My TBM relative mentioned in passing over the Thanksgiving holiday that a letter from the First Presidency was read in church a week or two ago. The letter said that instead of spending money on Christmas gifts for neighbors, TBMs should increase their Fast Offering donations in order to help the poor and needy.

Fine, if the "poor and needy" are fifteen rich old geezers who need to add to their real estate portfolio and have a mall to get completed by March.

Did anyone else hear about this?

Yes, the letter also included strong exhortation to pay your tithing and attend tithing settlement.

Money is the thing God felt was the most important thing to communicate to His chosen people via the rare event of a FP letter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2011 10:12AM by Stumbling.

Wow! I must have missed it, I don't remember or maybe it hasn't reach our neck of the woods.

However, yesterday the talks were all about obedience and tithing settlement. The speaker even mentioned the annual audit report given at GC and said 'so that we know exactly what the money is spent on'. I did my best to keep a straight face.

D

I would follow that up and approach the speaker.

"Can you show me exactly how my tithing money was spent as you mentioned it in your talk?"

Being the ward finance clerk opened my eyes.

For decades as a dentist, I had always paid what I thought was a very generous FO, basing it on a percentage of my income, truly believing that it was helping destitute, starving, homeless widows and orphans. Plus, I often heard of how "efficient" the LDS system was, as far as charities go, because there was no overhead. In fact, I felt no reason to contribute to other charities, feeling confident that every last penny was going to help the sick and needy.

As finance clerk, I made out checks from fast offerings to pay for such things as NEW car payments and SmartPhone/internet bills. The worst was making out a check for several months to a chiropractor in the ward to pay the exorbitant rent on a house the chiropractor owned and was renting out to his OWN DAUGHTER in the ward.

I get so angry at my stupidity, blindly paying into what is possibly one of the biggest scam charities around, and all the while feeling smug as I turned down every other worthwhile charity.

You didn't know. Now you are sharing what really happens to some of the F&T money. It saddens me because I didn't tithe much but gave F&T each month when the boy would come around.

I always wanted to be the finance clerk, of course as a woman I could never be. But I was curious because I'd heard of a man who went inactive after serving as a finance clerk, apparently he hadn't been long in the church and the comments were 'they don't recommend new members serve as financial clerks', 'you must have a very strong testimony to be able to serve as a financial clerk', then the joke was 'serving as a financial clerk is the fastest way to lose your testimoney'. I never knew what the fuss was but was curious. Of course I was so blind then to even suspect that the poor and needy were not being helped as I had been led to believe.

I stopped paying last year but this year I still got a tithing receipt, the financial clerk who is a very good man, came to tell me that there must have been a mistake in my receipt and he'd investigate and handed me the envelope to check. I took it, looked at the amount, did a quick calculation in my mind and said 'this is correct', he looked at me not believing it and I said 'brother FC, this looks correct, thank you', he was confused and walked away. From time to time I see him staring at me, he knows I don't pay he probably cannot figure out why I stopped or maybe he's seen this before, you know people who stopped paying and then leave the church. He's a very good man, I hope his eyes open one day.

D

My son mentioned that tithing was the topic yesterday in our ward as well. It seems that this was an edict from LD$ Central.
Somehow that doesn't surprise me.

The letter from the First Presidency regarding tithing settlement, tithing, fast offerings, etc. is not an uncommon happening this time of year.

However, I am curious to know if the talks regarding tithing (we had one our our sacrament meeting yesterday as well) are something unique. I do not recall this in years past.

I have been holding my tithing, most of it (95%+), in a separate savings account this year. The church expects a level of transparency from me that it does not require of itself and I started feeling late last year that perhaps I would be better holding onto those funds rather than sending them to Salt Lake.

So when you do your taxes and can't claim that Charitable Donation, it will still be a heckuva lot more in savings than that 50 bucks worth of tax deduction.

At least that was our case. When we claimed our deduction for donating over 4k to the church we got a whole extra $50 on our returns, but by putting our tithing money into savings and not getting that deduction, we get 50 bucks less and have 4k more, and the local soup kitchen/pantry gets money we could never have afforded when we were filling the Q15 trough.

The word "GENEROUS" was used several times in that letter.

My thoughts of that letter:
- TITHING is not enough we NEED MOREMONEY, we can't dip into our TITHING ! We know a lot of people are hurting, pay more and you will get more but not by us.
Tithing is for the day to day operations, byu and our real estate arm of the church and fast offering are for the poor and needy of which we will judge how and when they get that money, if they do.
We know times are tuff and the economy is bad but we ask you to be generous in your generous donation of fast offerings even though we wont account for where your generous contributions go.

one more thing they announced the upcoming tithing settlement the last Sunday in OCT in our area..
That's a letter we probably didn't get to hear.. start early we need MORE>beat it into their brains.





THE BOOK OF MORMON
CHAPTER 8
32 Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.

I heard this edict come down a couple of weeks ago from the inspired old men in SLC. I usually don't attend, but my TBM wife & daughter were giving talks so this was the first time in several years I'd been to church. Hearing this letter confirmed again why I hate TSCC.

The letter was worded in a very interesting (albeit disingenuous) way. It started out by mentioning that many are struggling this year and therefore, paying fast offering is even more crucial. The implication of course being that these fast offering donations will help those in need. The letter then proceeded to strongly encourage the Saints to attend tithing settlement so they could declare a full tithing and "to pay additional fast offering to help those in need". In the end, it's all about the church getting their cut even when many of the flock are struggling. It was disgusting.

I might be inclinded to help out by tithing, IF the church would announce that due to the recession, and the great needs of many, the building program was being suspended and all monies were going to be used to help those members who lost their jobs or were in otherwise desparate situations....in other words, IF they used tithing to help the poor, I'd give.

I'd be excited to give. I'd feel good about living in a place where we truly took care of each other.

But that will never happen...

wow...I posted several days ago that missionairs were trying to get me to commite to tithings...and I am not a church memeber! Never been. well, it is all so shocking. Really Fo is going to pay for car payments and other stuff like that?
so sad:(

It's too bad that healthy chunk of 10% tithing isn't enough to cover charitable causes for the church.

Especially since its an unpaid clergy!

The Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 14:37-38 talks about (the man) Melchizedek & states “And he lifted up his voice, and he blessed Abram, being the high priest, and the keeper of the storehouse of God; Him whom God had appointed to receive TITHES FOR THE POOR."

From this scripture we learn that the storehouse of God in which the tithes were brought (that there may be meat in mine house…) were originally intended to bless the poor. This is our first and oldest scriptural reference to tithing. I understand that in the early days of the church in Utah tithing was used to assist those in need.

Has the one true church changed the scriptural use of tithing?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2011 01:49PM by paternoster.

Dear President, I'm sure your stake has received this letter and you must have all the insider's info and some additional inspired counsel. Would you share it with us during this Tithing Settlement, I mean during this Christmas season, so that we may be inspired to give more.

Thanks,
Sister D

I think we could better trace where the money went if we all started to send in live stock and vegitables like they used to do back in the early days.


"Mooooooooo" "baaaaa, baaaaa" Yep bishop this should make it a full tithe, sorry about your carpet though, that should clean up with a little soap and water.

There is no need for Fast Offerings. That's just an additional tax the morg dreamed up.

Tithing should cover church operation PLUS generously helping the poor.

They pay out no wages to the people who do all the shit work on the ward/stake levels.

So where does all the money go?????

The guilt-tripping letter hasn't been read in my ward yet, but when someone from the bishopric announces they'll be reading a letter from the First Presidency, I'm walking out the chapel and going to use the bathroom. >:-(

It's funny, one year the mo family of someone close to me where having financial difficulties. And to have a great christmas (actually not just christmas but the whole months of December and January) they did not get help from the church but from the big Canadian Molson Beer company, because it was mentionned at their children's school about the difficulties of that year.
The irony of it was priceless ;)
And the products were of great trademarks and it was given with a generous amount of money. No cheap donations.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2011 05:07PM by quebec.

We didn't get the message from the FP, but did have a speaker on paying tithes and offerings yesterday in Sac Mtg. You know the whole spiel...."you think you can't afford to pay tithing....well, you can't afford NOT to pay tithing." "Pay it even though you don't know how you're going to pay it....give until it hurts....it's good for you!" blah, blah, blah.

My TBM hubby's parents always paid their tithing, but were always very poor - never homeless, but sometimes without electricity, phone, heat, and food. I guess they must have been doing something wrong that kept them from reaping the blessings of being full tithe payers. If the windows of heaven opened up on them, it only poured down rain on their leaky roof!