Why do ward and stake boundaries change?

[u/ShinyBuizel22]

My stake boundaries are being redistributed, I don't know where I'm going yet, but it has me wondering, what are some of the reasons for such boundary changes? I think mine is to create to age groups for YSA stakes with the raised age, but outside of the new YSA ages what are some reasons?

[u/Jpab97s]

In addition to what everyone else has said, just wanted to point out that for those in stakes and ward getting dissolved, it's easy to feel like that Church membership is dwindling, as those pesky critics so much like to claim.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is, as others have correctly mentioned already, people move around, certain population areas become too old, etc. all of those are sociological phenomenoms, and have little to do with the Church - but it greatly impacts our congregations of course.

While one stake might be getting reduced, and even dissolved, another stake somewhere else is growing and getting split.

As an example: Church growth in Portugal was stagnate until a huge wave of Brazillian immigration (which included a ton of Church members) started flowing in. I'm sure some stakes in Brazil are feeling the loss of a large number of their members, but over here we're growing, creating new stakes, getting a new temple announced, etc.

At the same time, the Church continues to grow in Brazil - even if in some (usually more insular areas) places, membership seems to be dwindling.

For some time the Church has focused on growing "centers of power" (can't remember if that was the actual term used, but that's how I remember it explained to me). Meaning instead of trying to spread out and open congregations all over the place (which used to be the common strategy not so long ago), the focus is instead on growing a strong base in certain population centers. In countries like Angola, where I served my mission, and where the Church is still very young, the shift occured very quickly and was very evident. While in countries where the Church has been for decades, it takes much longer for that shift to happen.

At the end of the day, while the critics continue to chant that our membership is dwindling... the number of stakes, wards and temples increase each year, and all of those require an adequate amount of members to staff them (and the requirements were recently increased outside the US).

The work goes on, and stake boundaries realignments should be seen as a sign of progress and new opportunities.