Tithing Slips

18 November

Tithing Slips

A couple of times a year my pastor delivers his sermon on the fiscal health of our congregation. These typically take place in late October/early November to remind us of goals we wanted to achieve by the end of the year. The other sermon always comes with the New Year thanking the Lord for His provision and reminding us to set new goals.

This year my church needed a new roof and some serious repairs elsewhere to our building so the costs were pretty hefty and as expected the pastor reminded us a couple of weeks ago of our needs as a congregation.

From what I’ve experienced in visiting and speaking at other Christian churches my congregation isn’t all that different than many other congregations.  I discovered one other item of interest in Christian churches that set them apart from Mormonism and that is the bulletins handed out every week with the intake of monies to date.

Every week at the bottom of the bulletin is the total amount of donations to date and what’s needed to meet our goals. The first time I saw this to say that I was floored would be an understatement and all these years later I have to say that it’s still endearing to me there is such transparency within the body of Christ.

All this reminds me of an article I came across earlier this week about LDS tithing slips.  It’ll never cease to amaze me how the Church goes about their operating procedures.

The Church has line items on tithing slips for members to check off indicating where they want their tithing to go.  The old slips had a space for education, temple and scripture funds, but no more.  Those funds were for those in underdeveloped countries to help pay for Mormon books, temples, etc. This section has been replaced with a box to check that says “other”. In addition to that now the bottom of the paper says;

“Though reasonable efforts will be made globally to use donations as designated all donations become the church’s property and will be used at the church’s sole discretion to further the church’s overall mission.”

I have to say that if I came across something like that they wouldn’t be getting a dime. When the Church refuses to publish their expenditures and then declares the money they receive is theirs to do with what they want, they’ve established they can’t be trusted.  My heart hurts for those who believe this type of thing is godly.  This isn’t godly, this is corrupt!  2 Peter 2:19;

“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”

To read more about the change see Salt Lake Trib’s article.

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