NOM

I’ve never been a Bishop. I expect I’ll never be a bishop.

My dad was a bishop in the late 80’s. I don’t exactly recall how much time he spent doing the job. I just remember the other kids teasing is for being the bishops kids. Mom played the organ so us kids had to tend to ourselves on the back row bench in the chapel.

Is the Bishop really spending 40 hours a week doing church work?

Sundays: 6 ~ 8 hours depending on evening activities?
Mondays: off
Tuesdays: stake meetings or temple rec interviews?
Wednesdays: mutual and other visits?
Thursdays?
Fridays?
Saturdays?

Help me reconcile the time commitment.

Members are constantly requesting meetings with the bishop. The secretary has to shoehorn them into designated time slots. That is where they prove the true work of the Church when they can help those who are hurting.

During my last tour as an EQP I was told to give at least 10% of my time. So now the interpretation, like tithing. Is that 10% of all hours or just waking hours? Gross or net? Regardless, the vast % of that time is meaningless busy work and meetings, vs. actual help service to others. But this depends on the ward; some I've been in had us moving a household in or out every weekend, so lots of service hours get racked up there (if you didn't break a bunch of their stuff in the process). But I've never been in an EQP where they were asking us to keep track of our hours, just the home teaching percentages.

For bishops, with all the ward and stake meetings, depends on the SP and how much of a dictator he is. I think it's better now, for most, than it used to be, but I've been out for a decade now, so not sure.

On a somewhat similar note: Why would a bishop pay tithing? I would think the time commitment would more than make up for the requirement to also give the church a bunch of money.

Spicy McHaggis wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 2:58 pm On a somewhat similar note: Why would a bishop pay tithing? I would think the time commitment would more than make up for the requirement to also give the church a bunch of money.

I think only the Brethren are exempt from paying tithing since they make the rules.

My dad was a Bishop in the mid 90s. My siblings and I would tag along during week nights. I feel like we at the church building at least 2-3 week nights for a few hours each night.

I love the idea of Bishops not paying tithing. To bad the church would never go for it. It's all about the $$$$

I remember something about back in the day bishops and patriarchs would charge a fee for their services. They would take money or barter as a way of covering their expenses for performing their duties. This was around the turn of the 20th century.

I did find the following regarding patriarchs:

According to historian D. Michael Quinn, patriarchs were paid in the early days of the LDS Church. The practice of paying patriarchs diminished in the 20th century and was officially ended in 1943. "'Both the Presiding Patriarch and local stake patriarchs charged a fee. In the 1840s the fee was $1 per patriarchal blessing at Nauvoo; by the end of the nineteenth century it had increased to $2 per blessing. Joseph Smith Sr. gave patriarchal blessings without payment of a fee, but would not record them. 'Uncle' John Smith commented that he "lived very poor ever since we left Kirtland Ohio" (from January 1838 until January 1844). Then his nephew, Joseph Smith, ordained him a patriarch 'through which office I obtained a comfortable living.' "....Patriarchal blessing fees ended in 1902, although patriarchs were allowed to accept unsolicited donations. Not until 1943 did church authorities prohibit patriarchs from accepting gratuities for giving blessings."[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchal_blessing

In a meeting of a High Council and the Presidency at Kirtland, it was decided that, as the laborer is worthy of his hire, whenever President Joseph Smith, Sen., is called upon to pronounce Patriarchal blessings upon the Church, he be paid for his services at the rate of ten dollars per week and his expenses.

History of the Church, vol. 2, chap. 20

Looks like for a while, bishops and Stake presidents received a portion of tithing collected.

“In 1884 Church president John Taylor limited bishops to 8% of tithing they collected (now primarily cash), while stake presidents got 2% of tithing collected by all the bishops of the stake. In 1888 Wilford Woodruff established set salaries for stake presidents and provided that a stake committee would apportion 10% of collected tithing between the bishops and the stake tithing clerk. At April 1896 General Conference, the First Presidency announced the end of salaries for local officers, in response to the decision of the temple meeting 'to not pay Salaries to any one but the Twelve.'"

(D. Michael Quinn, “Extensions of Power;” [for more on Mormon Church use of member tithing to pay General Authority living expenses, see the following also excerpted from Quinn, “Extension of Power,” Chapter 6, as found at]: "LDS Church History--A Topical Tour through LDS history. Current topic: The Life of George Albert Smith,” at: http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/ ... mmary.html)

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:54 am Is the Bishop really spending 40 hours a week doing church work?

I may not be a typical bishop, but here's my schedule for the past year....


Sundays: 6 ~ 10 hours depending meetings, phone calls, interviews, and visits
Mondays: off
Tuesdays: 2-4 hours (including prep, giving rides, and cleanup) YM/YW activities
Wednesdays: 2-4 Interviews with individuals families in need or who can't meet on Sundays
Thursdays: 2-3 hours Bishop's council, PPI w/ Stake Pres., etc. (not every week)
Fridays: off
Saturdays: off (occasional temple trips, campouts, or other activities for 6-8 hours)

This schedule does not include ~45 minutes per day of phone calls or text messages for new members, emergencies, people I've never met asking for money, and other administrating crap that comes in throughout the week.

Most weeks, I probably put in ~15-20 hours per week. When things line up it has hit as high as 30, but that is pretty rare. I've never hit 40 hours and have recently begun to push back when things start to get past 20 hours. I've cancelled YM activities the last two weeks because we had weekend plans for the group and I have a home renovation to work on.

I wanted to add that my friend who is currently the transient Bishop for our stake is significantly busier on random nights. I could see him hitting close to 40 hours on a bad week.

græy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 1:28 pm

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 12:54 am Is the Bishop really spending 40 hours a week doing church work?

I may not be a typical bishop, but here's my schedule for the past year....


Sundays: 6 ~ 10 hours depending meetings, phone calls, interviews, and visits
Mondays: off
Tuesdays: 2-4 hours (including prep, giving rides, and cleanup) YM/YW activities
Wednesdays: 2-4 Interviews with individuals families in need or who can't meet on Sundays
Thursdays: 2-3 hours Bishop's council, PPI w/ Stake Pres., etc. (not every week)
Fridays: off
Saturdays: off (occasional temple trips, campouts, or other activities for 6-8 hours)

This schedule does not include ~45 minutes per day of phone calls or text messages for new members, emergencies, people I've never met asking for money, and other administrating crap that comes in throughout the week.

Most weeks, I probably put in ~15-20 hours per week. When things line up it has hit as high as 30, but that is pretty rare. I've never hit 40 hours and have recently begun to push back when things start to get past 20 hours. I've cancelled YM activities the last two weeks because we had weekend plans for the group and I have a home renovation to work on.

I think this was about right for me too. When I first read the post I thought around 20 hours was about right. I was the transient bishop too, and that didn't add too much time to the regular schedule.

But it was 20 hours I didn't have for my family, trying to make money, or further my career. Still pretty bitter about it, as you can tell.

I don't think I put in 40hours/week. I think it was 15-20 hours/week for me also.

Mormorrisey wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 10:23 am I think this was about right for me too. When I first read the post I thought around 20 hours was about right. I was the transient bishop too, and that didn't add too much time to the regular schedule.

But it was 20 hours I didn't have for my family, trying to make money, or further my career. Still pretty bitter about it, as you can tell.

I do feel like the newer emphasis on letting EQ/RS handle welfare cases directly does relive a bit of that pressure/time and would have resulted in less total time being demanded from the bishop except for the fact that they then added the responsibility of being the de-facto young men's presidency. That puts the load right back up to 20ish hours per week for most bishops.

However, in the case of the transient bishop in particular, that welfare load never really decreased much. My friend in our medium-metro city has weekly calls from 3-4 families who need support and then who are never seen again. He spends a great deal of time meeting with them in "emergency" situations and determining how best to help them. That load isn't easily transferred to EQ/RS because

1) His number (as all other bishops) is the only one that is publicly listed as the ward's point of contact

2) He still has to make the final financial decision on how / how much to help and given the short time span of these support calls it would only sink additional man hours to include RS/EQ without changing the situation much

I asked our stake's transient bishop a few days ago and he confirmed 25+ hours per week, sometimes a lot more.

I'd bet that 20ish hours per week was the standard before the bishopric became the YM presidency, and it seems to be still be the case now, transient bishops still have to shoulder both of those loads.