The deficit driven life

[TheSportsPredictor]

URGENT: SEND MONEY!

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- Evangelical pastor Rick Warren appealed to parishioners at his Orange County megachurch Wednesday to help fill a $900,000 deficit by the first of the year.

Warren made the appeal in a letter posted on the Saddleback Church Web site. It begins "Dear Saddleback Family, THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101234.html

 

[Ace]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

 

[Songbird]

Dear Saddleback Family,

HELP! I ****ING LOST $900,000 IN VEGAS LAST WEEK!

(And 2 points for the thread title.)

 

[Machine Head]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

We got ours about three weeks ago.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

Couldn't he recoup that with more merchandising? Like The Purpose Driven Life's Little Instruction Book? Or The Purpose Driven Fuzzy Dice?

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

How many of those are headed by multimillionaires?

 

[Ace]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

How many of those are headed by multimillionaires?

Just putting that out there. I could argue either ways over whether Rev. Rick should be making up deficits of his church.

 

[Machine Head]

For all I know he could have billions secretly stashed away, but I found this interesting:

As the money has rolled in from his book, Warren stopped taking his $110,000 annual salary and repaid the church for his 25 years of salary since its founding. He and his wife became "reverse tithers," he said, keeping 10 percent of their income and giving away the rest, including $13 million in 2004.

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060126/news_1c26warren.html

 

[Bubbler]

Unavailable for comment.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

At our church they have a huge posterboard that is updated weekly showing how much donations are compared to expenses etc... I'm not doubting the accuracy, but it's really ****ing tacky.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

At our church they have a huge posterboard that is updated weekly showing how much donations are compared to expenses etc... I'm not doubting the accuracy, but it's really ****ing tacky.

Not unsual for churches. It's a way for them to be transparent and to show people where their money is going.

 

[WolvEagle]

It is not unusual for churches to send letters to members listing the finances and saying that they are short for the year, quarter, etc.

At our church they have a huge posterboard that is updated weekly showing how much donations are compared to expenses etc... I'm not doubting the accuracy, but it's really ****ing tacky.

Not unsual for churches. It's a way for them to be transparent and to show people where their money is going.

Tacky, yes, but a church's budget is directly tied to how much everyone is willing to pony up when the basket is passed.

 

[crimsonace]

It's an accountability thing, as well as an attempt at being open, honest and transparent.

Our church puts the collection from last week in the bulletin, with a small statement as to which fund the money went into (e.g., general fund, building fund, missions fund). However, it has stopped publishing the "annual budget" or "annual goal."

A lot of organizations have incomes *way* under budgeted expenses this year. Most churches and other charities see a lot of their income come in at the end of the year (around Christmas), so they often run "under" until December and then go into the black. However, the poor economy has really caused charitable giving to crater and those donations aren't showing up.

 

[mb]

Couldn't he recoup that with more merchandising? Like The Purpose Driven Life's Little Instruction Book? Or The Purpose Driven Fuzzy Dice?

Chicken Soup for The Purpose Driven Life?

 

[Stitch]

It's an accountability thing, as well as an attempt at being open, honest and transparent.

Our church puts the collection from last week in the bulletin, with a small statement as to which fund the money went into (e.g., general fund, building fund, missions fund). However, it has stopped publishing the "annual budget" or "annual goal."

A lot of organizations have incomes *way* under budgeted expenses this year. Most churches and other charities see a lot of their income come in at the end of the year (around Christmas), so they often run "under" until December and then go into the black. However, the poor economy has really caused charitable giving to crater and those donations aren't showing up.

The local Catholic church puts in its weekly program how much it took in and how much it costs to run the church for that week.

 

[User 1019]

Heard on the radio this morning that Warren had already raised more than $2M from this plea.

 

[User 1019]

I'm sorry, make that $2.4 million.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34670238/ns/us_news-us_faith/

 

[Point of Order]

Unavailable for comment.

ftw!

maybe my film of the (past) decade.

 

[DanOregon]

How sad it is where Warren seems okay merely because he doesn't say God will call him home if people don't pony up.

I do have a problem though, not necessarily with Warren, but with other ministers who preach about giving to God and he will give to you. If that were true, those ministers wouldn't need to ask their flock to make up for God's lack of followthrough.

 

[93Devil]

I am a newly named Trustee at my church, and church money is funny.

For four straight weeks we had the "we need money" and "we cannot do our share" speeches after the service (and once it was in place of the service).

This is just ****ing wonderful when you are trying to grow a membership. If I was going to a certain church for the first time, and I heard a "we are out of money" talk... Well, you can guess what i would do the next week.

Well, it turns out that we do have money. Some asshat wants to send 100,000 nets to Africa or some **** like that. Sure that is a great cause, but don't throw the membership in a panic (and we have lost good people the last four weeks over this) over some Charles Keating/Andrew Carnegie personal fund drive.