Mass evangelism? A waste of time!

The study of conversions to the LDS [Mormon/Latter Day Saints] community yielded the same results. In fact the LDS statistics are particularly compelling. The LDS community gives an enormous amount of time and talent to formal evangelism. Its leaders devote two years to this practice full-time. Who has not met LDS missionaries many times knocking on the front door? But the actual conversions from these efforts are next to negligible: about one in a thousand (0.1 percent). The impressive growth rate of the community—about 4 percent annually—is achieved almost entirely through the conversions of relatives and close friends. An astonishing 50 percent of these contacts are converted after a period of around three years of general informal contact.—Paul: An Apostle’s Journey, 45