That scripture, found in Matt. 7:13-14, is one explanation I have for the LDS bronze medal in U.S. church growth in 2009, according to newly released data by the National Council of Churches USA. Who won the gold? Jehova's Witnesses with 2.12% increase, and the Church of God of Cleveland TN holding the silver medal at a 2.04% increase. The LDS Church was at a 1.63% increase. Catholics aren't fairing so well...losing roughly 398,000 members, and Southern Baptists losing 40,000. This means that by the year 2180 there will no longer be any Catholics or Southern Baptists in the U.S.! In fact, in addition to the medal winners listed above, there was only one other church that had any growth in 2009, all the other churches in the U.S. either saw a decrease in growth or stayed the same.
Okay okay, now that I got your attention and some Mormons out there are depressed and wondering how they lost to the JWs, lets look at the actual numbers instead of the percentages:
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LDS Church: 95,736.5 (we love you 0.5, whoever you are)
Jehova's Witnesses: 23,153
Church of God of Cleveland TN: 21,494
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Ah, well there you have it. Gold medal for the Mormons. Congrats. Fastest growing church in the U.S. for 2009, thanks for playing everyone else. Now if we can just get those 95,000 to stay, we'll be in good shape!
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