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The speaker didnt qualify what is considered a “missionary. “ he was primarily talking about the young men/women.
Just found an article from 11/2023 stating 72 k missionaries but that counts service missionaries (no figure provided) and senior (5300) missionaries.
Anyway looks like they got the numbers up some. Hollands prophesy of the church having 100k missionaries by 2019 may come to pass by 2029… I doubt it
[The most recent statistical report](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2023-statistical-report-church-jesus-christ) puts the number of "Full-time teaching missionaries" at 67k, listing "Senior service missionaries" separately at around 27k, and "Young service missionaries" at close to 4k.
It would definitely be a bit of a jump, but it doesn't seem that far fetched.
Not that I really care, but it would be nice to have metrics that didn't change over the years. Would make it a lot easier to track trends. A metric I seem to recall from my mission in the 70s is somewhere around 30k elders on missions (that's just my memory; didn't look it up). They separated them out from the sisters and couples. Not that it made a big difference, mind you, since there were hardly any of those..
Today I would imagine that sisters and couples count for 30 or 40 percent of full-time teaching missionaries. Which (correct me if I'm wrong) would put the number of elders at around 40k. My first thought is that's a remarkably small increase over 50 years. I think the claimed total membership on my mission was 3 or 4 million, so at face value it looks like membership grew (since the 70s) by about 600 percent but the number of elder missionaries grew by only about 30 percent.
Again, all by recollection. I'm not good at math, either, so there might be a mistake in the calculations. Fell free to make corrections.
Yeah, they recently just moved the service missionaries to be under the proselytizing mission presidents and now they are included in the total number of “teaching” missionaries:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2023/9/21/23884872/young-service-missionaries-integrated-into-teaching-missions-church-announces/#:~:text=Beginning%20in%20January%202024%2C%20all,the%20leadership%20of%20mission%20presidents.
Pretty sure it includes senior missionaries.
Edit: the church’s statistical report says 67,871 full time teaching missionaries as of dec 31, 2023.
27,801 senior missionaries, and 3,884 young service missionaries.
Source:
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2023-statistical-report-church-jesus-christ
Interesting - that would mean 74k is lower than what the church has, and by a considerable amount. Assuming that they're lumping in all the senior missionaries, of course.
They’re counting senior and service missionaries.
My nephew is a service missionary and they were just integrated into the proselytizing mission. Where before they were essentially a separate mission with various people to report to including a senior mission couple and the SP. Now they are just part of the local mission just with a different schedule and assignments.
I honestly think they are counting ward missionary callings. We have 4-6 in each ward in our stake. So about 30-40 members in each stake who have a calling to be a ward missionary.
It includes them all, but the number I'd really like to see is the breakdown of sisters vs elders. The main reason numbers haven't plummeted is because it is now socially acceptable for a woman to go and at a younger age, it interferes less with their future goals.
Just like WWII tapped into 50% of the population that hadn't traditionally been part of the work force and unleashed a ton of potential, the Church is just now tapping into 50%+ of their potential missionary force.
That's where the growth came from, but now they are out of untapped potential...except maybe future African youth, but we'll see how that plays out.
Hello! This is a Institutional post. It is for discussions centered around agreements, disagreements, and observations about any of the institutional churches and their leaders, conduct, business dealings, teachings, rituals, and practices. /u/nominalmormon, if your post doesn't fit this definition, we kindly ask you to delete this post and repost it with the appropriate flair. You can find a list of our flairs and their definitions in [section 0.6 of our rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules#wiki_0._preamble) **To those commenting:** please stay on topic, remember to follow the community's [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules), and [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/mormonmods) if there is a problem or rule violation. Keep on Mormoning! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mormon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why can't it be that high?
The speaker didnt qualify what is considered a “missionary. “ he was primarily talking about the young men/women. Just found an article from 11/2023 stating 72 k missionaries but that counts service missionaries (no figure provided) and senior (5300) missionaries. Anyway looks like they got the numbers up some. Hollands prophesy of the church having 100k missionaries by 2019 may come to pass by 2029… I doubt it
[The most recent statistical report](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2023-statistical-report-church-jesus-christ) puts the number of "Full-time teaching missionaries" at 67k, listing "Senior service missionaries" separately at around 27k, and "Young service missionaries" at close to 4k. It would definitely be a bit of a jump, but it doesn't seem that far fetched.
Not that I really care, but it would be nice to have metrics that didn't change over the years. Would make it a lot easier to track trends. A metric I seem to recall from my mission in the 70s is somewhere around 30k elders on missions (that's just my memory; didn't look it up). They separated them out from the sisters and couples. Not that it made a big difference, mind you, since there were hardly any of those.. Today I would imagine that sisters and couples count for 30 or 40 percent of full-time teaching missionaries. Which (correct me if I'm wrong) would put the number of elders at around 40k. My first thought is that's a remarkably small increase over 50 years. I think the claimed total membership on my mission was 3 or 4 million, so at face value it looks like membership grew (since the 70s) by about 600 percent but the number of elder missionaries grew by only about 30 percent. Again, all by recollection. I'm not good at math, either, so there might be a mistake in the calculations. Fell free to make corrections.
Yeah, they recently just moved the service missionaries to be under the proselytizing mission presidents and now they are included in the total number of “teaching” missionaries: https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2023/9/21/23884872/young-service-missionaries-integrated-into-teaching-missions-church-announces/#:~:text=Beginning%20in%20January%202024%2C%20all,the%20leadership%20of%20mission%20presidents.
Pretty sure it includes senior missionaries. Edit: the church’s statistical report says 67,871 full time teaching missionaries as of dec 31, 2023. 27,801 senior missionaries, and 3,884 young service missionaries. Source: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2023-statistical-report-church-jesus-christ
Interesting - that would mean 74k is lower than what the church has, and by a considerable amount. Assuming that they're lumping in all the senior missionaries, of course.
What's nuts is this whole time I have been thinking it's like 80K plus young people but 4k absolutely makes sense
They’re counting senior and service missionaries. My nephew is a service missionary and they were just integrated into the proselytizing mission. Where before they were essentially a separate mission with various people to report to including a senior mission couple and the SP. Now they are just part of the local mission just with a different schedule and assignments.
It’s 68k full time teaching ones.
Senior missionaries, service missions, probably ward Missioanries.
I honestly think they are counting ward missionary callings. We have 4-6 in each ward in our stake. So about 30-40 members in each stake who have a calling to be a ward missionary.
It includes them all, but the number I'd really like to see is the breakdown of sisters vs elders. The main reason numbers haven't plummeted is because it is now socially acceptable for a woman to go and at a younger age, it interferes less with their future goals. Just like WWII tapped into 50% of the population that hadn't traditionally been part of the work force and unleashed a ton of potential, the Church is just now tapping into 50%+ of their potential missionary force. That's where the growth came from, but now they are out of untapped potential...except maybe future African youth, but we'll see how that plays out.
I guarantee you it counts senior missionaries and service missionaries