And Testing one, two three, testing one, two one two three this is radio free Mormon on the air

broadcasting behind enemy lines tonight's episode lies, lies, and statistics.

The statistics will be talking about tonight have to do

with the growth of the LDS Church

and how the phenomenal growth of the Church in the 1970s and 1980s has slowed

dramatically in the last several years. This will come as no surprise to listeners of this podcast, but based upon the last statistical analysis I have seen, the growth of the church is leveling off and may even be to the point where it is about to flat line in the next several years.

Here are the latest statistics.

In 2014, church membership growth was 1.92%.

It was the worst church growth since 1957.

In 2015, church growth was 1.70%, so down from 1.92% of the year before to 1.70%. Now in 2015, this qualified as the worst church growth since

1918. And finally in 2016, church growth declined to 1.59%. That's down from 1.70% from the year before.

1.59% which then qualified as the worst church growth since

nine. Those in short are the statistics that we'll be dealing with tonight.

And those statistics are in spite of the fact that in 2012 the church lowered the missionary ages,

resulting in a huge increase in missionaries.

In spite of this glut of new missionaries on the market preaching the gospel, church membership

growth is not correspondingly increasing, rather it continues to decline.

But now I want to take you back 40 years to when I joined the Church in 1978.

When I joined the church in 1978. When I joined the church in 1978, church growth was booming.

From 1978 and on through the 80s, church growth was increasing at such a rate that predictions were made that if that rate of growth

continued, by 2080, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be a new world religion.

The remarkable rate of church growth became the subject of many general conference talks

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