I always look forward to the annual statistical report as part of April Conference. At the end of 2023, Church membership stood at 17,255,391 and had grown by 1.49% year over year. At the end of 2024, Church membership stood at 17,509,781 and had grown by 1.47% year over year. World population growth in 2024 was .89% so 2024 was the third year in a row where Church growth outpaced world growth. With 17,509,781 Church members worldwide among 8.09 billion humans on the planet, there is 1 Latter-day Saint for every 462 people on earth. 1/462 = .0216 or 2 tenths of 1 percent. This explicitly fulfills the prophecy in Matthew 7:14 "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way ... and few there be that find it." It also fulfills the prophecy in 1 Nephi 14:12 that the members of the Lord's true Church will be "few" and their "dominions ... small."
Church Annual Growth Rate for the 50 Years 1975-2024
Red Line is World Population Growth Rate
As with all images on this blog, click to enlarge. The Church is on a 4-year strong growth track post COVID.
A chart of the numeric increase in Church membership over the last 50 years looks like this:
Annual Church membership increases range from a low of 98,627 in 2020 (COVID year) to a high of 587,234 in 1989 (the year after President Ezra Taft Benson's famous talk asking us to "Flood the Earth with the Book of Mormon."
Since its organization in 1830, the Church has grown every year except 1839 (Missouri persecutions) and 1855 - 1857 (handcart tragedies, Johnston's Army). From 1858 to 2024 we have seen 166 years of uninterrupted growth. Starting from a membership base of 1,693,180 at the end of 1960, 1961 was the first year the Church grew by more than 100K members.
How does recent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints growth compare with the growth of global Christianity generally? My numbers for worldwide Christianity come from the annual "Status of Global Christianity" report published by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts. In the 4 years from 2021 to 2025 Christianity worldwide grew by 99,738,000 starting from a base of 2,545,579,000 for a real growth rate of 3.92%. In the 4 years from 2020 to 2024 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew by 846,118 starting from a base of 16,663,663 for a real growth rate of 5.10%. The Church is outgrowing global Christianity and its growth over the last 4 years (846,118 additional members) represents .85% of global Christianity's growth (99,738,000 additional members). This despite the fact that the Church's total membership (17,509,781) is only .66% of global Christianity's membership (2,645,317,000).
Both global Christianity (3.92% growth in the last 4 years) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.10% growth in the last 4 years) are growing faster than world population (2.9% growth in the last 4 years starting with 7.856 billion in 2020 and ending with 8.09 billion at the end of 2024).
Elder Ronald A. Rasband gave a great General Conference talk today on the Lord hastening His work. We have 367 temples operating, under construction, or announced. 80K missionaries are currently serving in 450 missions. 308K converts joined the Church in 2024. 800K students are enrolled in Seminary and Institute classes. 75K students are enrolled in BYU Pathway Worldwide, 1/3 of whom are in Africa. Hurrah for Israel!
