Every Member a Landscaper

[JENuWIN]

Just how long will it be until Members are taking care of the outside of Church Buildings?

I think this is coming. We are already now starting to clean the temples (at midnight mind you), and i'll reference a previous post where Sister Missionaries were doing landscaping outside the Phoenix Temple.

The Building Cleaning - on top of everything else required, is a frustrating topic for me. I was quite happy with the fact that maintenance of the Church was employing individuals.

How much longer will it be until the Church occupies every day of the week with some sort of meeting, program, etc. etc. etc...???????

[Culper Jr.]

I agree, they will try to push off any expense they can onto the members. I finally told them our family is no longer participating in cleaning the building. They hit us up about every 2 months, and the last straw was this past year, Christmas week with less than a week of notice.

A paid janitorial position cleaning the church could be a great blessing to a family in each ward, but all the church cares about is cutting the expense. Many senior missions now are a couple "serving" as "missionaries" in what used to be paid positions. So instead of incurring a labor expense, now the job is being done for free by a person paying for the privilege of doing it. I saw an article (from Deseret News I think?) some time back where a senior couple was "serving a mission" stocking game at a church owned for-profit hunting reserve. That's a mission??!? Seriously? So yes, I think as time goes on, the church will put anything they can on the members to save a buck.

The sad truth is that the church really doesn't support members or families, or really even care about them outside of the context of what they can do to serve the corporation. It uses its resources to perpetuate itself and to build its image. It couldn't care less about funding programs that would benefit its members.

[Red Ryder]

This is fairly low hanging fruit on the disaffected list of church bothersome. Many churches have their members participate while many do not. The difference is that most aren't organizations with billions of dollars in assets. If I was Mormon CEO, I would most definitely ask my members to give, give, give, give, and give some more until it hurts. After all, I am providing them with eternal life and immortality! That's worth more than a few hours spent on a Saturday scrubbing toilets, dirty mother lounges, and Cheerios stuck between the pews.

[document]

I don't see them moving in this direction. Landscaping is an art form and requires both a tremendous amount of work and a keen eye and skilled hands. Cleaning a toilet, mopping a floor, and vacuuming the hallways do not. As the church puts great emphasis on the external beauty of their grounds and buildings, I see them keeping this to a professional contracted company.

[Vlad the Emailer]

My extremely TBM DW surprised me by mentioning this just yesterday.

She said "the church has plenty of money, why are members having to clean buildings?".

I offered that it's apparently to save money and at the cost of not employing members that desperately need employment. She agreed that it's sad that not only is this just another duty for the faithful, but that there are surely people that could benefit greatly from the job if they had it.

DW would be about the last person on earth to ever seriously question church leadership or church doctrine, but it was nice to see that she is capable of using her brain regarding some things about TSCC.

[Just This Guy]

I don't see them moving in this direction. Landscaping is an art form and requires both a tremendous amount of work and a keen eye and skilled hands. Cleaning a toilet, mopping a floor, and vacuuming the hallways do not. As the church puts great emphasis on the external beauty of their grounds and buildings, I see them keeping this to a professional contracted company.

IN my ward, they have already started basic grounds maintenance to membership. Last fall they had members cleanup leave, weed the beds, and trim bushes. Snow removal on sidewalks was done by members. I'm not sure how they handled parking lot snow removal or cutting grass.

[alas]

I don't see them moving in this direction. Landscaping is an art form and requires both a tremendous amount of work and a keen eye and skilled hands. Cleaning a toilet, mopping a floor, and vacuuming the hallways do not. As the church puts great emphasis on the external beauty of their grounds and buildings, I see them keeping this to a professional contracted company.

IN my ward, they have already started basic grounds maintenance to membership. Last fall they had members cleanup leave, weed the beds, and trim bushes. Snow removal on sidewalks was done by members. I'm not sure how they handled parking lot snow removal or cutting grass.

Our ward has also had the member doing leaf removal, weeding, bush trimming, and all snow removal. Things rotate between elders and high priests for snow removal, and I think there are duties the YM have all year. Then during spring, summer and fall, there are bif "service project" days where everyone goes to work on the church yard doing clean up and weeding and stuff.

The mowing is done professionally. I suspect there may be liability issues that the church might be liable if a volunteer mows off someone's foot with the big mower. So, they stick to the yard work that is just grunt work with no dangerous power tools for the voluntolds. That way, the company doing the mowing handles any liability.

[Enoch Witty]

I don't see them moving in this direction. Landscaping is an art form and requires both a tremendous amount of work and a keen eye and skilled hands. Cleaning a toilet, mopping a floor, and vacuuming the hallways do not. As the church puts great emphasis on the external beauty of their grounds and buildings, I see them keeping this to a professional contracted company.

There are multiple people in my ward/stake who own landscaping companies. I see a "calling" in their future...

[Korihor]

It's fine with me if they start issuing landscaping duty assignments. I'll just stop by Home Depot, pick up a gallon of RoundUp and spray away.

That program will die quickly.