try getting 2 church 'magazines' per month (not flyers-costly high gloss paper magazines) from the parent church (goes to every person with membership in any of their individual churches)-that has huge articles and ads on the advantage of 'retirement planning' that involves signing over all of your assetts (home, retirement accounts, savings) in exchange for guaranteed support/housing for the remainder of your life.
yup-the church has a 'program' wherein seniors are encouraged to sign everything over in exchange for a 'living allowance' and guaranteed housing in one of the many church run retirement homes, board and cares or ltc facilities.
beyond that there is the reccommended 10% tithing plus a minimum of 3 separate collects at each weekly service (one for the schools, one for foreign missionary work, and one for a chosen 'special' cause each week).
i have no issue with making contributions but i do have issues with some of the ways i see our local and the parent church spending it. i don't approve of the massive amounts of money the parent church has spent pursing wrongfull termination claims of a few members who were fired because after accepting jobs that required they work on the sabbath they envoked their religious beliefs as a basis to refuse working from the sunset the prior day to the sunset of the sabbath (and the church foots the legal bill to establish presidence of the right to religious freedom). i also disagree with our local church's rather (in my opinion) short-sited 'support' of some members-we have a few members who are perpetualy 'in-need' or 'in crisis' based on their own personal lifestyle choices, one being a single mom who despite needing to budget realisticly based on her income (child support) CHOOSES to send her child to the church's private school (for which she routinely gets not only the member discount but close to full bore 'scholarships' to pay for tuition preventing other in-need children from receiving any assistance) and CHOOSES not to attend a nearby low cost college which would allow her to work part-time because she WANTS to attend the church's high cost private college hours away (which the parent church supports through partial financial assistance-but the local church members get hit up for to make up the shortfall). as a result her child support is spent on commuting such that she is purpetualy 'in need' of rent assistance, food assistance, utility shut offs, car repos.....
we also have members who CHOOSE to be sahm's (i have no issue with this-i'm one myself, but if both kids were in school full time and we were routinely not making it financialy you can bet i'de be working the hours school was in session or once dh got home and could watch them ) at the expense of routinely being unable to meet their family's financial needs-so again the local church is footing the bill for all the kid's tuition, there are regular 'gifts' of food baskets, gift cards for groceries, clothing, utility bills paid....
i just think in these cases it would be better to help with an emergent need but also provide counseling on how the members can help themselves and stop looking at what the church provides as a part of their regular means of subsistance (and far too many members do just this-they view the church as their 'emergency fund' that will bail them out despite any unwise financial decisions).
we've just gotten to the point that while we donate to support the church it's not as much as in previous years-we would prefer to donate to individual charities/individuals that we feel will be well served by our financial support.
