For the church to grow exponentially it must do two things: first it must baptize new members that are just as productive at generating new members as the established members. Second it must be in an environment where it has a competitive advantage. The church is doing a good job of baptizing people who are willing to go on missions, but a poor job of baptizing people who have lots of children that they raise in the church. Neither is it doing a very good job of producing new members who are active in the church and thus part of a growing social network. Many other religions are growing faster than Mormonism, and it is unclear how Mormonism would have a competitive advantage over those religions.

Despite increasing the member base and missionary force by 50% over the last decade, the church has been unsuccessful at increasing the number of baptisms by even 1%. When we look at the actual growth rate of the church from 1983 to 2000 there is strong statistical evidence that the slowing growth is due to an underlying trend rather than random fluctuations.

Looking forward the question is will the growth rate continue to go down, bottom out, or rebound? The factors discussed in this paper's sections regarding the nature of exponential growth lead me to believe that it will continue to go down, but at slower rates, reaching about 30 million members by the year 2080.

If you have a question or would like to discuss these topics, I suggest that you go to a Mormon-related bulletin board. If you'd like to <i>contact me</i> with comments or feedback, you may send an email to analytics@lds4u.com.CompanyEmail