Benevolence Funds

[eucharisteo]

How much funding goes towards benevolence in your congregation/church?

And what kind of works does your church participate in regularly?

When it comes to tools for evangelism, does your church give freely or does it ask for money in return for the materials?

 

[Mikeoffaith]

How much funding goes towards benevolence in your congregation/church?

And what kind of works does your church participate in regularly?

When it comes to tools for evangelism, does your church give freely or does it ask for money in return for the materials?

Interesting question. I’m not quite sure what you’re definition of benevolence is, but I can tell you that we have a budget item that is called benevolence that is basically giving to the Synod (read Diocese) This amount is 11% of our monthly giving. We also have other projects that we fund that one could consider benevolence. We have a large latino congregation that for the most part is always in need. We have a fund that we fund to serve their needs that is about another 12%. We then give about another 15% to yearly needs that we change every year, and these would be other congregations in need, Lutheran World Relief, LSS.

The biggest work that our congregation is involved in is quilting. We have an active senior congregation. Every week these ladies get together and make patchwork quilts. They have two types of quilts, infant and large. The infant quilts are given to local hospitals for their mothers in need programs. The large quilts are donated to Lutheran World Relief. Every year these ladies put out over 100 of the infant quilts and about 60 of the large quilts. Other work that we are involved in is working with LSS, donating time and helping to keep their shelves stocked.

We haven’t done much work in evangelization so we don’t do have a bunch of supplies. We do have a big education push going on right now. As I mentioned we have a large latino congregation, who for the most part were former Roman Catholics. Now before any one starts jumping all over me for poaching these people from the Roman Church, we didn’t go and get them, they came to us. And actually it was a difficult thing for a bunch of blue eyed Swedes and Norwegians to accept these people into the congregation. So we spend a goodly amount on buying supplies, books, materials in Spanish and having regular classes about Lutheranism as well as providing materials for Sunday School, First Communion and Confirmation. We don’t charge for these materials or for our classes.

How about you Eucharisteo?

Mike

 

[Padrej]

How much funding goes towards benevolence in your congregation/church?

And what kind of works does your church participate in regularly?

When it comes to tools for evangelism, does your church give freely or does it ask for money in return for the materials?

The current church that I am pastoring collects food for a local food pantry. I s the pastor have what they call a “benevolence fund” but I may as well have nothing as the church board limits the amount I can give to $50 per person. that says nothing to someone who is about be be thrown out of their home due to lack of payment of rent. It can help with SOME groceries but that is about it.
Another church I had served would NOT give money directly but would refer people to a local food pantry that could do those things. Even then they spoke ill of the place and accused the person of running it of stealing and taking money from poor.

I think if you look back to the time of the great depression the church provided for the needs of the people, then with welfare the church no longer had to do such as the government took their place. Now you hear excuses like, “if they are that poor they need to get welfare.” I think Satan gives the church ANY excuse to not do what it is supposed to do.

 

[eucharisteo]

Padre,
That is an interesting and well thought out post. I believe you are right and why I brought this topic up. Being close to poverty is something I have visited many times in my life, that is being poor. Right now I’m returning to school and will be pursuing “Teach Grant” funding for my funding. But my wife supports us now. We seem to trade places from time to time as the bread winner.

I do believe Satan is convincing us of not helping our neighbors by utilizing government funding excuses as a way to desensitize us from the realities. I remember a church we belonged to in 1989 professed to have a total budget of $600 for benevolence. This was a congregation of fairly successful people with about 300 members. There was also a food pantry that we continually donated to and once actually asked for some to get by a month while waiting for financial funding as a student. My money would not always come in timely. The military paid for my education after serving my 4 years of active duty.

The other day a man in my family made the derogatory comment about the Catholic Church having plenty of money to make beautiful churches. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that Catholic priests make about $18,000 to maybe $20,000 per year. That’s a far cry from the upper 5 digit and 6 digit incomes you hear about preachers making. One of my brother in laws was making in the upper 5 digits in a fairly average to small congregation compared to our parish. many preachers make about 4 times plus the amount as priests. I’m told bishops make the same. The Catholic Church is the largest contributor to charities throughout the world. So I laugh when people try to ridicule the Church for “being rich”. That’s just nonsense. And what the Church does possess is really priceless and not for sell for good reason.

 

[Padrej]

Padre,
That is an interesting and well thought out post. I believe you are right and why I brought this topic up. Being close to poverty is something I have visited many times in my life, that is being poor. Right now I’m returning to school and will be pursuing “Teach Grant” funding for my funding. But my wife supports us now. We seem to trade places from time to time as the bread winner.

I do believe Satan is convincing us of not helping our neighbors by utilizing government funding excuses as a way to desensitize us from the realities. I remember a church we belonged to in 1989 professed to have a total budget of $600 for benevolence. This was a congregation of fairly successful people with about 300 members. There was also a food pantry that we continually donated to and once actually asked for some to get by a month while waiting for financial funding as a student. My money would not always come in timely. The military paid for my education after serving my 4 years of active duty.

The other day a man in my family made the derogatory comment about the Catholic Church having plenty of money to make beautiful churches. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that Catholic priests make about $18,000 to maybe $20,000 per year. That’s a far cry from the upper 5 digit and 6 digit incomes you hear about preachers making. One of my brother in laws was making in the upper 5 digits in a fairly average to small congregation compared to our parish. many preachers make about 4 times plus the amount as priests. I’m told bishops make the same. The Catholic Church is the largest contributor to charities throughout the world. So I laugh when people try to ridicule the Church for “being rich”. That’s just nonsense. And what the Church does possess is really priceless and not for sell for good reason.

At my wife’s church they have a food pantry and key people in the congregation have been trying for years to shut it down because they do not want “those kind of people in the church.” Funny it was those kind of people that Jesus hung out with and ministered to most.

I too have heard the argument that the Catholic church is rich. There are some protestant denominations just as “rich” and their pastor’s salaries are just as bad.If they are rich it is only in land holdings and buildings. The local archdiocese where I live had to declare bankruptcy because of all of the abuse allegations just to protect the property. This is why I say the money, if the Catholic church has it is tied up in the land.

I had to give up over 30 thousand dollars in salary to go into ministry full time. My wife was the same, sadly they say “well you are supplied a house.” But what does not get realized is that yes you are supplied a house but when you go to retire there is no equity because of the supplied house. Where do you retire to?

Since this economy got so bad I have had weekly callers for assistance in many things, mostly rent and utilities. Where before I had calls for just help with groceries. The church is supposed to be able to reach out this way, but people are scared to give because they would have to do without. Maybe the answer is the stressing of love your neighbor as yourself from the pulpit so that they have NO excuse is the key also.

 

[eucharisteo]

I had to give up over 30 thousand dollars in salary to go into ministry full time. My wife was the same, sadly they say “well you are supplied a house.” But what does not get realized is that yes you are supplied a house but when you go to retire there is no equity because of the supplied house. Where do you retire to?
.

I didn’t tell you about the other brother who is a preacher. The first one was very fortunate because his congregation built him a house. The oldest one was not so lucky. He has been relieved or fired several times because the elders [bishops] decided that something he did or said was not to their liking. That is typical in our previous faith. So he depends much on his wife’s part-time income as a dental hygienist. They really be out in the cold much worse had she not been working. His retirement will be primarily dependent upon social security in a couple of years. His income was much lower than his younger brother.

As far as the Church’s wealth, I’m sure much of the wealth is tied up into land. I know that the Dallas Diocese has thousands of acres tied up wih the University of Dallas located in a sweet spot, as I put it. But in order to benefit from it the Church has to either use it or sell it and finding a buyer is not all that easy. The way I feel about diocese having file bankruptsy over the priest scandals is not what Catholics would think. If a bishop and his hired or appointed administration are guilty of covering up scandals associated with abuse of children and vulnerable adults, then they ought to be chastised for allowing it. Sometimes it takes severe punishments to change the environment where such pompous pride of men, and women, are allowed to grow so high that they think they are better than the people they serve. In all fairness, our own government is the perfect example of such abuse. Look at the Oil Spilling Executives have been carrying themselves in front of the media. My feelings about them are just as stern. To say “we like the little people” is exactly the kind of thing that some priests and bishops have been like in the past. I see some people that have been allowed to carry on with their heresy because they contribute large sums of wealth to their community/parish/diocese.

Example: Our parish just installed a $1 million pipe organ. The family that contributed the money for that did so with the stipulation that it had to go to the installation of the pipe organ. Wow! It’s nice. But in the environment in which we live today, in light of the sexual abuse scandals, and the fact that our parish had one of the abusers “discovered” through a multi million dollar lawsuit should have prompted the bishop to say, thanks but now thanks. That money would be better used to pay for x, y, and z. We have a beautiful church already. Adding the organ was nice but not necessary. I don’t find it to sound more beautiful sounding than our other piano and organ. This looks like an abuse of funds from those looking in from the outside. I’m not the only parishioner that feels this way.

 

[KathleenGee]

I can verify that priests don’t want money. My pastor’s house has alot of mice. We have individual rich donors…somebody wants to have an iconist paint sacred images in the church, as it is very new, contemporary and very plain inside.

The church has received the work of human hands, and fortunately for us, its center is in Italy and those people are famous in making life…art.

It is wealthy lay individuals who contribute either through financial wealth or great talent that our churches and properties appear to others we are rich. It is the laity who support the clergy and religious…these in turn were the ones who set up the educational system for all citizens in Europe in past times, that evolved into higher education being available for more kinds of people, as well as developing hospitals and hospice for everyone in need.

So we have the deepest gratitude for the consecrated religious souls who follow Jesus in the works of mercy, and who depend on alms by us for their temporal welfare.

I had my kids in this Catholic school run by a local order of nuns originating here. The laity are most supportive of them. The school is in a valley named after Mary…it has a 110 acre campus with beautiful trees, rose and other flower gardens…it is quite a presence…of Mary and her grace over this whole area…and the sisters are on the quiet side. Their presence to us is such a grace…Mary’s Valley.

 

[eucharisteo]

Kathlene, I agree with you. The Church in fact developed our higher education system and much of the appearance of today’s wealth is from wealthy persons. The priests are supported by us through money we contribute, just like in other churches.

We pulled our children out of Catholic school because we felt the teachers were overly harsh and our children were very unhappy in that environment for several reasons I won’t go into. But over all, I also know now that this must have something to do with the fact that a much higher percentage of Catholics fall away from the Church that attend parochial schools compared to those that attend public schools. Half of the Catholics that attend Catholic schools fall away from the faith compared to 25% that attend public schools. This disturbed and provoked me to also bring my children to that environment to help transform the Catholics attending there. But we found more of a hostile environment in that environment than in our “exemplary” public schools. The difference is that our Children have to stand up for their faith, without beating others over the head. But I believe has something to do wealth and poverty. Too deep to get into here and on this thread.

We see abuse between those children that attend CCD because their parents have chosen to send them to public schools. The Catholic school supporter families seem hostile towards us and seem to treat us as second class citizens. Again, this seems to be rooted in wealth and poverty. The expense is great and the parents supporting the school feel they should have a more support than those of us who teach CCD and send our children to school. We’ve found that many of them giving less to the support of the general fund to put it in the school for their children. So in essence they are not support the Church as much as the rest of us. Supporting a school that your child attends is no different than my support for my children’s public school and is not part of the contribution we give. They seem to treat it as if they give more. Catholics that send their children to Catholic school pay enormously for their children’s school. It has become more of a prestige today than a legitimate institution to educated all of our children. Coming from a Protestant church we fail so see any charity in a school that sharply makes strict rules about writing on chalk boards and even cutting paper or messy crafts designed to teach the children about God. We fail to see how the Church could have even been the originators of the university system considering the disparity we see in methods outdated to teach our youth about God. I’m speaking from observation with some I know. But I am not to judge and try to byte my tongue when I feel I notice something that marginalizes our young children who do not attend Catholic schools for one reason or the other.

Church facilities should be for all Catholics and visitors who have a right to learn about God, not jut limited to those willing to give money to that cause and send their children to that school. The property belongs to the Church. We know because our previous church had a school and we taught bible classes to the pre-K children. Yes, we start teaching them from birth and take them to church. We even take them to the front for the Lord’s supper and prayers. Well, we used to do that, but now we’re Catholic. But our son is an altar server and EMHC now. I am an EMHC. So we do what we can now. We even taught CCD but the last experience this past year ticked my wife off so much that she ultimately resigned because her teaching job is stressful enough in a charter school. This is a poverty to not realize this fact. I see many Catholics very impoverished with this strange foreign belief where classism is allowed to enter into the fold. Shame on us for being this way. It’s a form of blessings theology that we accuse other faiths of exhibiting.

 

[KathleenGee]

Eucharisteo…

I am a former DRE. I am still wondering if I want to return to teaching CCD. I sent all my children to Catholic school and they left the faith…because in part to how I was treated.

There is something out there a Protestant has coined, ‘Clergy Killers’. What it is are dysfunctional people who are in the processing of entering into the Church…and here I mean mystical body…but nevertheless, are really messed up people. Either they are victims of some kind of abuse, or they are just plain nasty and use parish or other churches as their community, and want to push their own agenda. They have attacked and maligned priests, protestant ministers, and people involved in lay ministry. I was a victim of this not once, but 3 times. And it greatly affected my children because they grew in my personal faith at home, and to see the opponents ‘win’, it was like those who are anti-Christian in a community are the ones appeased and get their way. I consider it the work of Satan. John Paul II was aware of the problem of ego and power in Catholic parishes and considered it serious.

My son went to the private ‘valley’ school that was not a parish. We had him in CCD and I was working with our deacon, the pastor was covering my training through the diocese. But with the exception of most parents, my son was not seen as part of them, and parents did not cultivate to integrate us into the parish. After my DRE experience, I was offered a position to head an RCIC program for the children. The parish is the second largest in the diocese. I balked because of the social issues concerning this insider/outsider mentality.

I have studied all the teaching materials for all grade levels as my DRE position covered preschool to high school in a small, rural town.

What caught my eye is ‘The Good Shepherd Catechesis’. My home diocese allows it; it was not allowed when I worked. I am in a parish now where the Faith Formation Director, a Ph.D., had gone through the entire training at the seminary with our pastor. The parish has the best women’s bible study I have ever seen. They split off and formed a new parish because the people simply wanted to show the face of Jesus to each other. They broke off from the affluent class culture. The faith formation director IS going to bring the catechetical program in. I was given permission to work on such a foundational program by the head of our diocese, but I have not been able to do it. It will be 10 years atleast before we have our new building up. The program requires good space.

The Good Shepherd Catechesis was developed by Sophia Cavalotti in Rome, Italy. John Paul II has seen her atriums, sacred places, where the children, who have innate faith in God, learn to grow in faith through liturgical catechesis drawn from the Montessori Method.

The Good Shepherd Catechesis is found now in not only Catholic parishes, but also in Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Methodist congregations. Its base is spiritual. I tried hard to bring the spiritual into my training of catechists, always encouraging them to pray and reflect, and to grow in Jesus in bringing Him to their students.

You can study the Good Shepherd Catechesis on the internet. It can be integrated into existing catechetical programs. You can PM me. I understand totally what you are saying.

I think what we are dealingl with is when faith becomes a culture and that in turns brings a class system. The Church is self-reforming. But in national conditions like we have, the only remedy will be hardships, and are they coming now to our country. It is most painful, but it will purify people. In the meantime, this bad spirit afflcting Christians all over is starting to subside.