Do you think it will happen anytime soon? My guess is that eventually it will have to happen, right? With less members & less tithing they aren't going to be able to keep all of these buildings open. But they would probably shut everything else down first before closing one of their prescious temples. What do you think?

Didn't they just buy a half billion dollar chunck of property in Florida? I'm pretty sure they are still very cash flow positive. As much as I'd love to see a riot in SLC with everyone demanding their money back...ain't gonna happen.

TSCC just shelled out almost a billion for land in the panhandle of Florida. So I don't think they'll be closing any temple anytime soon.

Well, they've been having to sell (that is right, sell) church buildings in so cal for a while now, as their inspired projections for growth turned out to be wrong and the number of members in some of those areas has drastically decreased.

But are they selling relatively new chapels, or are they older chapels? And more importantly, are they older chapels in poorer neighborhoods?

I lived in California and my old church building land now has condos on it. Wards and stakes were collapsed and combined. They had no problem making the remaining members drive for miles while bringing in huge money from selling church property.

The provo temple would make a good roller rink

Which one? :p

The round one

The one next to the mtc. It is an oval.....

Ok, maybe a hockey rink

Once built, temples are staffed mostly with volunteers, and relatively cheap to operate. (Especially in outlying areas ?) Temples are a symbol of the Morgs presence/importance where they're located. Therefore, little incentive to close them, with few exceptions.

Anyone have numbers on what the average electricity and heating bill is for a temple?

As one of the largest land owners in the country, the morg has plenty of assets to liquidate if need be before closing temples. But, an analysis of the rate of new temple development over time would be revealing. Temples are core to their cash flow and overall financial performance. Temple = recommend = tithing.

Selling the ward buildngs are less noticiable

I thought that at least 1 or 2 in Africa were abandoned because of local warfare.

closed temporarily. Not abandoned.

I don't think that will ever happen. They could convert some to multi use like the NYC temple, but I don't think they'll ever close one. Closing a temple would be a major black eye.

I don't think they will ever, no matter what. Temples actually make money through their cafeteria and clothing rentals. Plus they are staffed by volunteers. They won't need too.

It appears to me that usage is more a criteria than dollars.
When fewer people attend it will become not cost effective to keep open. Cost effectiveness is always the true thermometer for the continuing of a corporate entity.
When the usage declines to a certain point the hours will be reduced first then closure.
Remember image image image.

As long as ANY use is happening, TSCC won't close temples. It's just bad for their image. They are already doing a number of creative measures: reduced hours/days, sessions by appointment only, huge drives to get the members to attend, corralling the youth for YM/YW baptism sessions, etc.

I think the most desperate they would get is to quietly re-purpose some of the tiny McTemples back to stake centers or ward houses, while still continuing to heavily publicize the new, visible temples (mostly in the Morridor, where they can never have enough of them to satisfy appearances). They can sell this as consolidation, efficient management, the Lard's will, etc. And of course they'll blame it on the members.

If they have to slow down or stop building, they will probably spin it to the members as THEIR fault for not attending enough and not doing enough missionary work to fill those empty buildings up with eager converts. Then they'll lay on the same old guilt trips and campaigns.

Not happening



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2013 02:14PM by zarahemlatowndrunk.

For all practical purposes, my local, tiny McHinckley Temple HAS already closed.


You can only go now "by appointment," and unless somebody is getting married, it seems that there is no interest in making an appointment.


So the McHinckley Temple sits idle most days of the year now.

what temple?

Temples help keep the members paying, often paying just to get in one. Temples are cash cow moneymakers for the Kolobian Cult. Keeping them open is a good business and financial decision.

Stopping building new temples will soon occur with the excuse they are close enough to everyone. Then, there will be a short period of time that some temples will close and others open where there is demand. Then, they will start decommissioning temples, explaining that members have moved closer to other temples....

They'll just be closed most of the time, or perhaps all the time. But they won't be sold off. Missionaries will still hang out there, hoping for visitors. My sister was shocked to find out that many temples are used by appointment only, and that basically go unused. I thought everyone knew this.

Who would buy a second hand temple anyway?

They keep the temples because they are cheaper to run than ward buildings and they accomplish their purpose so much more economically.

Their purpose is investment. Buying property allows the church to tie up money in a tangible asset without paying taxes on it because the purpose of the land and the building is a "spiritual" purpose.

They invented the spiritual purposes out of whole cloth (seeing a movie?) by stealing the Mason's ritual and then pretending that hordes of dead people need to be baptized. It is a make-work project which protects their money from taxation.

This is the reason there is no real art on the walls, no real value in the buildings. THey hold an open house to show people that there's nothing to see here but bad architecture and funeral home interior decor.

They are fortress-like and some say they are designed to be regional emergency supply distribution points when SHTF.


Anagrammy

Just as temple rituals have become more relaxed, the requirements for temple recommends will become more relaxed to keep a flow of tithe-payers coming in. Most of this liberalization will be in small, barely noticeable increments. This will help maintain the need for temples.

"We really haven't changed anything," they'll say, but old-timers will remember the "days of yore" when bishop interviews were more demanding. This will also dovetail with the desire to mainstream TSCC, the "only true church" and the "only (restored) gospel."

As others have said here, it would be WAY too noticeable of a "FAIL" to actually close a temple outright. Very bad publicity. As it is, once they are built they are cheap to operate ... no property tax (religious exemption), staffed by volunteers, only lighting and water to be paid. Worse comes to worse, they will first sell off other real estate assets. If need be, they will restrict temple hours to appointment only, a couple of days a week (as some already have.)

That said, it seems to be they're running out of interesting places to put new temples. Almost every major city in the Western world has one. It's getting to the point where you will have several temples in sight of each other in more than one area (think Draper - Oquirrh Mountain - Jordan River) and cities with more than one temple. In the Morridor, I can imagine one in Price, Layton, Pocatello, Flagstaff ... that's all I can think of. (They've mentioned the possibility of one in the Bluffdale / Herriman region, but nothing official yet.)

Africa may be the next big temple announcement area. Also the Middle East and South Asia: right now there's no temple between Kiev and Hong Kong, iirc. Other obvious places are Athens, Budapest, Bucharest, St. Petersburg, Moscow, who knows.

The Islamic world will prove to be the toughest nut to crack. It's going to be a long time before we ever see a Baghdad Iraq or Tehran Iran temple you can be sure! :D

The Columbus temple that I used to live close to, is only open 4 hours a day. Anything like baptism, weddings, etc. is by appointment only.

When I lived there, it was only open 4 days a week. It was by appointment only. Michigan was the same. I suspect it's only open on Fridays and Saturdays. That was the only time we could go.