Globalization
From the beginning, the first members of the Church, including Joseph Smith, anticipated that the restored gospel would reach the whole world. Joseph received a revelation in 1831 promising that the gospel “shall … roll forth unto the ends of the Earth,” which Latter-day Saints broadly and earnestly sought to fulfill in their efforts to preach and gather to Zion. Throughout its history, the Church grew into a global faith, a process that was shaped by larger historical trends as well as the direction of Church leaders and dedicated service of Church members.
The beginnings and early growth of the Church coincided with a worldwide swell in population and expansion of travel, immigration, communication, industry, and literacy across the globe. By the turn of the 20th century, European, American, and Asian states and colonies reached their geographic extent, having claimed territory of virtually all land masses of the earth and asserting governmental power over their residents. People of the world increasingly connected with each other across wide distances and in varieties of ways. Some panoramic events produced conditions experienced by the vast majority of the world’s population in the 20th and 21st centuries, like the two World Wars and an extended process of decolonization in which former colonial governments were replaced with locally defined ones. Through missionary work, migration, and continuous ministry, Latter-day Saints during these periods raised up a global community of their own.
Not all areas of the world were accessible to the first Latter-day Saint missionaries or their message. Church members reached out to family members and acquaintances through personal networks, which initially spanned their homelands or pathways they had known through occupations like military service, business, and tourism. The first regions to open to Latter-day Saints were the United States, Canada, British Isles, continental Europe, and Pacific Islands. Personal networks expanded from these zones as new members and their families and neighbors shared the gospel. When Church leaders in the 1890s began to urge new converts not to emigrate to the North American West but rather strengthen their homeland stakes, established congregations could be found in North America, Europe, and Oceania.
International conditions and improvements in travel in the early 1900s allowed the rising number of missionary candidates to extend their preaching farther abroad, which brought new methods of structuring missions, districts, and branches. Missionaries by the 1920s worked to strengthen districts enough for local members to administer their congregations. As membership grew, Church units were subdivided to accommodate, thus multiplying the number of wards and stakes across the globe. Apostles continued their distinctive charge to “unlock the door of the kingdom of heaven unto all nations” by working with government officials to secure permission to establish the Church in new countries. By the 1940s, forty missions were operating in Europe, North and South America, Pacific Islands, and parts of Asia.
After World War II, servicemembers helped to introduce or reestablish the Church in countries where they had been stationed, especially in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. President David O. McKay, who had witnessed firsthand as a young Apostle the challenges facing members outside North America, oversaw an extensive building program for chapels and temples to better support congregations across the world. Between 1945 and 1955, 630 meetinghouses were constructed, largely built by local Latter-day Saints. As stakes abroad started to multiply, temples soon followed. Between 1955 and 1985, eighteen temples were built outside the United States in Europe, Oceania, Central and South America, eastern Asia, and southern Africa. Temple construction accelerated into the 21st century, with hundreds in operation across the world by 2024.
A rapid rise in cross-border migration and advancements in travel between the 1990s and early 2000s transformed missionary work worldwide. Broadcast media and internet streaming technologies expanded the Church’s communication channels across more languages than ever before. The Translation Department grew into a major operation, helping to bring scriptures, temple ceremonies, general conference addresses, and publications into the linguistically diverse audience of the whole Church. By the 2020s, programs, initiatives, and materials were typically started with the global network of Church members in mind.
Related Topics: Church Growth, Growth of Missionary Work, Servicemember Branches, Interreligious Relations, Political Neutrality, Wards and Stakes