The Church doesn’t feel like a good investment

I loved my upbringing in the Chuch. Frankly, I pay what I pay almost entirely for others at this point: my wife and kids, my ward family, and, especially, members in poor areas who benefit from having meetinghouses and temples and welfare help and callings from which they can learn and grow and a shot at education and all that jazz. There are a lot of people who get a lot of good from their membership, and my contributions largely are for them.

I also recognize that most of the truly unique, powerful things I believe came from my understanding of the “Restored Gospel” – and most of the stuff with which I disagree most strongly either fits as outdated or cultural. For me, the overall good outweighs the overall bad – even as I recognize there are others who can’t say that personally.

I don’t know. I still have a lot to figure out before I make any major life changes. It feels good to get my feelings out into the open, at least. I’ve decided that until the end of the year, I’m going to stick with gross on tithing to make tax return tithing less confusing. Not sure at this point whether I’ll switch to net or some other interpretation of “increase” or if I’ll even pay or stay active at all. At this point in my life, as lacking as it is, the church is about the only point of support I can count on in any capacity. I can’t afford to put that behind me until I have another means of emotional support.

I’ve at least realized that feeling like an outcast has nothing to do with the church. I’ve been a bit of an oddball my whole life. Trying to fit in anywhere is painful, but so is being lonely. It’s a conundrum. I just wish the church (or something) had more there for me in that regard. I recently joined a paid-membership singles club. I’ll see where that goes. Right now, I feel like it’s perhaps a comparable quality investment for a far smaller portion of my income. It hasn’t wowed me at this point, but I take a while to warm up to new people anyway and mingling without drinking is a lot harder than I realized (though tbh I don’t like the smell of alcohol, especially wine, and I would like to keep my liver in good condition). The Mormon bubble of Provo does not prepare you for normal adult life. Neither do missions.

I at least feel valued and appreciated at work. I have a great boss and my coworkers are enjoyable people to be with. I even went shooting with my boss a couple weeks ago. It was a blast, pun intended.

At this point in my life, what we pay isn’t worth it in my view. I hope my feelings on that will change eventually. It seems that once you are uncertain about whether the heavenly rewards of tithing will actually materialize, and the church leaders/church fall off the pedestal, it’s easy for tithing to fall off the list. It doesn’t seem worth it any longer to fork over what is most of your retirement funds some day. When I was a priesthood leader, I was touched when an old man, in a needs analysis interview said “Is there a point when, after paying tithing all your life, you don’t have to do it anymore so you can be self-reliant in old age?”. My heart broke. Tithing seemed like an iron-fisted rule that didn’t seem to distinguish between the elderly, the people who were faithful all their lives, and simply people in need who could otherwise make it if they didn’t pay their tithing.

I also read Extensions of Power by Michael Quinn. It was an objective, historical look at the historical development of policies surrounding the payment of tithing. I left the book with the impression (my own, not Quinn’s) that the church leaders kept tinkering with the definition and administration of tithing until they got a system that met the church’s financial needs, and beyond. It seemed very temporal to me, and not the spiritual revelation that it’s made out to be in “The Windows of Heaven” video.

And then, when i served with my heart as a leader, and was treated so poorly, I started my own non-profit. Here I became completely absorbed with how important it is to treat your volunteers well. I saw other organizations give much more respect to their volunteers, more appreciation than in the church I had served for decades. And I started thinking that the church competes for my spare time — and to make me pay over 66% of my retirement savings (normally, you save 15% of gross) , give most of my time, and not have a voice where and when I serve, struck me as “not worth it”. The many boring meetings and lack of interest the church seems to have in improving the Sunday experience influenced my thinking. So did the lack of budget to the local wards that fund the church also made me think ‘it’s not worth it’. Add to it the mental and health-related damage church involvement inflicted on myself and my family, I again, reached the conclusion it was “not worth it”.

I do give credit for BYU for providing affordable, quality tuition. I see that as a reason to pay, potentially, but even that is somewhat self-serving, for reasons I won’t go into.

It is much easier for me as leader of a non-profit just to write a check to get us out of binds and to be able to fill our mission without running around with worries about money. Think about it, if you took your 10% and put it in a fund for 10 years, you could create a foundation. The interest on what you saved could go to annual scholarships or other grants to worthy causes you select.

If you earn $50,000, you can put away 5000 per year for 10 years, and then have a 50,000 fund that earns say, 5% a year. That’s 2500 a year you can give away as a grant from that money to perpetuity. And if you keep adding $5000 a year for a full career (50 years) that’s 250,000 X 5% = $12500 in grant money every year to help underpriviledged people go to college, pay for certain medical treatments, for research into cures that are important to you, etcetera.

Anywy, the purpose of this site is to encourage staying LDS, not to do otherwise, so I will say that I do hope to pay tithing again someday. I suppose I need a change in perspective. I have lost the idea that you pay it and then let it go. I see different things I can’t accept in the church, and it makes me seriously question if the experience is worth the sacrifices at this time. Maybe some other time…

People will have you believe that you need to accept whatever calling they give you. This is not true. At the very least, you should try to predict how a calling may impact your work, family, & social life.

I have spoken to multiple Bishop and Stake leaders – the real numbers about accepting callings is only 40%. It would be great to have 100% acceptance. Even 80, but reality is – No dice. Sometimes it’s the person they call who says no. Sometimes it’s the spouse or family. Other times it’s the person life outside of church that hampers the ability to accept.

On most things they can ask, even coerce, but they can not force.

A line that I recently heard that I like is “There are Temple Mormons. Then there are Chapel Mormons.” Roy is describing Chapel Mormons. Feel free to be one. They need them just as much.

A line that I recently heard that I like is “There are Temple Mormons. Then there are Chapel Mormons.” Roy is describing Chapel Mormons. Feel free to be one. They need them just as much.

I love this!! I think it’s a decent distinction, but not one to use in TBM circles lest it create another perception of first and second class citizenship. Here it is more about acceptance to use the two terms. In a good way.

I also want to add that recently my wife took out a TR at great personal expense, as you can imagine. I asked her if she was excited about our daughter’s upcoming wedding in the temple. She said “only partly” — the long, endowment ceremony, the Temple President wants to meet with her beforehand, and all the waiting etcetera — she was really only looking forward to the sealing.

That echoed how I felt as an active TR-holding Mormon. I really did not enjoy the temple experience. So why pay so much for it, particularly when the promises of the temple are in question? Particularly when the organization delivering those promised blessings seemed to indifferent and cold-hearted towards me during so many moments of church mission-oriented, non-financial need over the years?

As a TR holder, It came to a head for me when I was asked to be a veil worker. I went through the training, and found myself in the worst possible situation for someone like me. Although reasonably intelligent, I tend to learn slowly when it comes to fine movements and memorized behavior. Give me processes, and concepts and principles, and I do fine, but make me robotic, and I’m a klutz. I was corrected so many times over small body movements and phraseology I was near seething. I got on the radar of one senior veil worker who watched me like I hawk, so I felt disempowered and controlled. Then, during the break in the ceremony I sat talking to other veil workers, and they chastised me because the conversation topic i moved into wasn’t appropriate for the temple (how I got a traffic ticket on the way over). And they seemed distant and unsocial afterwards. Talk about feeling out of the inner circle and unaccepted!

I left feeling unfulfilled. Constantly corrected about minor things all the time and in a general state of irritation.

I never went back. I felt my talents were better utilized in other contexts.

I am happy to be a chapel Mormon right now. And when I become a Temple Mormon again, I will likely be a passive one who does a session now and then but doesn’t act as a veil worker.

Libertarians even push for privatization of these types of services–all toll roads (that pay for themselves through tolls), etc.

Perhaps we should have all troll roads. If you cannot afford to pay, a troll comes out and eats you. Thus the roads are maintained through fees, the trolls are well fed, and the indigent are no longer a drain on the system. (A variation of A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift)

I would be a little more okay with getting little to nothing in return if I was not promised as much as I am. The issue is that so many people in the church promise blessings which they have no foresight or knowledge to be able to promise. There is a lot of “If you do X, you will get Y” which is wrong often enough that it’s a flimsy basis for living a principle or believing in something.