With several missions having clear sub-regions, the past reasons to support specific missions are not as clear in the present.
Also, missions are one place where calling more than 2 counselors to the presidency is a generally allowed practice. So if the number of missionaries does not justify a seperate mission, there are various ways to appraoch the issue.
It should also be born in mind that the logistics of finding enough Church members willing to committ 3 years to leading a mission, with a couple where both meet the full worthiness and sportual maturity requirements and such is not easy. Leaving for 3 years is a big burden in some cases, and I have known people who were in academia and told if they accepted a call as mission president by other they knew there that these other people would make sure they never returned to the academic world.
So these logistics do mitigate against creating more missions than needed.
Other issues to consider. Many of the reasons to have unfied language missions and why they were supported in the past no longer exist. Until after World War II almost all missions were mono-lingual, and it was not until the 1960s that Spanish-speaking missionaries in the US were assigned to the geographical missions where they served. Before that there were specific Spanish-speaking missions.
However until the 1970s one function of many missions was to publish church materials and especially Church magazines in their language of operation. Since the early 1970s this and a translation services are all coordinated centrally through Church headquarters, although starting about 2005 areas outside the US have growting say and coordinating roles. However missions themselves do not coordinate this, so specific missions for specific countries are not needed on this front.
Likewise the Church especially in the 1950s and 1960s looked to mission presidents to be ambassadors for the Church. This was the justification of building or buying some extremely nice residents for mission presidents and families in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Since then the Church has developed a professional public relations and governmental relations departments, created public relations callings at all levels, and moved in some other interesting directions. In many eastern European countries the Church in part exists as a legal entity whose technical head has no clear eccelsiastical position, but due to requirements that the Church be headed by a national of that country, it is not the mission president who holds that position.
At the same time with most of western Europe covered by stakes, the need for mission leadership there is not what it was 15 years ago when there were more districts. At the same time with the huge explosion of districts in the Ivory Coast for example there is a need for more missions.
Lastly, modern technology makes it much easier to monitor and run a far flung mission. Missionaries with smart phones are easier to keep track of and communicate with. They can also no matter how far from mission headquarters maintain reasonable contact with the mission president in a timely way.
With advances in video phone and video conferencing technology, there are adequate ways to provide training and other resouces, and even in theory participation in a mission council, for missionaries extremely distant from mission headquarters.
There are lots of other issues at play at various levels, and so I do not expect to see major reductions in the number of missions. However I think more consolidations in Europe and North America, and clearly more new missions in Africa, are on the horizon.
One thing to bear in mind is that at least in the US over the last 20 years one strong trend has been to try to come closer to a more balanced number of missionaries per unit. We are never going to go to a full balance, but it has been recognized that sending more missionaries into a ward or branch has negative consequences, especially for real growth.
The view of missionaries as the support for the ward itself implementing a mission plan, as opposed to the ones who implement their own mission plan, is key to this growth.
I have seen a lot of progress in the Church on a focus towards real growth instead of just churning out baptisms. At least in my branch we have the goal of getting all recent converts to the temple to do baptisms with names of relatives as quickly as possible after their baptism.
Also, missions are one place where calling more than 2 counselors to the presidency is a generally allowed practice. So if the number of missionaries does not justify a seperate mission, there are various ways to appraoch the issue.
It should also be born in mind that the logistics of finding enough Church members willing to committ 3 years to leading a mission, with a couple where both meet the full worthiness and sportual maturity requirements and such is not easy. Leaving for 3 years is a big burden in some cases, and I have known people who were in academia and told if they accepted a call as mission president by other they knew there that these other people would make sure they never returned to the academic world.
So these logistics do mitigate against creating more missions than needed.
Other issues to consider. Many of the reasons to have unfied language missions and why they were supported in the past no longer exist. Until after World War II almost all missions were mono-lingual, and it was not until the 1960s that Spanish-speaking missionaries in the US were assigned to the geographical missions where they served. Before that there were specific Spanish-speaking missions.
However until the 1970s one function of many missions was to publish church materials and especially Church magazines in their language of operation. Since the early 1970s this and a translation services are all coordinated centrally through Church headquarters, although starting about 2005 areas outside the US have growting say and coordinating roles. However missions themselves do not coordinate this, so specific missions for specific countries are not needed on this front.
Likewise the Church especially in the 1950s and 1960s looked to mission presidents to be ambassadors for the Church. This was the justification of building or buying some extremely nice residents for mission presidents and families in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Since then the Church has developed a professional public relations and governmental relations departments, created public relations callings at all levels, and moved in some other interesting directions. In many eastern European countries the Church in part exists as a legal entity whose technical head has no clear eccelsiastical position, but due to requirements that the Church be headed by a national of that country, it is not the mission president who holds that position.
At the same time with most of western Europe covered by stakes, the need for mission leadership there is not what it was 15 years ago when there were more districts. At the same time with the huge explosion of districts in the Ivory Coast for example there is a need for more missions.
Lastly, modern technology makes it much easier to monitor and run a far flung mission. Missionaries with smart phones are easier to keep track of and communicate with. They can also no matter how far from mission headquarters maintain reasonable contact with the mission president in a timely way.
With advances in video phone and video conferencing technology, there are adequate ways to provide training and other resouces, and even in theory participation in a mission council, for missionaries extremely distant from mission headquarters.
There are lots of other issues at play at various levels, and so I do not expect to see major reductions in the number of missions. However I think more consolidations in Europe and North America, and clearly more new missions in Africa, are on the horizon.
One thing to bear in mind is that at least in the US over the last 20 years one strong trend has been to try to come closer to a more balanced number of missionaries per unit. We are never going to go to a full balance, but it has been recognized that sending more missionaries into a ward or branch has negative consequences, especially for real growth.
The view of missionaries as the support for the ward itself implementing a mission plan, as opposed to the ones who implement their own mission plan, is key to this growth.
I have seen a lot of progress in the Church on a focus towards real growth instead of just churning out baptisms. At least in my branch we have the goal of getting all recent converts to the temple to do baptisms with names of relatives as quickly as possible after their baptism.
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