What form of business organization does the Church use?

[Anonymous]

silentstruggle wrote:

I use mass transit in the Utah area, and have listened to church employees telling of horror stories of mismanagement withing the Church Office Building. I know that is anecdotal sour grapes, but I do think we have an organization that is NEVER accountable to its members and it concerns me. I know of know other situation like that.

Ghandi said in his book “My Experiments with Truth” that he believes charitable organizations should never have business interests that provide funding and cashflow for their operations, because they lose accountability to their membership. That always stuck with me.

However, notwithstanding all this sour grapes and negativity emanating from me, I’ve been trying to estabish some counter-thought to point me to greater positivity about the business-orientation of the Church.

For example:

1. My family is a divinely appointed organization, and we have to act in ways that are temporal; so why demand that the Church be above temporal concerns?

2. Without our fiscal house in order, we are limited in our ability to provide basic benefits to our own family in times of need; the Church can be viewed as having the same need.

3. My heart is in the right place when it comes to leading my family in righteousness as co-prophet with my wife, yet, we make mistakes and sometimes put our own interests first, like when our children want us to put forward great effort for something that is potentially of only limited long-term value. We should cut the Church the same slack and realize they can’t be all things to all people.

4. As a parent, I have treated my children in ways I regret at times (nothing illegal, but perhaps tendencies toward harshness during moments of weakness or fatigue). As an organization, the Church may well have similar regrets.

5. I often refuse to do things that touch on my role as father, such as sign for my kids friends at various entertainment attractions, assuming liability. I shouldn’t blame the Church for wanting to avoid liability similarily.

Naturally, I’m bootstrapping here — trying to pull myself up by my own bootstraps as this represents only embryonic thinking in this direction, and frankly I don’t believe it yet. And the thought occurs to me that my saving grace in my family is the fact that I openly apologize AND try to make restitution when I wrong the people in my stewardship. And I never claim that our family structure is perfect or above reproach, or created specifically by God and that all should therefore follow. Perhaps that’s the difference between a divinely appointed family and a divinely appointed Church — a difference I never seem to be able to get past….

[Anonymous]

Here is a piece from Elder Bednar about the role of the apostle. He tries to address the perception that the Church is a business, and the GA’s are part of the corporate structure, briefly…I think he tries to make the role of an Apostle personal.

http://lds.org/pages/the-role-of-an-apostle?lang=eng

[Anonymous]

Well, the Church is a business. It’s certainly had weirdness. But what you experienced SD was about budgeting and you could certainly see that. So instead of serving you correctly the director was more concerned about his bottom line. He probably got a better raise because he did less with more but he didn’t really did he? You see it in the church employment offices which are staffed with poorly trained church service missionaries who barely staff the offices and work for free. Instead of hiring someone to train and work they “get by” with Church missionaries.

So I see all sorts of mismanagement and unfair practices in the Church business. Depending on department you work for makes a big difference in your salary and “perks.” I work for physical facilities. Well, guess what, it’s not a preferred department! There are no perks and they keep us cut to the bone.

But it all changes depending on the prophet. His personality and governing style is certainly reflected in policy and practice of Church business. I saw it starting with ETB and through TSM. I LOVE my job but that’s because the man I work for is a Saint. He’s certainly TBM but he lets me question and smirk and he ribs me about my liberalness. When he retires in 2012 I’m probably moving on too. (But I’ll be looking at other church employment so I’m not really moving on completely).

The policies are pretty much “standard business practices.” When they recently gutted the Physical Facilities department (bye, bye custodians and anyone else that would take the buy-out) they were very generous in the buy-out and in helping people either retire or move along. The benefits package is generous and certainly fair. They offer a pension still which is practically unheard of now.

They are doing a big overhaul in position titles and salaries and I’m not sure where the cards will fall with that but they said no one would see a decrease in salary. I believe them. I don’t feel I’ve been deceived at all as far as my employment is concerned. I’ve seen behind the scenes wrangling and I’ve expected better from Church employees but that’s not because of bad policies.

So the policies of church employment are good, certainly fair and even sometimes generous. But it’s still business and there is a CYA mentality with that. People still implement the policies. Sometimes they are good at their jobs and sometimes they suck.

[Anonymous]

Great summary, observant. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Author]

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