EQ president told us today that the church is now implementing a new policy tying the amount of money a ward gets back from the church for its budget to the home teaching and visiting teaching percentages. All sorts of murmuring ensued, with EQ president saying this will be a church wide policy. Not even EQ president was excited about this. He himself called it bribery, but in typical TBM fashion said it must be the right thing to do because it came from above.

Can anyone verify that what he told us is correct? Are they doing this alll over?

If true, wow! Seems like the perfect scheme to become even cheaper with the membership (wards already get back less than two percent of the tithing they donate, are assigned to clean toilets, house missionaries, and are squeezed dry in a variety of ways) and then pin the blame for less funding on the members themselves. "Bishop says that we don't have money for that activity because our home teaching numbers aren't good enough." With no financial transparency, this tactic seems all the more perverse.

If true, this is the most idiotic idea possible - - so stupid it can hardly be imagined that the leadership would try it. Its a stake in the heart.

This sound like BS to me, but who knows? This would definitely be a new low, and would just cause the members to be even more dishonest.

Not that Monson et al are above unimaginable stupidity, e.g. the Prop 8 conspiracy, the Mormon Mall of America, dumbing down the teaching curriculum to mind-paralyzing insulting levels, Every Member a Janitor, etc. etc. just sayin . . .

They get to determine what percentages must be met to get the $ so they can set it a some unrealisticly high level. This will have two effects 1)members will feel more pressure to lie about their ht & vt 2) bishops may begin encouraging the less active to shape up or resign so that they don't bring reduce his $$$ from SLC. Predicition, Church will suck even more, members will become even more demoralized, more will leave.

This will only encourage more lies by the members on their home teaching and visiting teaching percentages. It will also make the poor leaders busier with end of the month visits to make the percentages better and they will lie too. Hell, I was an EQP as well and know how this works. If this is a church wide policy (not verified yet, but it seems plausible), it will crash and burn before the end of the year.

When I left, they were still hovering around 15% on HT for both HP and EQ.

While that would be one way to save money, I suspect that the EQs possibly saying that as another (failed) attempt at getting his guys to please please oplease do your home teaching.

Sorry,... former EQ Prez rant.

Sounds like there will be a lot more pencil whipped hometeaching stats.

Sounds like a really dumb idea. Home teaching isn't exactly a successful program anyway. Home teachers don't like doing it and the vast majority of members don't care to have people show up, uninvited, when they are busy. Even as a TBM, I resented it when they showed up at dinner or during my favorite TV show, particularly before VCRs AND DVR's. They seldomed seem to notice that it wasn't a good time. MY BF had them show up arond 8:30 on New year's Eve, As if people might not have plans that night.

forgotten some basic principles in motivating employees and volunteers.

Witholding funding to motivate volunteers to do an unpleasant task will likely push any fringe members into inactivity or even out the door. Plus it puts an even greater load on Stake Presidents, who are already lashed with whips to produce happier numbers.

The suits are really getting desparate and this will hurt their bottom line even more! I did see though that Mike Lee was arguing recently that child labor laws should be set by the states. Maybe that will open the door for Mormons with large families to make their kids work to bring in more money for the church.

Do you have any reference links to back this claim up? I couldn't find any.

Every ward in the country will have 100%. It will only wake up more people to what a fraud the Mormon Cult is, and encourage more to leave.

I still attend TSCC for the sake of family and it's fun to spy on them. I heard nothing about this today. I don't doubt that you heard it, but I think your EQ president was misinformed, or perhaps lying for the Lord.

If this were true we wouldn't have to do anything, the Church would implode.

I can verify that this is true. I am a district leader in my EQ and was told the same thing today. What stake are you in stuck? Maybe we're in the same area.

This is such a monumentally bad idea that I hope that it's what they are really doing.

It would push more out or force more to lie. If this is what they are doing great. The more they tighten their grip, the more that will slip through their fingers (nerd reference).

The dialogue will go like this....

Mo Larkey to HT's:
Hello assigned friends... are you here for me and my family or just for here for the money?

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footnote.. I really hope this HT Vt is true cause it's the one of the worst scenarios I can think of and it will kill
the golden goose just a little bit more making our job of revealing the truth just that much easier!!

result in 98% HT and VT numbers~! Ridiculous way to deal with a budget.

Yeah, especially since it's their own money in the first place. Nobody can quite run a scam like this church.

Base school funding on test scores. The better your school test scores are the more money your school board or schools get. If the scores do not increase suck it up.

We can see how well that is working is education. The idea behind it seems to be good. To motivate teachers to do better. The problem is the students and school policy.

Back to LDS Church. Ward that works hard gets more. Ward that works not so hard, suck it up.NOT!!

If this is true and I suspect it is either in that Stake or will be church wide, people are going to start to question why pay 10%. For what??? And when people don't pull the line in VT and HT just imagine the morale problem that ward will have.

NCLB has not worked in education, but you already know that. If a school can't perform take away their funding. Awesome idea. Now they can't hire new and better teachers. Now they can't buy new textbooks. Now they don't have the funding to escape the situation that they are in. They can't do jack.

They failed because they were a slum. Now they are in a slum and can't get Federal funding. So the only people that will work there are happy to earn minimum wage, and all of whom are clearly highly qualified.

Kill the non-performance works perfectly, but only if the target is already performing. Otherwise it results in a broken system that breaks further. Yes further, not farther, but hell if the new teacher knows the difference between distance and an abstract.

Won't this encourage them to streamline resignations even more to get inactives off the rolls and boost HT visits to active members more likely to welcome them?

Clearly they're not stupid. They know that people don't have time to home and visit teach these days. This way, they'll hardly have to give out any money at all. And if it does snap people into obedience, then it'll just be another way to keep them too busy to be looking up the truths of Mormonism on the internet.

And those in the COB know it because they are the biggest liars of all. Liars ALWAYS assume others are lying because it's what they would do in the same situation. So, therefore, how are they going to track this, knowing that they are just going to be lied to?

I had two old ward friends show up today. Makes me wonder if the ratchets weren't being tightened on them today with something like this $ based on home teaching numbers.

Most everyone here on the RFM sees this as a negative for the church--it will implode, people will just lie--but what worries me is that now my family will get targeted more aggressively. So far we haven't had HTs since before I was the EQP (I made sure our HTs were guys who could be counted on not to do it).

Does this mean attendance at sacrament meeting isn't important anymore for budget purposes?

Wasn't budget allocations based on sacrament meeting attendance?

It is much easier for those still attending to do Ht/VT which can be done with a phone call, then by actually sitting in a pew on Sunday. A win win situation?

Regardless of how the ward budget is determined, church activity is required for a temple recommend. And "church activity" definitely includes following the commandment to attend SM regularly.

Not a win/win.

Two can play the same game.

If SL keeps withholding more money, perhaps more members will withold tithes.

Sooner or later it will dawn on church members that it's *their* money, and they deserve something back for it.

Summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sooner or later it will dawn on church members
> that it's *their* money, and they deserve
> something back for it.


Thinking that way as a member went a ways toward getting me out. Frequently doing a cost/benefit analysis of my church membership was a big tip-off to me I was unhappy.

They're polishing their dentures, hoping that everyone ignores the fact that their teeth have rotted out of their mouth. The higher the rate of Home- and Visit- Teaching, the more compassionate and loving the church appears to its members.

Maybe its a test run in selected areas. The LDS church, because its not led by God's inspiration, sometimes does this to test the waters and see if something works. So maybe its not church wide YET.

This is so not true. Don't have verification, I'm just sayin'.

This is not true...
l...
...

But if you find out that it is, let me know.

Returned missionaries will benefit from the experience they gained in the field of fudging the numbers. And if my annoying neighbor tries to revive his visits, this will force me to get off of my lazy ass and send in my resignation letter.