Plan expected to help Mormon Church deal with growth

     Associated Press
      SALT LAKE CITY -- Mormon Church President Gordon B. Hinckley on Saturday announced a reorganization of the faith's middle management aimed at better accommodating the rapid growth of a faith approaching 10 million adherents.
      Hinckley said the church was adding three new quorums of the Seventy -- a body that manages the church's affairs throughout the world -- to be filled by 134 men appointed to the new position of Area Authority Seventy.
      The 134 were previously Area Authorities who assisted 23 Area Presidencies mostly made up of members of the existing First and Second Quorums of the Seventy. Now the 134 will be church officers and members of the Seventy, which takes its direction from the governing First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
      "With these respective quorums in place, we have established a pattern under which the church may grow to any size with an organization of Area Presidencies and Area Authority Seventies, chosen and working across the world according to need," Hinckley said.
      Since becoming president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in March 1995, Hinckley has stressed that managing the growth of the 167-year-old religion, which has more members abroad than in the United States, is the leadership's greatest challenge.
      Speaking at the opening session of the church's 167th Annual General Conference, the 86-year-old Hinckley also announced a leadership change in the Relief Society, the church's women's auxiliary.
      Mary Ellen Smoot, director of church hosting, was appointed Relief Society president, replacing Elaine Jack, who had served since 1990. Virginia Jensen and Shari Dew, Hinckley's authorized biographer, were named Smoot's counselors.
      Hinckley drew laughs when he said Dew's appointment "isn't a thank-you for writing my biography. ... She's left me without privacy or anything else."
      Although the Area Authority Seventies were being ordained to the new Third, Fourth and Fifth Quorums of the Seventy, Hinckley said they would not have the status of General Authority -- or full-time general church officer -- reserved for members of the First and Second Quorums of the Seventy, the Twelve, the Presiding Bishopric and the First Presidency.
      "They will continue with their present (nonchurch) employment, reside in their own homes and serve on a church-service basis," he said.
      Area Authority Seventies living in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific will be assigned to the Third Quorum of Seventy. Those in Mexico and Central and South America will be in the Fourth Quorum. The Fifth Quorum's members reside in the United States and Canada.
      Hinckley said the new appointees would train presidencies of missions and stakes -- a stake is a collection of Mormon congregations -- create or reorganize stakes, and serve as counselors in Area Presidencies, among other duties.
      Noting that the Tabernacle on Temple Square was filled for the conference, Hinckley spoke of the church's plans to construct a new building just north of Temple Square that will have a seating capacity four times greater than the approximately 6,000-seat Tabernacle.
      He said groundbreaking was scheduled for July 24, the 150th anniversary of the Mormon pioneers' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.
      Hinckley said the Mormon Tabernacle Choir would continue to air its weekly broadcasts from the Tabernacle, but the new building will be used for the faith's twice-a-year general conferences and will have a stage that "can accommodate a large pageant."
      "We may not fill it initially," he said, "but we are building it for the long term."
      The church president, revered by Mormons as a "prophet, seer and revelator," also announced that property had been acquired in Albuquerque, N.M., and in Campinas, Brazil, for construction of new temples.
      Hinckley has dedicated 24 of the church's 49 operating temples and several more are either under construction or planned.
      Updated statistics released Saturday put church membership at 9,694,549 at the end of 1996. The church's full-time missionary force grew to 52,938, compared to 48,631 at the end of 1995.
      There were 321,385 convert baptisms in 1996.