LDS Church among largest, growing U.S. churches

SALT LAKE CITY — The nation's 10 largest churches remained the same, and churches that have in recent years increased in membership continued their growth while others with declining numbers continued to fall.

So says the National Council of Churches' 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, released earlier this week.

But before you pass it off as simply the same ol' same ol' of religious trends in North America, consider the fact that total church membership declined by 1.05 percent over the past year.

And that 1.05 percent figures out to nearly 1,550,000 fewer members in the 227 national church bodies tracked by the NCC, leaving a total membership of 145,838,339.

With its headquarters in Salt Lake City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 6,058,907 members in the U.S. and Canada, fourth-most in the yearbook's Top 25 listing of the largest national churches but well behind the 68.5 million Catholics accounted for in North America.

Also, the 2010 yearbook noted not a decrease but a 0.49 percent increase in overall church membership from 2009 to '10.

In its 79th edition, the 2011 Yearbook — edited by the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lidner — acknowledges up to a two-year lag in membership totals, since most mainline national churches collect member totals in 2009 and then submit them to the NCC in 2010 during the book's production cycle.

The five churches with the largest increases in North American membership as reported to the NCC include:

 Jehovah's Witnesses, ranked 20th in size with a membership of 1,162,686, reported a 4.37 percent increase over the past year.

 Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which returned at No. 24 after a two-year absence from the NCC's annual Top 25 ranking with a membership of 1,043,606, posted an increase of 4.31 percent.

 The LDS Church was third-highest in membership growth at 1.42 percent.

 The Catholic Church reported a 0.57 percent increase.

And the Assemblies of God, No. 9 in the Top 25, had an increase of 0.52 percent.

And the five with the largest decreases in North American membership:

 The United Church of Christ, at No. 21 with a membership of 1,080,199, reported the steepest decline among the Top 25 with a drop of 2.83 percent