JWs and Mormons are fastest growing U.S. churches

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According to an article in Christianity Today, the JW’s and the Mormons are the fastest growing in the U.S.:

christiantoday.com/article/jehovahs.witnesses.mormons.fastestgrowing.churches.in.us/16994.htm

According to a promotion I just heard on Relevant Radio, Drew Mariani will be discussing this today on his show which starts at 3 p.m. Central time. His web site is here:

relevantradio.com/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=275&srcid=809

He doesn’t list this on his web site as the topic for today, but that was the topic as I just heard it on Relevant Radio.
 
Let me guess…

The Church of Scientology is #3 and Pastafarianism is #4?
 
I am not disrespecting LDS/ JW efforts to convince and increase but “fastest growing” can be misleading. If one has 2 members and the next day 2 more join then your membership has doubled overnight.
 
pismopal said:
I am not disrespecting LDS/ JW efforts to convince and increase but “fastest growing” can be misleading. If one has 2 members and the next day 2 more join then your membership has doubled overnight.
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No kidding just look at the numbers:

Church: total members - increase in numbers
LDS: 5,779,316 - 90157
JW: 5,779,316 - 24064
RC: 67,515,016 - 587380

These are of course approximate based on simple math. In other words, multiplying the total members by the percent increase.

Giving statistics based on percentages is laughable.

What really is interesting is how most of the mainline protestant organizations are actually losing members. That is more telling than anything else in the article.
 
**And now, the BAD news for the Jehovah’s Witnesses:
**
“An even more extreme example of what might be called “masked churn” is the relatively tiny Jehovah’s Witnesses, with a turnover rate of about two-thirds. That means that two-thirds of the people who told Pew they were raised Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer are - yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts. Notes Lugo, “No wonder they have to keep on knocking on doors.””

This comes from the new Pew Forum study on American religion and the related article from Time.

news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080225/us_time/americasunfaithfulfaithful

religions.pewforum.org/

This is truly a staggering figure. What does it say when 2/3 of your parishoners permanently drop out of your religion at some point in their life?
 
“Fastest growing” is a little misleading.

If my denomination starts out with 100 members and goes to 1000 by the end of the year, 1000% growth would be achieved, but could we be said to be the “fastest growing” in the sense that our ascendency or membership is on the way to becoming the majority religion any time soon?

These statistics are skewed in favor of denoms that are small to begin with.

Mormonism has trouble with retention (one out of 2 abandon the faith) and the same is true with JWs where third gen members are the exception not the rule.

Not that we shouldn’t work hard to keep Catholics Catholic, or help non-Catholics to become Catholic… just that worrying these new movements - which always ebb and flow - are imminent threats on the horizon is probably not a good use of our time.

We would do well, however, knowing this, to urge groups like Catholic Answers to continue to publish apologetics that refute the claims of these groups, and arm ourselves with knowledge about the “religous movements de jure”.
 
How are Jehovah’s Witnesses accomplishing this growth? It’s through a world-wide preaching campaign in fulfillment of Matt 24:14 and Matt 28:19,20. Most people are unaware of the massive organizational focus and effort by JW’s. Here’s a video on Youtube which gives an inside look at what’s happening:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
 
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