WCG United Kingdom has moved into the electronic age and now makes it possible for you to use your Paypal account to send in tithes and offerings. Whip out that plastic and go to town!
Many churches are using Paypal and credit cards for offerings and donations. However, many people are really leery in using it. Some don't trust it as a safe transaction. Paypal also takes a 3% cut from the donation. Many others see it is a greedy and gives the impression of being"money hungry."
I'm certain for some it would be a convenience, but it seems to appear so very money hungry. How difficult it is to remember to write a check...
Scripture again and again demonstrates that being in financial debt is akin to slavery. Churches need to ensure they are not facilitating this. If someone is writing a check or dropping cash into a plate, at the least, it is not borrowed money .
Other churches are using online giving because of the number of Baby-boomers returning to church after staying away for decades. Many had stopped attending church because they got sick of the constant money begging.
Doug Murren, in his classic book, Baby Boomerang: Catching the Boomer Generation As They Return to Church, identified one of the reasons baby boomers didn't go to church was they felt churches were always asking for money. So a lot of seeker-sensitive churches as a result went out of their way to avoid offending visitors during the offering part of the service.
I am sure this is not the only WCG/GCI church or splinter COG group that does this. Armstrongism has always been about the money. The more money they can bring in the better.
This is the Grace Communion International and credit transactions go all the way back to the Feast of Tabernacles 1995 where they were accepting Credit Cards for Feast Offerings.
ReplyDeleteNothing new about this except the level of crass.
In case anyone thinks that GCI is more benign because it is now magically transformed by the New Covenant Doctrines, people should look at the Ambassador Report and see how Joseph Tkach, Junior treated his first wife Jill and correlate that with what Dennis and others have told us about the broken promises to the ministers they made. They lie to you and take your money... still.
If you want to attend this type of church, you can find one near you at your location without the trappings and old baggage the GCI brings with it. It's not a recommendation, it's just an observation.
GCI is still another example of the 1971 Stanford Das Experiment of Guards and Prisoners. Unfortunately, some people are slow learners.
Expect betrayal.
I recently did some work for a Baptist church in my area. The comptroller and I had some interesting conversations about this very thing. They had to do a lot of research into the concept of electronic donations. They wanted to make it easy to donate, but also wanted to be sure that they were not encouraging their members and visitors to go into credit card debt. Also, some banking institutions in the past have been found to have been tangentially related to organizations which promote homosexuality and abortions, and most Christian churches would want to avoid doing business with these. Of course, as mentioned, there are transaction fees, which a church would want to keep to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteI still use checks for my tithes and love offerings, but there are some who have set up programmed automatic deductions from their checking accounts, just as one might for one's mortgage, healthcare, or insurance payments.
BB