Did you get a nervous sweat before you told a potential convert she would need to give 10 percent of her income?

Were you closely watching their reaction half expecting them to freak?

Did you ever think to yourself, I can't say this?

Did you ever crack a smile while bringing up the ten percent tithing requirement?

Honestly, I didn't think much of it. I was young naive kid who was raised in the church and thought tithing was normal. I never lived on my own supporting myself or a family so it didn't really dawn on me how outrageous 10% was.

We didn't typically tell investigators about tithing until AFTER they were committed to baptism (its in one of the latter discussions) and we just kind of glossed over it. Its discussed for about 10 seconds and we then get them to commit to paying it.

None of the investigators flinched when I mentioned it, but I don't think it really sunk in. I doubt anyone of them REALLY thought that they HAD to pay it. They don't realize what a controlling, guilt-induced micromanaging cut LDS Inc is so they probably just figured it was a "suggested" amount. They don't know about tithing settlements, temple recommends, worthiness issues, etc.

Yes, this. ^^^

I was also a young naive kid that never thought about how ridiculous 10% was. I don't remember bringing it up though, I only made that far with like 5 people in 2 years.

However it beats the >50% you end up paying your TBM SAHM ex wife.

We told people about it, asked them to live it, and then never mentioned it to them again.

Honestly we tried to just rush past it.

I remember going on an exchange with one of my zone leaders once. They had some people close to being baptized and I got to sit in on the tithing lesson. At the end my zone leader asked the family to live it, and they all bursted into laughter so hard.

The Dad, "Yeah sure you can have 10 percent of my non existant paycheck"

It was a pretty poor family, and I realized how ridiculous we must have looked and sounded, my ZL luckily didn;t push it with them.

Also, for the most part no one seemed to really care. Of course, I was in the southern part of the US and people paying money to church is a pretty common thing.
I am sure most people just looked at it as an optional donation, or an every now and then thing. We were loathe to "correct" them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2013 01:31AM by nonsequiter.

It oddly seemed easier for the people I was teaching to swallow than it was for me. Tithing is one thing I never really had a "testimony" of, and it always felt a bit wrong to me.

But in korea I guess the abundance of "for-profit" type churches has inoculated much of the religious population from common sense on this matter... they kind of looked at it like membership dues, and just nodded and said "Well, yeah, sure, if I join the church I'd pay tithing to it."

I definitely remember much more pushback on tea and booze.

It was a topic of what was then the 5th discussion. I was in Germany, and we didn't make it that far very often. Getting past the golden plates, angelic visitations, repentance, priesthood, word of wisdom, law of chastity etc. was tough enough.

In fact, we only got to that discussion with the one person we baptized. However, tithing and church finance came up in other informal discussions because the Catholic and Evangelical Church have state enforced church taxes for all their members. When you talk church money was on peoples' mind.

Yeah, that was the way it was in Japan as well. If we ever got that far, it was only after weeks of meeting with them, and I think I only taught a 5th discussion twice.

One of the times I was teaching it the guy seemed to be going along with everything, and then when we brought it up he said something along the lines of, " . . Aaaaand there it is."

We said, "There what is?"

"The money thing. All religions just want the money," he replied.

Didn't have another meeting with him.

Wish I were as smart as he was when I was younger.

I wonder how many converts really understood how strict the Mormon church is about it. I think most people understand tithing and pay tithing, and 10% is sort of the accepted figure, but people largely only pay what they can afford, which could be more here, less there, and 10% after basic needs are met, not on the full gross. To bring up the 10% may seem reasonable, so people don't fully understand what the Mormon rule is on tithing. As missionaries, did you tell them they had to pay 10% on gross income without fail? Tithing settlement at the end of the year? The fact they would be kept out of weddings and other important temple rituals necessary for salvation if they don't pay up? Or would that be considered "meat?"

How did I bring it up? I repeated memorized words and phrases, and was ready to counter objections. That's what we were trained to do. (Gotta admit, though, delivering the chastity discussion (even though vaguely written) was a bit awkward.)

Missionary work, after all, is about jacking up a number, not about teaching doctrines of tithing or anything else.

Usually I never mentioned it...to embarrassing. Thought it was the Bishop's problem post baptism. Heck, I'd be out of there anyway. If I did mention it, it would be more of a principle that was taught relative to something like keeping the 10 commandments - just more general and not couching it in a way that they would have too immediately.

When we had an investigator who we had challenged to get baptized, we were to call in the zone leaders, and they would teach a lesson on "The Commandments" which included obeying church leaders, THE LAW OF CHASTITY, and tithing.

Honestly most investigators bailed at this point.

I gave this lesson a couple of times. I remember both investigators asking us just to visit but not to teach them, fairly soon after we had to do the lesson.

The three people I taught who got baptized, I don't think they really understood what was wanted with Tithing, more like it was going to be voluntary and now and then kind of thing, even though it was laid out clearly. Who knows if they understood the language used in the discussions, it was kind of flowery and old fashioned. I remember one investigator saying "10% of everything I make !!!! $h!t! " He got it.

When I was on my mission, it was part of the 5th or 6th discussion (can't remember exactly which). We thought what we were doing was good and right, so I wasn't nervous at all to bring it up. Most people that we made it to the 5th discussion with were unemployed and broke anyway, so didn't really matter.

It was such a big issue in my mission, many years ago, that the entire Mission District would fast and pray whenever 'the Tithing Discussion' was being taught to an investigator who had already committed to be baptized. We must not have been faithful enough missionaries, because tithing was a deal breaker for 90% of investigators on my mission...