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This is a list of Stakes operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) by continent and country. [1] In the LDS Church, a stake is an administrative unit composed of five to twelve congregations known as wards and branches. [2] Congregations that are too distant from a Stake are organized into districts.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian, Christian restorationist church that is considered by its members to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States, and has established congregations and built temples worldwide. According to the church, it has over 16 million members and 67,000 full-time volunteer missionaries. In 2012, the National Council of Churches ranked the church as the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States, with over 6.5 million members reported by the church, as of January 2018. It is the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement founded by Joseph Smith during the period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
A stake is an administrative unit composed of multiple congregations in certain denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. The name "stake" derives from the Book of Isaiah: "enlarge the place of thy tent; stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes". A stake is sometimes referred to as a stake of Zion.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a ward is the larger of two types of local congregations, the smaller being a branch. A ward is presided over by a bishop, the equivalent of a pastor in many other Christian denominations. As with all local LDS Church leadership, the bishop is considered lay clergy and as such is not paid. Two counselors serve with the bishop to help with administrative and spiritual duties of the ward and to preside in the absence of the bishop. Together, these three men constitute the bishopric. A branch is presided over by a branch president who may or may not have one or two counselors, depending on the size of the branch. Groups of wards are organized into stakes, while groups of branches are organized into districts.
Stake names generally include the name of the city where the Stake headquarters are located and the country that the stake is located in. (For Stakes in the United States or Canada, the name of the state or province is used in the name of the Stake rather than the name of the country.) If there is more than one Stake in a city, an appropriate disambiguation term is added to the second and subsequent Stakes created in the city. Stake names do not contain commas or other punctuation.