UPDATE!

I have it on good authority that the church staff has decided against the posting of a list of givers. I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with their decision.

Balancing the Church Budget

Brit said I should blog about something that happened in church this morning, so I am going to take her advice. As some of you are aware, our church has had a long-running issue with not meeting the budget. We are a large church, and have a correspondingly large budget, and I could go on for days about some of the things that make it into the budget that I don't exactly understand, but I won't. I could also point out how unnecessary any of this is, since our church has no business having money problems, since if only a fraction of our members were faithful in giving, then there would be more than enough to accomplish all that is needed and more. But the purpose of this post is for me to vent about the way we are going about correcting the problem. A grass-roots movement of people, who I am sure are sincere in their desire to help the church, has come up with a plan that is..., well, let me describe it and you can determine for yourself what it is. The idea is to ask the church membership to make special contributions to make up the short-fall. Today they asked for everyone to go home and eat a peanut butter sandwich at home and send the money that they would otherwise spend on lunch, (don't forget the tip!), into the special fund to balance the budget. The children of the church were asked to ask their parents for an increase in their allowance so that they could also give, but to make sure that the donation is in the form of a check made payable to the church for this special program. (I will point out that so far I have no problem with any of this.) Finally, it was pointed out that everyone who gives to this special cause, no matter what the amount, would have their name placed on a special listing, (on acid-free paper), that will be posted in a conspicuous place near the church office. (Being a child of the sixties, when I heard the acid-free list mentioned, I immediately started wondering if I was going to have to submit a blood sample to determine my eligibility.) Unspoken was the fact that anyone who does not conspicuously give something to this cause will not have their name on "The List".

So you tell me, what do you, my loyal blog readers, (both of you), think of all this?

I am really interested in your opinions.