Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
I may be wrong, but I looked at the budget for my ward a ways back, and discovered that just our tithing, while still a resident with a 2nd job + Farrah's job (not too much money), would cover the entire ward discretionary budget.
I was kind of ticked about that for a couple of weeks.
Because when I compare the LDS experience of my youth (ward canoeing trips, etc) and my current LDS social experience, it is night and day. How many variations of the ward potluck can you have?
|
Once the finance committee of a church (non-Mormon) that I belonged to produced a detailed state of the congregation report, that included many financial facts and figures. One of which was the contributions from the households who were regular contributors divided by an estimate of our total income from published demographics for our area. They guesstimated a tithing rate of somewhere around 3% (if I recall correctly). This church was "break-even" at that point, it had a large mortgage from a recent building project a modest, but professional ministry and education staff, and the typical maintenance and utility bills. This is from a denomination that doesn't push the 10% tithing suggestion, in fact the pastor had suggested from the pulpit that a person's tithing ought to include both giving for church and charitable organizations. Anyway they did list some very nice things they could do if the number were to increase to another 1 or 2%. Then they listed some "dream" things that could be done for some higher numbers, which didn't even go up to 10%.
So... this leads me to ask ... Where does the money go if the LDS Church pushes the 10% tithing expectation? There is not even a professional staff to pay. Of course I expect there are a lot who are not able to comply or choose not to.
PS Another church does the finances in a very open, honest and trusting way. They plan their activities and costs and publish the planned budget with items prioritized by committees from the congregation. That is published and the final budget is set each year based on everyone's anonymous pledge of support for the year (known to just your family and the Almighty). Then they track and report the income vs pledges on an aggregate basis in a corner of the weekly bulletin.