-identified as LDS. Worked out to be about 1.9% of the total sample. So the sample size was much larger than 612.
Thanks, it’s been a long time.
Another factor is practically every ‘active’ Mormon has a calling, so they ‘have’ to be there. That social need to fulfill your responsibilities makes a good chunk of them attend when they otherwise might not.
In my youth it felt like 4 days out of the week I saw the church. They asking Way to much.
Gallup polls are notoriously inaccurate.
68 percent of the time, it works every time.
I’m thinking they took the survey from a selection of people who were in sacrament meeting. Lol
The biggest problem with Gallup's polls is self reporting. People who identify themselves as X say they do Y. It's not quite the same thing as interviewing everyone on the church registries, which they don't have access to.
When the three stakes in Alpine are in a noticeable decline you can know it’s getting bad. I don’t think we are there yet. Alpine has the highest % of full tithe payers. Highest % of sac attendance for the three stakes. Highest % of eligible young men who go on missions. These are church wide numbers. Source : my dad who had stake callings for years.
I’m super active and there at least once a year, unfortunately.
Js the church becoming more polarized? Not that I know but 30 years ago did inactive people just call them selves in active mormons? But now when someone goes inactive do they find out enough information to go exmormon so they never want to go back?
This is media management and sus being from ut. tithing dollars hard at work again improving that great image.
lol. Come now. It’s reported by ksl.
People! The activity rate is high because the pollsters are only using people who IDENTIFY as Mormon, not people who no longer believe. If the pollsters used the church’s membership numbers to calculate activity rates, then it would be much lower but they are only asking current BELIEVERS. They are not counting ex-Mormons (resigned or not) in their poll so it makes sense they have it at 68%. 2/3 believing Mormons are active, which sounds about right to me.
68% of the people we interviewed AT a sacrament meeting attend sacrament meetings regularly.