LDS one of nation's largest, fastest growing churches

She said measuring church membership is difficult, since some churches count membership after a child's baptism, christening or blessing, while others wait until a youth confirmation or an adult affirmation. Membership accountings by some churches may be approximations or may be based on an ethnic or racial population in a specific neighborhood.

"The reliability and viability of church statistical information is not precision work," Lindner said. Rather, the greatest benefits are in comparing data over several years and noting the trends.

For 2008, the LDS Church reported adding 123,502 children of record, nearly 30,000 more than the previous year and the first time over the 100,000 mark after five years in the 90,000s.

Also, convert baptisms totaled 265,593 in 2008, the first time in four years that the annual total was lower than the previous year. Over the past 10 years, the church's total number of converts has averaged 272,723 annually, with a high of 306,171 in 1999 and a low of 241,239 in 2004.

While the 2009 yearbook underscored membership decreases in most of the nation's largest churches, Lindner added that "theories of oversecularization are misstated," citing studies showing a church-affiliation rate of 63 to 64 percent in the United States, or roughly twice that in Western Europe.

She cited several factors, including an outmigration of members of traditional Christian churches to other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism or to spiritualistic organizations.

Also, as a mother of two young-adult sons, Lindner said that while younger generations participate, assist, serve and sometimes even proselyte in churches, there is an increasing reluctance to actually "join" in church membership.

E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com