This was posted on NOM with the report that church units in Central America will need to be self supporting based on tithing.

http://forum.newordermormon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41313

Anyone corroborate this?

This might work better:

http://forum.newordermormon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41313&hilit=central+america+tithing

This is good news. The cult won't spread. If the church isn't willing to make an investmant in to the community, then the church will not have any influence there. No one there will ever pay tithing or have to clean toilets. Problem solved.

They're not making an investment in American communities either.
Heck, they don't even invest in the stakes.

How crazy do members have to be to send thousands of dollars to SLC each week, only to be short of the most basic supplies on the ward levels. Not to mention fun activities.

If you want to sustain a church nowadays you have to offer members more than dry lectures.
Dinners, dances, entertainment are needed to keep a community of faith going. After all, members should get back something tangible for their money.

Mormonism is not only fake, it is also no fun,
Toilet cleaning does not qualify as fun.

Glo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They're not making an investment in American
> communities either.
> Heck, they don't even invest in the stakes.
>
> How crazy do members have to be to send thousands
> of dollars to SLC each week, only to be short of
> the most basic supplies on the ward levels. Not to
> mention fun activities.
>
> If you want to sustain a church nowadays you have
> to offer members more than dry lectures.
> Dinners, dances, entertainment are needed to keep
> a community of faith going. After all, members
> should get back something tangible for their
> money.
>
> Mormonism is not only fake, it is also no fun,
> Toilet cleaning does not qualify as fun.

+1000 again!!

The locals will start donating their gold teeth.

What a buncha BS

Looks like they've written off South America.

What about Africa ?

You mean, like the way it used to be worldwide?

I'm reading "America's Saints: the Rise of Mormon Power" (Gottlieb and Wiley), 1984. Following a large growth period in the booming 1960s, in both US membership and income, they expanded missionary activity in the late 1960s and the 1970s into Latin America, with a special emphasis on southern Mexico and the Central American countries.

They ran into various problems, many of them self-inflicted. They did little to foster indigenous leadership--they relied on either SLC sourced men, or they came from the Anglo expatriates in the northern Mexico "colonies." They were cozy with right-wing governments, and missed the boat on liberation theology, which local Catholics were embracing. They insisted misshies wear the white shirt and tie, which the lower classes saw as emblematic of aristocracy. And converts were disappointed in that their dreams of middle-class Americanization (a big recruiting draw) didn't come true, which hurt retention rates.

But the big thing was the economic downturn as the Carter administration transitioned into the Regan period. TSCC dropped big-time, an they found they could not sustain (pun intended) an extensive Latin apparatus, let alone expansion. Gottleib's book ends about 1983, but they report a major retraction of overseas efforts.

What appears to be different, this time, is that the US economy is doing well, and yet they won't "invest" in overseas growth? My guess is that whereas Americans are beginning to prosper, their slice of that (10%) is not! I.e. tithe income is not growing--fewer tithe-payers, and/or less-than-honest tithes.

The stores around here are showing signs of strain. Also, I've heard that there are 50 million people on food stamps. It could be a mixed bag right now.

The unit budgets in Brazil were next to nothing. Nothing for EQ/RS, nothing for the youth, etc... Just enough to rent a meeting place, a couple bills, and a minuscule amount for materials...maybe $100/mo. total, and most units still weren't self-sustaining. Most of the members didn't pay tithing, and many that did made very little money...their full tithe would have been ~20 Reais a month (less than $10). My entire mission would probably only make 2-3 good sized self-sustaining wards...but then some of the members would have a 10 hour bus ride to church.

Claudio Costa, who later became a member of the presidency of the 70, was area president at the time. He would visit for conferences and spend 40 minutes yelling at the members about not paying enough tithing, how they'd never get a temple, etc... We had more investigators than active members at some of these meetings. He helped wipe out half the mission's teaching pool in one swoop...a real first-class asshat.

It is always pleasant to watch some chump church leader yell at missionaries for not working hard enough, and then turn around and drive investigators off with a lack of decorum.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2015 11:49AM by tensolator.

Did my mission in Honduras - Tegucigalpa from 1993-1995. In my experience, a lot of people who actually attended did so for material benefits. LDS chapels, although not exorbitant by US standards, were well built and maintained, especially compared with a lot of evangelical churches. Central American missionaries contributed a token amount to their missions, and many of them seemed to view it as a paid vacation. My mission president from San Pedro Sula was a career CES employee and really loved the perks of being mission president. If members actually start having to pay the costs of their units, then it will be a big disincentive to keep contributing.

What mission? I was in Teguc from 94-96.

Sorry...should have read more closely. Jaar was a power trip.

Did you see that he died on a trip to the temple in Guatemala? I guess that he was ok - I was in the mission office for 6 or 7 months as mission secretary - but man did he like going to places like Pizza Hut or Wendy's on the mission's dime.

It's also worth noting that 'ward budget' could mean a lot of things in this context.

Building operation and upkeep comes out of a separate item than the ward budget (which is things like books, girl's camp, etc.). The ward budgets in the US are actually fairly low (people have griped about them here before), even though the ongoing expenses for chapel upkeep are fairly high.

I think the church, with its extremely low activity rates in Latin America, may be rethinking its whole strategy, as they're using a lot of real dollars for imaginary gains.

I guess my question is if the tithing is to be kept for the support of the local ward. Are they still going to forward all the money back to SL? I guess that would never change the bretheren wouldn't give up their milk cow?

But if it did happen and the locals everywhere kept their money who would support all the salaries of the GA's, and City Creek, and cattle ranches in Florida, and stock purchases in Bud Wiser?

Having lived in central and south america I can't see how this is even remotely economically feasible. With a rising dollar and failing economies in the area this is a death sentence.

Maybe they are pruning the vineyard?

This particular post is of a personal interest because I am from a Central American country. It is true what has been said in this and another board that most of the money received by wards has been sent from headquarters, but it is also true that those countries have been always required to be self sufficient. I have been a witness of not little money being donated by the wards at the large cities, but of course the large cities have the largest and nicer buildings. Little towns and villages also have some church buildings but those are smaller and less expensive. In those areas and in most of the large cities the money donated wouln't be enough to pay for the buildings or lands, but headquarters covered all constructions and land purchased.

If the costs they are refering to now are only for maintenance and utilities, I believe there is a great possibility that the members will be able to cover it. As far as I understand, the land an buildings habe been paid off, years ago. So I don't think that there is any kind of mortgage payment to cover. Maybe they are refering to new constructions from now on.

Now, the question that I have is if they are refering to other adminitrative costs, like COB offices employees, temple employees, mission presidents and mission costs... It is not clear to me if headquarters will cut also those costs. I am sure, because I know several church employees in my country, that salaries or adminitration costs are way greater than any maintenance or utilities. Headquarters in Central America are big, with very well paid administrators and managers. Also, in most of the wards that I knew, there was very little help (if any) for those in need and there is no such thing as a bishop storage either. So as far as "helping the poor" there has not been any help coming from others than the stake centers, disctricts, wards or branches.

The information given in this post leaves me with more questions than answers. If someone can get more information it would be awesome... I will ask some of my friends too.

A young man in my ward just returned from Italy, all but one of his five converts were refugees from Africa. This has the locals concerned.

Humanitarian issues aside, this is a poor business model. The new converts are having a difficult time just surviving, let alone enlarging the church.

The great potential should be in North America, but the citizens there are too well-educated and informed now.

Pushing more financial responsibilities on the over-worked membership will only make matters worse--first custodians, now this. Member devotion is no longer a bottomless well.

It's a downward spiral with no way out.

One of the reasons I began doubting the LDS Church was that it's operations as an institution did not match the Savior's teachings on how to treat people. Instead of valuing every soul, they valued numbers. Instead of accepting people as they were, the church insisted on blind conformity.

Here we have another example of LDS, Inc. perverting the Gospel. Jesus said to give all your money away to help the poor and follow him. Instead, LDS, Inc. expects the poor to give all their money to their vast coffers to support the rich. Calling themselves the Kingdom of God, they justify robbing people in the name of tithing. Instead of spending that tithing to alleviate poverty and misery, they invest it in land, stocks and bonds.

When Jesus talked about building up his kingdom, he meant building up the people. LDS, Inc. thinks it means literally building a financial empire for the sole purpose of accumulating wealth.

You've hit it dead on, I couldn't agree more with your post. The business of Mormonism is business! (Teddy Roosevelt)

It appears that LDS Inc's MORmON church is issuing another one of their MORmON challenges, out of utter desperation and typical MORmON style concern for themselves. They are saying in essence: hey, you Central AMerican members are not making us any money, can you at least not cost us any more money for the sake of having "THE" church in your area? Can you pay your own way instead of having us pay it for you? and the Central AMerican members have every right to ask, as should all MORmON members: what is in it for us, you MORmON prick leaders?

And a bunch of hollow phony MORmON BS promises based on unmentionable secret handshakes is NOT satisfactory !!!! Or, how many more 5 billion dollar Malls do you predatory viper LDS Inc executive ASSpostHOLES expect us members to pay for ?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJQqLKIR2Xk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSMqp1sU49U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOJcunaFE38

yah, most likely this program will be expanding to other less than profitable areas.
Once it applies most everywhere, then LDS Inc can kiss their MORmON gravy train good bye !

Please let them crash and burn. The sooner the better.