Ok, here's a great story!

'The congregation was besides themselves': Mormon bishop dresses as homeless man to teach flock a lesson

Mormon Bishop David Musselman dressed up as a homeless man to test his congregation's charity.
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

A Mormon bishop who wanted to teach his flock a lesson about charity went to the extreme and enlisted a Hollywood-style makeup artist to transform him into a scruffy vagrant who then panhandled outside his church.David Musselman, 45, said he knew some of his congregants would be kind and some might be mean, "but what surprised me the most was the reaction of indifference."

"The majority of the people just ignored me and went to great lengths not to make eye contact," Musselman, the bishop of Taylorsville Fourth Ward in a suburb of Salt Lake City, told NBC News on Friday. "And that was an unexpected lesson for me: We don't always have to give money or even food, but if we act the way we say we believe, just smiling and making eye contact and allowing them to have a little bit of dignity can be enough."

Musselman said he got the idea for the stunt from a friend of his who chided him for being annoyed that she is always stopping to empty her pockets for the unfortunate.He took it to heart and then began thinking about how he could get his church members to do the same. He decided he needed something with more "shock value" than a Sunday sermon to get the point across.

He approached makeup artist Tara Starling, whose TV and film credits include "High School Musical," and also started an organization that makes sandwiches for the homeless. "For me, it was the two parts of my life colliding," she said.Starling spent about two hours last Sunday giving Musselman unkempt mutton-chops, grimy, scarred skin and bad teeth.

About an hour before services, he showed up at the front door of his church in dirty clothes with a sign that asked for food and a box where people could put money. "It was very surreal," said Musselman, a divorce mediator and father of six. He had dozens of interactions with people arriving at the church. Some were giving: He collected an apple, some crackers and about $20.

"But I had several people ask me to leave the property," he said.

He said the children were "very kind," and he could tell many of them wanted to help and approached their parents."Some of them gave and some of them didn't." he said. "Some wished me a happy Thanksgiving and some avoided me."

When the service started, Musselman walked into the church and took a seat in the front pew until an assistant, who was in on the ruse, announced that "this homeless man would like to say a few words." "The congregation was besides themselves," the bishop said. "They had no idea what was going to happen."

He approached the pulpit in character, recited the hymn "Have You Done Any Good Today," said he wanted to give some of what he had collected to the church, and asked if the bishop was there. "Of course, they said he wasn't. Then I pulled my wig and glasses off," Musselman said.

"The gasp the congregation had nearly knocked me over. They were stunned." Jaimi Larsen, 38, who had not recognized Musselman when she saw him outside, said, "You could hear a pin drop." Once he had unmasked himself, the bishop gave a talk on "giving and gratitude and compassion," which apparently struck an emotional chord. "There was one woman who was pretty much sobbing uncontrollably," Larsen said.

Afterward, those who had shunned Musselman came up and confessed their shame. One woman said she was going to tell her grown children to donate anything they bought her for the holidays to a homeless shelter.

"I felt horrible that they felt so horrible," he said. "But I believe it had the effect I hoped it would have.

I've been wondering how he Bishop would have fared outside our church. I think better than a sawbuck and an apple and some crackers. I hope.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11 ... esson?lite

this is the bomb, gramps. thanks for sharing.

I'm glad this bishop succeeded in his goal of "opening some eyes" ~ and I deeply hope at least some of the congregants will remember the lesson ~ time will tell ~

Sooz

A Facebook friend of mine posted this on his Facebook page about six months ago. As I said to him then, I don't fault the congregation for not giving to this apparent "homeless" man.

"WHAT?!" you exclaim! "What a GRINCH you are!"

No. And here's my reason why:

Certainly there are a lot of homeless people. However, it is a FACT that a lot of mentally ill people are homeless. And if I saw a homeless person walk in off the street into a building of any kind, asking for donations, a RED FLAG would go off in my mind that this person is likely mentally ill.

Now making any kind of contact with someone like that -- even eye contact -- invites the possibility that they will start trying to engage you in conversation and they won't leave you alone. Have you ever seen these crazy people standing outside the 7-Eleven talking to themselves?

Now, I am not against giving donations to the needy. But there are proper channels to do so. You can donate your old clothes to one of those booths in the grocery store parking lot. You can donate money to a homeless shelter. You might even drop $5.00 in the hand of some person standing alongside a freeway offramp -- where you are safe in your car and can roll up your window and drive off if need be.

But when a homeless person shows up in a building asking for donations, I think it unwise to personally engage him. You just don't know what they might do. Best to avoid them since you don't really know if they are mentally ill or not.

The best course of action for this scenario would be to call the police, and have them escort the homeless person to homeless shelter where they can be safely cared for.

When I grew up there was a TV show called "civil courage " and it showed all kind of acts of brave Americans.
I'm wondering if that was all fiction?

We can err on the side of being humane and compassionate or err on the side of ignoring and wishing he was gone or having him hauled off like the trash. The choice we make shows what kind of person we are. As shown by the children, the first choice is the natural one. We learn and choose the other one. A simple smile, they couldn't even give him a smile. He was not hurting anyone or anything. I love that this guy did this.

I know i don't make eye contact with homeless people because i'm afraid of being followed. i'm not sure this lesson was entirely fair.

I have generous impulses but I rarely act on them, often feeling bad afterwards that I didn't. One instance happened back in 1981, when I was working in Brooklyn and commuting to work. I was hurrying to catch catch the subway to get to my LIRR train and was stopped by a woman with her three kids. She didn't have enough money on hand to buy tokens for the subway to get herself and her kids home. I don't think she was homeless or a scam artist, just someone who needed a temporary helping hand. Unfortunately, I didn't want to miss my train connection so I apologized and told her I didn't have any cash on me and kept going. Thing is, I could have given her a bag of tokens (they sold them ten to a bag) I had on hand that I had purchased that morning - I was just too anxious to catch the subway to take the minute or two necessary to give her those tokens. Over thirty years later and I'm still bothered by this.

I'm better now about acting on those generous impulses but I really have to think about it and make an effort to do it. It doesn't come natural to me.

We get folks coming in every week at work who are clearly trying to scam us. They choose scripts from a menu that we have memorized. These people are working a job, and their job is selling a story for money. Every so often, though, there's an exception. We collect a little money each Sunday from the congregation for the exceptions.

I occasionally have casino people who say they need money for bus fare home. Mostly I don't believe them, but if I'm ahead and in doubt (and even not in doubt) I will give them a couple bucks.

I had the bad experience with the mentally ill, developmentally disabled man in DC. I closed off for quite awhile after that.

Jeanne is correct in that we learn distrust. I don't think it's our instinctive response.

I buy Christmas gifts from the holiday trees in local stores to provide gifts for kids in need and contribute to the food/clothing drives at school and in the hospital.

Last July 4th, I stopped for gas, & while there gave somebody $15 cash and pumped $15 gas into his tank. Claimed he was a nat'l guard soldier who'd left his wallet in Green Bay. Had Class A's hanging in his car, a righteous haircut and clear eyes. He had driven down here to be in the parade, he said. But I knew I'd been conned ten minutes later when I thought about it. He never asked for my address so he could repay me.

"Wealth" and "comfort" are both subjective concepts ~ to anyone with less than I have, I'm "wealthy" ~ to anyone with more, I'm not ~ my own "needs" have changed dramatically since I've retired ~ I don't see myself as "wealthy", but I'm very comfortable with my lifestyle ~

I was brought up to share with those less fortunate ~ sometimes that translates to dollars and sometimes it translates to volunteer work ~ both are important ~ I make [for me] good-sized annual contributions to a handful of causes [the largest being our school, in both dollars and time] plus smaller contributions to maybe another 5-7 "good causes" ~ and I almost always give a couple of bucks to anyone who approaches me on the street [which seems to be most often in grocery store parking lots] ~

I'm sure that somewhere over the years I've been "taken" by a scammer ~ but the scammers need to live with their own acts ~ I'd much rather be taken for a few bucks than deny someone in desperate need ... because I need to live with my own acts ~

Sooz

It's funny, but I always look homeless people in the eye and smile at them. I've never been followed or anything. I look at everyone I pass and smile. That's just me.

I never have cash, so that's not an option for me. Once there was a man standing outside the grocery story with a sign. We made a quick trip into the store, bought a gift card that we were going to give to him. By the time we got back out, he was gone. I guess the store staff chased him off. We drove around a bit, but couldn't find him.

There are many ways to help those in need that don't involve hand to hand giving to strangers on the street. Those who reacted by feeling guilty when the bishop revealed himself likely had reason to feel guilty that they do not help their fellow human beings or that they do judge those who are in need. People who truly give of themselves and their riches might be less uncomfortable for not giving anything directly to the unknown beggar. I usually do not feel too bad about giving to a fraud either, because even the gypsies who steal from me or trick me out money are usually less well off than I am. Even if they are using the money for drugs or alcohol chances are they are in pretty bad shape and in need of the institutions to which we may contribute. I guess I am just an evolutionist who wants all of humankind to grow and thrive and improve our species.