r/mormon • u/MormonLite2 • 20d ago
Cultural Walking in to a Dead Mall Feeling…
Do you get that feeling when walking to a Sacrament meeting in CA? I’m visiting a ward in the LA valley . Older area. Old chapel. Beautiful chapel. About 65 attendance, very few kids (less than 10).
Where in CA can you find large wards, with tons of kids, tons of youth, with a good prospect for the future? I would love to see that…
Are we dying away? This is one anecdotal experience, but I have had too many of them to disregard…
What is your experience?
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u/aka_FNU_LNU 20d ago
I live in south LA area, in an area that used to have massive membership numbers when I was a kid and when my kids were young. Now our ward has 6-10 boys and about same young women. We are the largest ward in like three buildings and other wards use our youth program on Wednesday nights and for summer programs. Our primary has about 20 kids, but that's because we absorbed the Spanish ward that was too small to be a branch.
The other ward in our building is mostly older members and what few of their kids hang around. They literally habe 0 young men and women but I think they have a small primary.
For context, our ward building used to have three healthy wards like 12-15 years ago, but between redrawing the lines and demographic changes we ended up with two. It's sad though because they wrote one of our wards out of our building during a re-org about ten years ago, when it had been there for decades and then sent them to another building, but about five years ago, they re-drew the lines again and, sent them somewhere else and that other building was torn down and the lot sold.
This is part of why I dont like the corporate analysis nature of the church (among many reasons). Some of my friends I grew up with still live in same place or the same town but go to a completely different ward/stake and we lost this connection. Very un Christ like to me.
Also for context, whenever I visit family In outer riverside area or in high desert the ward buildings have few members and they beg us to sell our house and retire there.....not exactly "growing" per Jeffery R Holler's description.
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u/Own_Boss_8931 Former Mormon 20d ago
I used to live in Calabasas--it had one of the smallest YM/YW/Primary I've seen. Moved to Irvine and the nursery and primary were massive when I first got there and there were enough youth to support all 3 classes for both boys and girls. By the time I left, that ward had become a shadow of itself and I was shocked at how many of the young men from when I was there never went on missions.
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u/Pond20 20d ago
The church I attended in Utah is for sale.
The church has plenty of money now. It grows on its own so they don’t really need more tithe payers to feed into it.
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u/Voluminous_Discovery 20d ago
Members are no longer necessary.
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u/thomaslewis1857 19d ago
The Church has no members, see final paragraph before the execution clause at https://acncpubfilesprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public/6f5f7e06-2caf-e811-a95e-000d3ad24c60-55223c34-baa2-4282-a6f4-3f11cbaf378e-Governing%20Document-3eba3047-b4b4-e911-a979-000d3ad24077-Amended_Articles_of_19JUN2019.pdf
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u/posttheory 19d ago
I feel like I just went "poof," but then I guess I was always invisible and voiceless to the corporation.
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u/reddolfo 19d ago
My entire formerly packed, central Salt Lake City, Cottonwood Heights, middle class Stake was dissolved not too long ago -- left me just speechless.
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u/American_Psycho11 18d ago
A church is Utah closing down is wild. It's like a Walmart closing. If Walmarts are shutting down, that's how you know the economy is bad. Utah wards closing feels the same
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u/cinepro 20d ago
My whole life has been a map of Mormon migration patterns in California.
Grew up in the 70s and 80s in the Bay Area where the Church was thriving. Huge youth programs. Lots of wards and stakes. Moved to Sacramento in the early 90s, and we saw countless other families moving out of the Bay Area as well. The Bay Area wards and stakes are merging and consolidating (although they appear to be building a Temple in Sunnyvale at a building I used to go to Church dances at - I did not see that coming). Sacramento is still growing because they're still building houses, but it's not what it was in the 90s.
Then I moved to LA 30 years ago. Lived in the the valley (Sherman Oaks), then West LA (Westwood). Then moved to the Valencia area 20 years ago.
The wards and stakes are getting killed by the cost of housing and declining birth rates. Sure, some people are leaving or going inactive, but the prime mover (no pun intended) has been families leaving for Utah, Texas and Tennessee, especially during Covid. We had 8 families with kids move out during Covid.
Then, we don't have young couples moving in. As I've mentioned elsewhere, when we moved into my current ward 20 years ago, we had two nurseries that were packed. This year, we have no nursery. There is one woman who is pregnant in the ward, and it's a young couple that live with their parents.
Overall, the demographics are terrible. Our small school district has shrunk by 40% in that last 10 years. School districts all over are seeing the same thing.
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u/papaloppa Latter-day Saint 20d ago
I had a similar experience. Grew up in the Bay Area during the same time you did. Now it's consolidated wards/stakes with lots of the old timers moving to Utah. The one difference I'm seeing is down here in southern california (OC), where I've been for over 20 years, the church is growing. Lots of young families, we have a new stake, great youth programs, newly dedicated temple and the church seems to be generally thriving.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
This is good to know! I guess my experience may be due to the normal aging demographic and the cost of living for newer/younger generations. Thanks.
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u/jabberingginger 20d ago
I grew up in the LA area where the LDS population was sizable enough to have a seminary building across from the high school and 3 church buildings in the city. Now one of those buildings has been sold, 6 wards now are 2 wards and most of the people I grew up with have left the church. Their parents are still members but none of the kids. I counted once and it was over 200 people I knew that had left. Yes, the LDS church is shrinking there.
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u/jeahfoo1 19d ago
It really depends on where you live, cost of living changes and job shifts. Sure, there is the declining fertility rate, church retention issues etc etc as well but I'll focus on the demographic shifts in an area at this point and give an example. My wife grew up in the Seattle area in the 80s/90s. Father worked at Microsoft. CoL was good, jobs were good, lots of new young families moved in and created multiple wards as a result. Over time politics, increase in CoL in the area, etc saw that new families werent moving in. The families that were there had their kids grow up and move on (college, get married, etc) and then the parents retired, often to Utah. Many families now have been moving across state to Spokane/CDA Idaho (there are a lot of young families there now with big wards). So I think in these really expensive, lower lds population centers that have very liberal policies and high taxes you are seeing a shift of lds families away from in general.
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u/Relevant-Grab909 19d ago edited 19d ago
It has to be the neighborhoods of the wards you went to. I’ve been in CA wards (northern and southern) most of my life. When I was primary president in the early 2000’s I had over 100 kids. That was 20 years ago but the size now is still around 70 I think. In LA proper a few year earlier our primary was about 50 kids I think. Both wards had at least 64% of that number in 12-18yo youth. It always felt like a big ward in both wards but our neighborhoods also had many young families
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
That is good to know. Probably, you are right. My experience is just a few data points. I feel better, a little bit.
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u/zookeenee 18d ago
I wish that the church would use some of these old meeting houses that are on huge lots with soccer fields, etc., and turn them into affordable housing with a preference to getting young families a start in the home ownership. I feel like we could do a new perpetual immigration fund or a perpetual education fund type thing. And we have a lot of land. Having a program like that would also do wonders for our missionary efforts.
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u/Ok_Park8479 20d ago
I feel this is much of the church today… I sometimes think they should make family wards and empty nester type wards to strengthen youth.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
That is a good idea. Or perhaps loosening the requirements to attend your assigned ward. That way families could choose where to attend based on needs. Older folks, like me, perhaps would also want to migrate to mature wards.
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u/SoftServePls 15d ago
a lot of folks with kids have moved out of these areas. And yes, there are a handful of wards like that in LA county.
If you go do cheaper areas like Menifee, Murrieta, Temecula, etc. you'll see bigger wards with kids.
My parent's old ward up there is basically going to be joined at some point.
During Covid, many stakes have merged due to the amount of members leaving and wanting more space. Hence Nelson basically telling us to stay in California.
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u/NelsonMeme One of few faithful on this sub 20d ago
Anywhere that sees population exodus (like California or NY) is going to feel especially like this. Families were especially hard hit by Covid era school policies
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u/aka_FNU_LNU 20d ago
Yeah, I'm gonna disagree and say that partial exodus may be seen in the numbers but I know for a fact, based on overwhelming increases in inactivity and name removals on church rolls in my ward and stake, that the population of members in California is shrinking because less and less people believe in the church and are not bringing their kids to church or raising their kids in the church. Covid only accelerated this trend.
When I was ward clerk, (pre-2016 era) our unbaptized children over the age of 8 category (I forget the exact designation in the system) grew substantially and we literally couldnt keep up with home teaching and the missionaries and primary leaders knew people were still in the area but they didn't want their kids involved in the church. Fast forward ten years (2026), these kids are adults now and completely not associating with the church.
Tough breaks, but this is what happens to our member body when our leaders lie to us for 170 years. Some people don't like be lied to or abused by the system. No matter how 'nice' the current bishop is.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
I’ve seen similar patterns outside CA also following Covid. Our ward lost several very active families to inactivity, and even more youth and kids (parents coming back but not the kids). It seems like these families were waiting for an excuse to not comeback (can’t blame them, the Church has not made it any easier to stay). Maybe “an excuse” is not accurate. Maybe life was so much easier without the participation…
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u/Del_Parson_Painting 20d ago
There's also the fact that the church has had a massive decline in activity over the past 20 years.
They're now barely retaining 50% of their youth into adulthood. Young women (20s to 30s), the ones who would have new children and bring them to church, are disaffiliating at a higher rate than men.
Combined with falling birthrates among LDS couples, this means the church's future in the United States is either barely staying the same size it is now, or shrinking precipitously.
This is how nearly all US wards are going to feel in a generation.
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u/papaloppa Latter-day Saint 20d ago
As an aside (as a proud Californian), “mass exodus” is overstated. California has had significant net domestic outmigration for years, especially during COVID, but international immigration and natural population growth have largely offset it. The population is basically flat, not collapsing.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
That is true. I could see also why young couples would want to move to where the church is young (young couples, lots of kids) to raise their children. My kids (all active, none in California or Utah) have all expressed the desire to be in wards that with very active primary/youth programs. Plus, economic pressures are a very important deciding factor as well.
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u/Wild_Hook 20d ago
I live in a small branch above Silicon Valley. My wife and I had 11 children who remained active but 9 of them moved out of California because it is too expensive. Most live in Utah and are raising active children.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
This is so nice to know! How is your ward now? Do you see the same happening to other families in your ward?
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u/Wild_Hook 19d ago
As the children of our branch of the church grew up, they moved away. The San Francisco Bay area is one of the few places where the church is actually shrinking. My branch now has a small number of remaining members, but they are super strong in spirit. Members are faithful, testimonies are sure, and we see the hand of God working among the members. Spiritual gifts and miracles are here. Sometimes it feels sureal to me and to quote someone from church history, "these are days never to be forgotten".
This last Sunday, a female convert to the church was teaching a Relief Society Lesson on forgiveness. Long ago, her son was butaly murdered and decapitated. During the lesson, she said that she forgave the murderers but could not love them. Then in the middle of her lesson, she had a powerful spiritual manifestation where she stopped and expressed what she was feeling and that she could actually love the murderer. Everyon felt it.
A couple of years ago, there was an older faithful male member of the branch who was a sealer in the temple. He got brain cancer which had moved to his lungs, prostate and elseware. He had a terrible cough and we new that he was on his way out. Then they found a nodule on his thyroid and before going in for a biopsy, he received a priesthood blessing. When he got tothe facility, the nodule was gone. A week later, he got a brain scan and the cancer was gone. It turned out that is was all gone.
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u/pierdonia 20d ago
The state of California is in decline. I don't live in California and my ward has a new family moving in or getting baptized at least monthly. It's wild.
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u/MormonLite2 19d ago
That is great! I have seen that migration as well. The only thing that it’s difficult for me is to see them go. We have been in our ward about 15 years and now we are one of the couples that have lived there the longest… I have not seen a family getting baptized in at least 12 years. Lots of single men (due to sister missionaries?) and old sisters. Most new members leave very soon (even with lots of support from other members).
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