Laurence Innaccone and Rodney Stark have developed a paper entitled "The Logic of Long Shots: A Theory of Cold-Call Witnessing" in which they study the door-to-door evangelism of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. In it, they discuss the success (or, more accurately, the lack of success) of this approach. It turns out that a dedicated Jehovah's Witness has about a 95% of *not* converting anyone in a given year. Wow, that's a lot of "no's." Mormons apparently have a similar rate.
This fits with what I've learned talking to Mormon missionaries who have come to my house. Poor kids, they're looking for a convert, and they get a sociologist--long, wide-ranging conversations about what they are doing and why but, alas, no conversion. I have been told that for these full-time missionaries, one convert a year is pretty good.
Still, JWs and Mormons are growing faiths and this evangelism, despite its low success rates, adds to their numbers.
About 1.7% of Americans are Mormon (same percentage as Jewish)
About .7% are JWs.
Source
This fits with what I've learned talking to Mormon missionaries who have come to my house. Poor kids, they're looking for a convert, and they get a sociologist--long, wide-ranging conversations about what they are doing and why but, alas, no conversion. I have been told that for these full-time missionaries, one convert a year is pretty good.
Still, JWs and Mormons are growing faiths and this evangelism, despite its low success rates, adds to their numbers.
About 1.7% of Americans are Mormon (same percentage as Jewish)
About .7% are JWs.
Source
4 comments:
About 1.7% of Americans are Mormon (same percentage as Jewish)Yeah, but we don't have a state --unless Hollywood counts as a state (see http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column).
I saw that article by Joel Stein... hilarious & raises questions about the use of stereotypes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/us/12coldcalls.html?_r=3
Sounds like a tough job...
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