As the US and other countries move away from using cash and towards the use of automatic payment of bills, debit and credit cards, churches are joining the cashless society. The Dallas Morning News Sam Hodges, reports on Good Shepherd in Dallas that made the decision to offer parishioners the opportunity to pledge with automatic assessments on their credit cards.
“They want to get the points, and that’s fine,” said Bobby Brown, the church’s business manager.
But is it really Christian to collect frequent flier points on the way to heaven? Are churches that take plastic contributing to the nation’s credit card debt crisis? Does automatic assessment rob from the thoughtfulness and spirituality of giving?
One big benefit of automatic giving, the business manager of Good Shepherd and others said, is that it eases what’s widely known in church circles as the “summer slump.”
People go on vacation and often don’t make their scheduled offerings. With automatic credit card or bank draft payment, the church tends to collect more and definitely collects more evenly.
Just as important at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Mr. Brown said, was the need to keep up with how church members prefer to handle their finances.
“We couldn’t afford not to do it,” he said of the decision to take credit cards.
Does your church use automatic withdrawals, credit or debit cards to collect offerings and tithes?
Read the article here
HT to epiScope