churchistrue wrote:Alf O'Mega wrote:One self-imposed headwind the total membership category has to be facing is the 110-year missing file policy. (Members in the missing file are not presumed dead until 110 years after their birth.) The adoption of that policy was probably largely responsible for the anomalously large increase in stated total membership in 1989 and 1990. However, as those 110-year anniversaries roll around, the death rate for the membership will be artificially inflated. I don't know if it's soon enough to be feeling this effect yet. (How many people in the missing file were born in 1916?) But the effect will only get larger as time goes on. It's entirely possible (though unlikely) that in some future year the Church could have real organic growth but still have a stated loss of membership because of having to write off lost 110-year-olds. More likely, though, actual membership decline will be overstated because of this policy. Or they could still change the policy and write down the loss in a single year.
In the modeling I do, this is still pretty negligible. The international growth started to ramp up in the 70's and 80's. And based on my anecdotal evidence, 80%+ of international converts are over age 40, so this would push out any major effect for quite some time.
This sounds about right to me.
Also, nice work on the blog. I'm not sure I can go the whole way with you on your inferred statistics, but keep it up. I'll be interested to see if we ever get corroboration, official or otherwise. (Leakers, we're looking at you.)