This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Though the LDS Church claims more than 15.3 million members, a more important barometer of its continued growth and appeal is the number of congregations.

On that score, the Utah-based faith has arrived at an important milestone: 30,000 congregations.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a lay clergy, which means each congregation is staffed by volunteers and that requires a significant commitment of time and energy.

"This milestone has taken a significant amount of time to reach due to decelerating congregational growth rates in the 2000s and early 2010s," writes independent LDS demographer Matt Martinich, who noted the achievement on his blog.

 "The number of official congregations reached the 10,000 milestone in 1979 and the 20,000 milestone in 1992," he writes. "Congregational growth has slightly accelerated in the mid-2010s, although both numerical increases and percentage growth rates remain significantly less than in the 1980s and 1990s."

In addition to official congregations (defined as wards and branches), Martinich notes, "hundreds, if not thousands, of semiofficial member groups also operate throughout the world."

The LDS Church has more than 85,000 full-time missionaries spread out among 400-plus missions across the globe.

Peggy Fletcher Stack