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Originally Posted by rayliotta
I guess I should have been more clear. I was talking specifically about the U.S. and Canada. I mentioned the trainings around the world, because I think it indicates that the increase in FTTA enrollment is actually home-grown, so to speak. Personally, I've known many "American" trainees, but maybe that's just a "co-wink-ee-dink".
Not to nitpick, but when you say the numbers are way down from the 70's and early 80's, aren't you really talking about the decline in membership that happened in the 80's? Not that that's irrelevant, it's just that it's...25 years ago. The simple fact that they've chugged along successfully for a generation "post-fermentation", to me that speaks volumes. Even if they've never grown back to "pre-fermentation" numbers.
As for the campus work. The "Austin apprenticeship" started in the late 90's. Personally, I've known many people who "came off the campuses", many of whom went on to the training. Obviously, we're talking about different situations in different places. But the "key cities" campaign you mentioned, didn't that just start in the last 3-4 years? That would seem way too early to judge...but maybe we're talking about two different things.
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If they don't post numbers wouldn't construction be a reasonable way to look for growth? Odessa grew from a home meeting, to renting a conference room at a hotel to renting a warehouse with parking. Each move represented growth in numbers. They essentially doubled in size twice during my 5 years there, going from 25 to 100. By the time I left there was a small meeting going on in Midland. And that would have been in the 80s. In Houston they filled the hall right up to the Irving construction when 100 plus saints moved from Houston to Irving. A second way to deal with growth is migration. Over the year and a half of the construction it appeared that Houston gained that 100 right back, so that would have been about 30-50% growth in 18 months.
So wouldn't the evidence of growth be an increase in the number of churches, and an increase in the seating capacity of the halls.
Now according to Sun Tzu you can know the condition of an entire army based on the condition of a single soldier. The modern analogy is that you only need to look at a representative set of around 5% to get a good idea of the condition as a whole.
1. I can tell you that NYC did not grow in numbers at all in the 90s. They kept weekly records. As an usher one of my jobs was to count the total number of saints sitting in the seats Sunday morning about halfway through the meeting and record that in a book. Also, NYC has not been involved in any migrations to my knowledge during the 90s. That is not to say that saints haven't moved in and out of the church, but a significant subset of the members did not migrate to a new locale to start a meeting. And this is very telling. Already the saints in come from a wide area in which it would be much more convenient to have more localized meetings. They might argue that they have had growth in the spanish speaking portion of saints, but that, to my impression, has only helped the overall numbers remain constant.
2. My daughter went to school in Buffalo and met a group of loosely affiliated LRC saints. It is like a home meeting of about 25, primarily college kids. The brother leading them knew me from the FTTT, and he does not push LSM at all.
So perhaps if others could contribute their knowledge of their locale we could put together enough anecdotal evidence to suggest whether LRC is growing, stagnant or in decline.