Please take a moment to take the poll at the top of the right hand column (available through March 3).
I have had several church members tell me that the only checks they write are for church. All other transactions are either debit/credit card, online payments, or bank drafts. Good Shepherd offers regularly scheduled bank draft options, but we don't have an online payment option. Would you use it if we did? Why, or why not? I'm curious to know your answer.
If we offered a computer kiosk in the lobby to make your offering, pay for events, or make bookstore purchases, would you use it?
The church in general tends to be way behind all societal trends, but we don't have to be. Good Shepherd doesn't want to be one of those churches. However, unless this will increase cash flow, it doesn't make sense to pay the fees associated with debit/credit card acceptance.
I'd sure like to hear your thoughts. Post a comment, you can do it anonymously if you like.
2 comments:
As one who has suffered the ill effects of too much credit card debt (literally a couple of months from bankruptcy) it would bother me to think we were encouraging people to incur such a debt to meet an obligation to the church. There is also the question of just how easy should certain things be. If we could pod cast Sunday worship wouldn't that make things convenient. Certainly there are times when absence is unavoidable and such a thing would be better than no worship at all but how long before people looked at it as an alternative, rather than a way to worship in the rare cases that attendance is unavoidable. If we were to start accepting credit/debit cards for offerings I think we should make it very clear that the entire amount of the offering is not going to the church. I am all for technology and streamlining to save time, but as far as sacrifices go, how big of one is writing a check in order to increase ones offering? Perhaps the most important thing of all, in my opinion, is keeping it an offering rather than just any charitable donation. Of all the things I pay out, this one goes to someone I can talk to, and He listens and cares. As a matter of fact, we didn’t begin to pull out of our nosedive into bankruptcy until I did just that.
You have hit on two of my greatest concerns, (1) the issue of debt, and (2) the question of the "act" of offering.
(1) I agree, the church should do nothing to encourage debt. There are a few people who are disciplined enough to use their credit card as a way to build up airline miles, but they are sincerely few and far between. Americans spent 113% of their income in 2007. I don't want Good Shepherd to be a part of that. There are ways to allow debit or bank draft without allowing credit cards. I would hope we would pursue those avenues.
(2) There is a great value of sitting in worship and making a prayerful offering to the Author of Life and the Benefactor of your Blessings. This clearly changes the face of the offering moment in worship. I am concerned that we don't lose sight of that moment of giving ourselves back to the One who gave His Son for us.
At Good Shepherd we have questioned all things tradition. Our worship is not static, nor does it follow many liturgical conventions. Some people look at our use of contemporary music, secular songs, video and movie clips, and question whether this nod toward modern culture has legitimacy. Cleary, we think it does. So when I ask the question in this post, I ask it from the perspective of meeting modern culture at a crossroads of sacred and secular.
Many people have told me that they only write one check per month and that is to the church. (I would argue that they must not have any children in school because the number of school fundraisers I pay by check is enormous.) That being said, does it make sense to meet them where they are? Would it, in fact, encourage someone to a deeper practice of the discipline of weekly/monthly giving, even another step closer to reaching or exceeding a tithe? If a person's giving does deepen their connection to the One who is the source of their gift, why wouldn't the church want to remove barriers to that giving by providing more than one vehicle for that discipline to be practiced?
I am very sensitive to the concerns and share them with you. May our hearts be aware of the movement of the Spirit before we make any decisions.
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