Mormon tighing---Goverment Taxes....What's the difference

[_Wilma Fingerdoo]

I laugh every time I hear my bishopric neighbor tell me how there is not enough money in the budget for scout activities, road shows, primary activities. I live in a relatively rich area of Vegas. I know most of the people in my ward make between 50K and 120K a year.

Year after year our tithing has been taken in by Mormon inc with little or no return to its membership. Much like the taxes we pay the government uses most of it for military or to go to pet projects. I remember when I was little our stake used to have fantastic road shows, good sports programs (basketball, volleyball, softball), and good scouting activities. It seems that in the 90's and into the 2000's the church fazed out those programs as too costly and had the money shipped up to Utard where it could be better sent.

It used to be a point of contention when I was a tithe payer that I never saw the fruits of my tithe.

I find it funny that many church members have problems paying taxes because the government "wastes it" but they don't make the same connection with the church.

[_harmony]

How odd. I thought the reason we don't have as many activities as we once did was because of a variety of reasons.

1. Poor sportsmanship. One reason my stake doens't have basketball anymore is because the games were so foul, they made a tee shirt about it that's a best seller in the church bookstore: Give Blood... Play Church Basketball. So our stake kicked basketball to the curb. We still have softball though.

2. Fewer people are participating. People have other things to do than take part in church activities. There's no use having a Scouting or Laurel activity that no one goes to.

3. Lack of time. We alternate road shows and dance festivals here, every three years. And we hold them in the summers, so there's no competition with school sports or activities. It's not that the youth won't participate; it's that the adults don't have time to run them. Someone has to write the scripts, sew the costumes, teach the dance steps, run the practices, and put on the production. That takes lots of time, and we have very very little extra time these days.

I'm thinking what we need is a magic wand that makes all those pesky problems go away, so we can live in the 60's again, when Mom stayed home all day and the church was the only social outlet she had, and Dad was the bishop, so his status in the neighborhood meant we were all special. That's not the world we live in though.

[_harmony]

*sigh*

[_The Nehor]

If you paid your tithing expecting a return on it you did it for the wrong reasons. Sometimes I think the Old Testament had it better. The sacrifice sometimes involved putting the animal on the altar and watching it uselessly burned.

[_Pokatator]

I laugh every time I hear my bishopric neighbor tell me how there is not enough money in the budget for scout activities, road shows, primary activities. I live in a relatively rich area of Vegas. I know most of the people in my ward make between 50K and 120K a year.

Year after year our tithing has been taken in by Mormon inc with little or no return to its membership. Much like the taxes we pay the government uses most of it for military or to go to pet projects. I remember when I was little our stake used to have fantastic road shows, good sports programs (basketball, volleyball, softball), and good scouting activities. It seems that in the 90's and into the 2000's the church fazed out those programs as too costly and had the money shipped up to Utard where it could be better sent.

It used to be a point of contention when I was a tithe payer that I never saw the fruits of my tithe.

I find it funny that many church members have problems paying taxes because the government "wastes it" but they don't make the same connection with the church.

Come on, Wilma, have a heart, the brethren are building a mall.