Originally Posted by Lady Sage

I care not what anyones religion is. I do not judge them for it. What I have a hard time with is this... The money the church receives is to be used to help others.

Yes, that is true, Lady Sage. A great deal of the money received in tithes/offerings should be used to help those in the community, and for the most part, it is. Benevolence funds or Family Assistance funds are a very large part of the budget of my church. Of course, I can't speak for other churches, but I have spent many hours in the admin office of my church when a call would come in from someone who couldn't pay their electric bill or couldn't get their car fixed so they could go to work, and my pastor would release the funds for these bills to be paid. My church also took up a special offering for Katrina victims and sent it to me (while I was in Asia) to be paid out to those in need. It does happen.

What good is that money doing in a CD? I work in a bank. Most of the churches in the area have hundreds of thousands of dollars in CD's. Usually churches have more than one with those amounts in them.

Our church's bi-laws state that we must have a reserve fund in savings, so that we can operate in case offerings are low. Many churches have this, and depending on the church, that amount can be big or small, depending on their operating expenses.

Why not open a soup kitchen with that money? Fund a mission trip? Adopt some families that are having a hard go of it! Put that money to the use in which it was intended instead of turning it into a cash cow.