From the article: I have known many people who had difficulty making ends meet. To me, these people seemed to be righteous and pious people who had deep and abiding faith in God. And yet these people were slighted, marginalized, and given menial callings at [the Lds] church.
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It's time for tithing settlement in the mormon church. Once a year mormons are called in to report to their bishop whether they have "paid an honest tithe".
After making an appointment, and getting dressed up again in suit and tie (and a white shirt), my wife and I drove over to the church to meet with the Bishop for Tithing Settlement. After the requisite review of membership records to ensure accuracy we waited patiently for our time with the Bishop. I kept expecting to be hit up for Friends of Scouting, but was informed by the clerk that they were no longer doing that, since FOS was an external, non church group, and the bishop did not wish to associate his sacred mantle of authority and role as a judge with an external organization.
After waiting only a few minutes, we were ushered in and warmly greeted by our bishop, who is an all around good guy. After a bit of chit chat, we got down to business.
He pulled out a fairly large stack of papers and pushed them across the desk for our review. Included was a statement of income and expenses, a balance sheet, and a statement of cashflow. These were then broken down in greater detail showing what the church had done with our hard earned, donated money. We saw a review by country, state, stake and ward, including a summary of what had been contributed by our ward and stake, and what had come back to us, including costs of running the buildings, materials, and activities. We spent a few minutes looking at the detail, at which point the bishop told us that he had decided to not spend the money making a copy for all ward families, due to the cost, and had instead, donated the money saved to the homeless shelter and food bank. He also told us that all statements, including subsidiary ledgers and supporting documentation was available on the church website.
We thanked him for his time, wished him a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and departed.
It's great to be a part of an organization that is open and honest about it's resources and especially, what it does with members' contributions.
Oops.. Damn it. I just woke up
After waiting only a few minutes, we were ushered in and warmly greeted by our bishop, who is an all around good guy. After a bit of chit chat, we got down to business.
He pulled out a fairly large stack of papers and pushed them across the desk for our review. Included was a statement of income and expenses, a balance sheet, and a statement of cashflow. These were then broken down in greater detail showing what the church had done with our hard earned, donated money. We saw a review by country, state, stake and ward, including a summary of what had been contributed by our ward and stake, and what had come back to us, including costs of running the buildings, materials, and activities. We spent a few minutes looking at the detail, at which point the bishop told us that he had decided to not spend the money making a copy for all ward families, due to the cost, and had instead, donated the money saved to the homeless shelter and food bank. He also told us that all statements, including subsidiary ledgers and supporting documentation was available on the church website.
We thanked him for his time, wished him a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and departed.
It's great to be a part of an organization that is open and honest about it's resources and especially, what it does with members' contributions.
Oops.. Damn it. I just woke up
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