We are preparing to do e-giving at the church, and this has caused me to think a lot about my weekly offering. Don’t worry, I’ll yak on that too long in a few lines.
First, you need to check out a post from the Freakonomics blog about a coffee shop with no prices. The Terra Bite Lounge is a purely capitalist venture, with no political or religious motivations, that relies on people doing the right thing for them to continue their business. You choose what to pay for your food and drinks, and you choose when to pay for it.
While a church would have spiritual motives for its work, I believe the concept here is similar in most cases.
“We teach and train you and your family while carrying out God’s work around the world. In order to continue with this venture we need you to give what you can when you can. We do emphasize tithing, but it is not required for fellowship or salvation.”
My Sunday offering ritual has not always been flawless (indeed, it isn’t near perfect right now). It sometimes consists of grabbing for my wallet and realizing that I had not prepared and all I have is a $20 and some small bills. When I was a preacher I handled this issue by writing the check on Saturday and placing it in my preaching Bible along with a working pen and a bulletin which I placed in the spot where I sat Sunday morning (so I didn’t forget the other stuff either).
With e-giving I can now do my offering from home just like I pay all my bills (note to self: pay bills tomorrow or the utility bill will be late). What will this do for Sunday morning offering? I consider it part of worship to bring my offering to God at that time (although that offering might be pocket scraping). What about people being examples of giving to others? There is a bit of social nudging to encourage others to give, will the number of people passing the plate on through or the emptiness of the plate at the end of the aisle make people think that offering is really unimportant?
I am going to have to think about that some more.
By the way, I have heard of churches using e-giving to make sure that staff and other people in the congregation are giving the proper amount each week. Looking over their shoulders and forcing a strict tithe directly back into the church’s account. Has anyone else seen this in action?
yo dude! great thought provoking article. i was toying with the idea of setting up a donation system (probably paypal) for our church’s website. of course, that also spawns the thoughts on the whole issue of tithing vs. gifting and everything that goes with it. glad to see other webmaster our there are wrestling with this one too!! love the blog, btw!!!!!!!!