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Jehovah's Witnesses are fastest-growing U.S. faith; LDS are fourth-largest U.S. faith

Watchtower society membership data is compiled by them,their is no way to verify.Interesting that they have recently admitted to losses in almost all industrialized countries,and NOW they are reporting increases?

Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be the 'fastest growing religion' Scientologist claim millions of members too.

My family are active Jehovah's Witnesses and they say less and less are showing up at the Kingdom Hall meetings and for the field service door to door work,so go figure that one out.

Although I disagree tremendously with the J.W.'s abstainment from military service, I respect the people who go out and preach the Word of God in any religion. I think that more LDS members should be member-missionaries like them. Charity rocks!

This shows how the books have been cooked by the LDS Church. Now, the truth appears. Fourth, not first. And the numbers are probably even worse than are being reported. I've seen it, you've seen it, we all have seen it. People come thru the front door, get baptized, then go right out the back door when they learn all about the goofy history and how it's been covered up. The only thing that will save the Church is total honesty about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, polygamy and what really happened at Carthage.

Matt 24:14

I congratulate The Jehovah Witnesses for their fine and relentless missionary efforts to proclaim the name of God...Great Work!

This is a badly written story, inaccurately conveying information on the Web site beliefnet.com. The Jehovah Witnesses are not the fastest-growing U.S. faith. According to beliefnet.com, the Jehovah's Witneeses only had a growth in 2007 of around 22,500 members, or 2.25 percent of their total membership of approximately 1 million members in the U.S. and Canada. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, had a growth of 88,920 members in the United States alone. The inaccuracy, intentional or otherwise, comes from the fact that the journalist did not look into the numbers, but only quoted percentages. True growth is total new membership, not percentage of growth. Additionally, the story counts Jehovah Witness membership in the U.S. and Canada, but only counts L.D.S. membership in the U.S. While statistics are not all that important when it comes to faith, an honest recounting of those statistics is.

Great, does this mean they are the true church now?

I am just getting use to the other one i joined because someone told me it was the fastest growing church.

Wait until next quarters figure are out! Mitt put Mormonism center stage. See the return on investment. What more proof do people need that the LDS Church is main stream? The nation saw Mitt sharing the stage with McCain.

Who cares.

Well, so who complies the LDS membership numbers? Oh, that's right ... the LDS church does.

And i'm pretty sure that the LDS church includes members who were baptized but stopped coming to church 3 weeks later.

It seems silly to accuse the Watchtower for counting their membership the same way the Mormons do.

Witnesses were once fighters for certain good things in our laws, but the organization has evolved full circle into a bunch of hypocritical old men who remain in a severely retarded Victorian world where they hole up and say, "We are the only true religion!" and yet the soup stinks. They are declining the last two years in many parts of the earth due to THIS, the internet, the very thing they are encouraged to avoid because it makes them look so bad. Follow any of the links about Jehovah's Witnesses in the search engines and you will find the record of false prophecies, flip-flops in doctrine, phony dates, and bloodguilt over wrongful deaths, including those from following their ever-changing stance on blood transfusions.

All I can say is......
"WHY?"

Way to protect your fragile egos. Likewise, LDS Church membership seems to go up every year - but we can't get HQ to tell us how many of the 13 million are active, can we?

Who compiles and verifies LDS membership numbers?

how many are in the church of Satan?

It is interesting how the negative comments come out on any religious story whether it be on Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses or anyone else.

Most of the converts to the mormon church in latin america come from the economic poor class of society. The mormon church is recognized as the maids church because so many of the members are of the servant industry. These are people who most other people will not even give them the time of day. Along comes the young mormon missionarys in their white shirts and ties, they almost look like bankers, and they will not only give the time of day, but they will come to your home and visit and play with your children. It is an easy sale. But the infatuation usually dosen't last too long and everybody goes back to business as usual, maybe a little better off for having know for a short time a couple of good guys from a foriegn land.

Does the LDS Church want to emphasize it's size - 4th largest in North America, 13 million worldwide - or it's growth rate? One does affect the other.

It is not a secret that the LDS Church does not deduct inactive members from its overall member count of 13 million. It only deducts baptized members who die, reach a certain age on record (I believe 110), ask to have their names removed, and possibly those excommunicated. Because of this, the 13 million number is very, very inflated in terms of actual active, practicing members. Actual active members is probably about 5 million worldwide. If the Church were able to swallow some pride and report the actual number of active members, the growth rate would increase substantially because new members (converts and baptized children) would be calculated against a smaller overall membership number. It is also a fact that convert numbers have declined as well so as long as the Church insists on the 13 million and growing figure, the growth rate will continue to be small and pale in comparison to the heady 1980s that drove the annual announcement of numbers.

These are typical statistics manipulation. Take large increases compared to a small base and presto you have a winner. It would be interesting to see what the absolute growth of individuals was during the observation period.

It is also interesting to note that the Jehovah's Witnesses of today seem to have forgotten that their organization predicted the second coming in September 1975. I had several close acquaintances and friends that were of that persuasion at the time and they were already to be taken up as part of the 144,000. The organization did some pretty fancy dancing in the months following that and lost a lot of followers. Now it is a rationalized part of the distant past. Hummmm... Interesting, from the standpoint of one who was there and saw it in real time.