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Sadly, the link to the Atlanta Constitution Journal article is broken. I suspect that the "world's fastest growing church" quote omits a "one of the" right before it, or it is simply the words of the reporter.

I have yet to hear of any official claim of being "THE" fastest growing church, I've only heard gratitude to God for being A fast growing church. There are so many different ways to measure the speed of growth that I doubt there will ever be a single, uncontested "THE fastest"

It is a valid point that some members equate fast growth with being true, and that is not justified (for any church). Likewise, a slowdown in growth or even a shrinking membership doesn't prove anything either. I've seen time and again how the faithfulness (or lack thereof) of a congregation has such a huge impact on church growth in that area.

I fully expect that as we get closer to the second coming that the Lord will try his people and many weak ones will fall away, possibly causing a decline in the overall growth of the church (but an increase in faith). It has happened before in the early days and I expect it to happen again someday.

Interesting tidbit about how many converts are former RCs. In the early days of the Church it was only the Protestants who went out of their way to persecute Mormons. Catholics didn't join in the mobs. (Kind of ironic if you ask me.) Currently relations between SLC and the Vatican are friendly, LDS members played a big role in helping the Catholic World Youth Day go smoothly. Catholics are in a real bind up here in Canada. There are so few priests that several Christmas masses were canceled, and the death of a preist often results in the merging of parishes.

As for the article, it makes me very glad I took courses in statistics. When in come to North America, where the church has been established longest, they measure growth in terms of % growth, for the rest of the world where the church has not been established as long, and where the rate of growth is fastest, they measure raw numbers. Both have the effect of downplaying the actual growth of the church creating a distorted and biased view. A real researcher would establish one measure of the rate of growth and stick with it.

Even with all that however, it can not be denied that the growth of the church has surpassed everyone's expecation, and continues growing at a rate many wish they could achieve. The future for the LDS Church is bright.

The celebrating in this thread by the usual suspects only shows how petty, hostile and insecure they are.