Reply to the Collection Plate Post

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MarshMumbles

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Maybe try just putting the Church’s bills on a table instead of using a collection plate?
 
Do you mean, the church puts its bills on a table and we each pick one out to pay? Water, gas, electricity, vestments, wine, wafers…
 
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If you left the doors unlocked and the lights to the alter turned on, people could come by, whenever, and look through the bills and take one or two or all of them.

You would have a church that doesn’t pass the plate, never locks it’s doors, allows people to come in and pray whenever and doesn’t concern itself with the bills.
 
MarshMumbles said:
If you left the doors unlocked and the lights to the alter turned on, people could come by, whenever, and look through the bills and take one or two or all of them.
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Being in business for 25 years now this would leave me with the bigger question. What do you do when the power is shut off because of the guy that took the $10,000.00 electric bill home and then realized it was way to much for him to cover so he left it on the kitchen table with the rest of his bills that weren’t paid?

I’m on the finance council for my parish. Our annual budget is about $900,000.00 per year. The electric bill alone is about $100,000.00 annually.
MarshMumbles said:
You would have a church that doesn’t pass the plate, never locks it’s doors, allows people to come in and pray whenever and doesn’t concern itself with the bills.
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Someone always has to be concerned about the bills. I’m not saying your idea is wrong all I am saying is it can’t work on a large scale. To be honest we kind of do exactly what you post here. Every year we add up all of the bills and create a budget for next year. We take this budget, not a sum total, but line by line showing where every penny went and how many pennies we project that we need for next year. We list what we had to cut to make last years budget and hand out a copy in the bulletin for every member to see. Anyone can take one of those lines and pay it in full for next year. But in the end someone always has to be in charge and making sure everything gets finished.

On a final note I couldn’t even imagine what it would cost to keep the lights and heat on 24/7. I would guess that would easily double our budget to 2 million. 😱

I know this can sometimes work in small churches but I’ve been in charge of enough projects to know if someone isn’t steering the sled eventually you are going to run into a tree. 🤕

God Bless
 
MT1926 said:
Someone always has to be concerned about the bills. I’m not saying your idea is wrong all I am saying is it can’t work on a large scale. To be honest we kind of do exactly what you post here. Every year we add up all of the bills and create a budget for next year. We take this budget, not a sum total, but line by line showing where every penny went and how many pennies we project that we need for next year.
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There is one parish in South America that I have visited acouple of times and they way they do things there is, they say, this year we need to repair the roof of the porch and also buy new altar cloths. Do we have any parishioner who is a roofer or a seamstress who could do that for us, ideally for free. Or the two guys in the parish who are both roofers and are normally compeitors bury their rivalry and get together and do the work together. Sometimes the priest don’t find anybody so nothing gets done, but at least the most pressing problems do get solved somehow. They don’t have much of a budget in the formal sense for the simple reason that nobody has much money so not much gets put in the plate. But that’s not to say that people aren’t motivated to help and provide their time and skills when required.
 
Many parishes now offer the option of online donations. You can donate weekly, monthly, etc. And yes, if you usually have two envelopes when the plate is passed around on Sundays, the weekly donation needs for your parish are shown online.
 
UpUpAndAway said:
In our case, we would have a vandalized building, pilfered of everything that makes it a church.
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One can imagine worse things, like homeless people sleeping in the pews, and drug dealers setting up shop.
 
I’m not sure about where you’re at, but where my wife and kids are members the money doesn’t even stay in the parish. It goes to the diocese for redistribution.
 
RandomAlias said:
One can imagine worse things, like homeless people sleeping in the pews, and drug dealers setting up shop.
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I did know a church that was a bit like that at one point. The priest thought it was all about love and charity and didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing. He took in a bunch of muslim migrants. The damage was immense with a lot of priceless artwork being damaged (not much stolen, but a lot of stuff damaged through misuse if not intentional vandalism) and a lot of trash left lying around. The regular parishioners started going to olther churches for the most part. The church was later closed down and was locked for some years. I think the diocese wanted to sell the building which would probably have meant its demolition, but therer were protests about that. I haven’t been back myself but have heard they have recently started celebrating masses there again and are some people have donated money to start repairing some of the damage.
 
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I think you’re way underestimating how much these bills are. People aren’t going to casually pay the church’s monthly electric bill. It’s way, way more than what you’re assuming.
 
TC3033 said:
I’m not sure about where you’re at, but where my wife and kids are members the money doesn’t even stay in the parish. It goes to the diocese for redistribution.
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I’m not sure where you are at but in my diocese 25% of the collection goes to the diocese, which helps run the organization as a whole, or for as you say to be redistributed where it is needed. The other 75% stays in the parish to pay the bills.

Does your diocese pay all the bills at your parish then? Personally I think this wouldn’t be to bad. Sure would decrease my stress level of being on the finance council and figuring out how we are going to squeeze as much as we can out of every penny we collect.

God Bless
 
Cirdan_XII said:
Do we have any parishioner who is a roofer or a seamstress who could do that for us, ideally for free. Or the two guys in the parish who are both roofers and are normally compeitors bury their rivalry and get together and do the work together.
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Yep this is how it works at our Sister Parish in Africa. Many years ago we adopted a community in Africa and did special collections to send them money to build a Church. They would use the money to buy supplies and the parishioners donated their labor to build the Church. Took like 5 years to finish the building. They would send us updates finally have a roof or the windows are in. It was amazing.

Two years ago we had a wealthy parishioner step up and gave them a large donation to start a farm. The parishioners work the farm in exchange for a portion of the food and the excess is sold at market to fund future projects at the Church. It is amazing to see the community come together for a common goal.

God Bless
 
MT1926 said:
I’m not sure where you are at but in my diocese 25% of the collection goes to the diocese, which helps run the organization as a whole, or for as you say to be redistributed where it is needed. The other 75% stays in the parish to pay the bills.
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Same for the dioceses I’ve been in. There is a percentage/ allotment that goes to the diocese and the rest is kept by the individual parish and used to pay bills and make necessary repairs/ improvements to the property. In addition, sometimes a parish will run a specific capital campaign for a particular large building project or major repair, and they keep that money and use it to put the new roof on or whatever the stated goal was.
 
MT1926 said:
Does your diocese pay all the bills at your parish then?
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Not sure…I believe that they redistribute the wealth and that’s what takes care of the bills, at least that’s what I’ve been told…🤷‍♂️

Whenever they want to do anything that is any sort of an “upgrade”, it’s asked to not add to the general collection but to add it to a supplemental collection.

The diocese just filed chapter 11, so maybe it’s not the best model in the world.
 
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This church does not pass the plate. Inside you will find only God, and a stack of bills on the alter. You may come in and pray and take one if you wish. We have removed the locks from our doors. Because we fear that He may return on a weekday and ask us the question, Why are My doors locked? Get rid of the collection plate. Remove the locks from the doors.
 
I think if a system like that were put in place, people of lower means would be made to feel that they couldn’t make any difference, or they couldn’t afford to contribute at all. Most catholic parishes have massive bills. With passing the plate and everyone contributing according to their means, it gets done without anyone taking on a huge burden. Only a very small number of people at any one parish could actually afford to cover a monthly bill or need in its entirety, anyway.
 
All the Catholic churches I’ve gone to have been having their money drained out slowly and surely by the fact that almost none of the Catholics coming there pay their tithing. Any attempt at getting people to do so has failed.

But a collection plate is passed around each sunday, getting filled up with a lot of bills, so I think people mistakingly think that the collection plate is for the Church, when actually its for foreign aid.
 
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