Church Tracking and Tithing Settlement

“On a side note, my Bro-in-law said that his SP told him the since TR interviews are only every other year, it was his duty as a Bishop to take away the TR of any member who did not declare they were a full tithe payer at tithing settlement. Also he was told that if a member ever stopped paying a full tithe and then started up again, they would have to pay a full tithe for one full year before they could be considered a full tithe payer again.”

I think this is another case of local leaders making up their own rules and failing to consult the handbooks.

It absolutely has nothing to do with dangling the carrot called the TR. 😆

What other corporation is able to collect revenue by threatening someone’s status in the next life?

And, of course, the Lord doesn’t need the money….paying tithing is for the individual….obedience is a good thing. :yawn:

Personally, I don’t have any interest over the year after meeting my family’s needs, so I simply don’t owe any. I’ll probably sign up for settement this year and tell our little punk branch president that, just to watch his face.

Sometimes this stuff is fun.

The Stake President . . . I won’t say it. That’s all. 😈

In all the areas where I have lived, I have never had a Bishop or Stake President who denied temple recommends to members who didn’t attend settlement, much less pull them before they expire naturally. This is the sort of thing that drives me nuts.

The Church uses tithing payment numbers as part of the calculation for the creation of new wards and branches and, especially, the building of temples.

When I was a stake clerk back in the day tithing faithfulness, the percent of a ward population that declared themselves full tithe payers, was used as Ray said to determine where new buildings would be built, formation of new units, and and also to determine budget allotments when the church took over supplying all budget monies.

Wow, I know that’s second or third hand information (so may very well have been misinterpreted), but SP asking bishops to make members pay for a full year before receiving their TR back is an interpretation of “full tithe payer” is certainly not delineated in the CHI. The question is this: “Are you a full tithe payer?” The member decides what that means. I have been in meetings discussing how to get more members to the temple. When the Bp was asked what was the most common reason members did not have a TR, the response was “tithing, by far.” It was also presented that “generally” in our stake, paying a full tithe meant paying it for six months. I suggested to the Bp that rather than ask if those members were paying tithing for 6 months, just stick to the question in the CHI and let them decide. I got some chuckles and strange glances, as well as some “not a bad idea’s”, but I don’t think the policy changed. Oh well. Some bishops in my stake reportedly DO pull recommends if members report they are not full tithers at tithing settlement.

Tithing Settlement seems unnecessarily taxing on the Bishop’s time. A settlement or balancing of records is important but can be done as simply as the financial clerk passing out the sheets showing what the church has, with a note saying “make an appointment and come in if this doesn’t agree with your records”. Or, have it all done online. A similar thing could be done to declare if people are full tithers or not. I understand the utility of bishops getting to spend some personal time with all the ward families, and that’s cool, but why not spread those meetings out evenly through the year and not just have it be focused on tithing?

It’s interesting that TITHING is the one commandment that needs to be reported yearly in order to determine when and where the church can build new units. Obviously this is a money thing, not a need for determining active leadership since that can easily be determined by the “Members with Recommends” list.

I do not attend tithing settlement. Period.

The entire concept does not feel “right” to me. I think it is a relic from the old days when members paid tithing with goods and barter.

It needs to go away, IMO.

Of course…I think the entire tithing requirement for “exultation” needs to go away. So what do I know.

I went to Tithing settlement yesterday. So, I asked my Bishop why do we have this meeting every year?

The only thing he could come up with, to reconcile your records of payment to the churches record.

For now, that’s good enough for me.

The Financial Clerk printed out the wrong record for me. When the Bishop tried to do it, it came back that

I didn’t make any contributions. With a common name like Smith, Jones or Brown, it’s easy to make mistakes.