Should churches and ministries accept donations, tithes, and offerings by credit card? On the one hand, we are a much more “electronic” culture and debit cards are all the rage. But are churches encouraging poor spending habits by allowing people to amass debt by making contributions to charitable agencies?
It’s a quizzler….what do you think?
Credit cards no. Debit Cards maybe. Even with debit cards the ministry has to pay a fee for every time a card is swiped. I would even say no to paypal and other services like it due to the ministry losing a cut of every donation. This leads to an ethical issue. The donator is under the impression that he is donating the charity, not the charity and whatever the credit card/debit card/paypal, etc. want to invest their proceeds in. It could be counter intuitive and the ministry could ultimately be working against itself.
There is a church in FL called Flamingo Road Baptist Church and they have been accepting paypal tithes for several years now. When I was discussing this it came up that maybe this was a way for the sick and shut in to give. That is rediculous! The deacons should be ministering to those who are unable to attend the corporate worship service and if they choose to give, the deacons should be capable of handling it. Plus, how many elderly even use a computer to the exten that they would be able to utilize paypal?
j razz
You are right, Pastor Tony, it is a “quizzler.”
I would say no because even though the church may get the contribution, there is no way to ensure that the card user is using his or her card responsibly. The last thing any pastor or church board would want to do is to have a large number of congregants in substantial credit card debt. It would be even worse if part of that debt is tithes. CC’s are most often used by people to get things that they can’t afford, right now. In my view, it would be shameful for those who cannot afford the items they put on credit cards now, to make it worse by “contributing” to the church in the same manner.
I think the debt issue is a good reason to say no. Also, I think the symbolism of bringing your gift to the church as a part of corporate worship is important, and it is diminished if the church is just charging everyone’s credit card.
In general, I don’t think we should be enabling our culture’s impulse of giving people lots of ways to avoid interaction with other people.
And with the debit card discussion comes the ability of the receiving agency to determine whether or not the consumer is using the card as a credit or debit card, right?
I think via a website it’s OK. I have given to different things with dc/cc online. But for my actual church offering? Nay.
and why aren’t you smiling in your picture?
I am smiling……you’ve obviously never seen me upset.
JK
What do we do with the verse that says “bring the full tithe? Is that the same as “electronically sending” it? A quizzler indeed–the next thing you will be asking is should we accept money won on the lotto or in Vegas!
I do the finances at our church and we have a couple of families that give via online banking. I receive a check in the mail from their bank each month. Isn’t that computer savy enough? Sounds like the best alternative to me for all those tech users out there.
Our church started allowing online tithing a few months ago, but to my knowledge (my wife generally takes care of the action) you can only do this by online banking – no credit or debit cards.
I’m not sure I’ve got a big problem with churches accepting tithes from credit/debit cards, though. I know several people who put all of their monthly bills on their credit cards and then pay them off every month.
My wife and I actually use something called Simply Giving. It is a simple electronic transfer to the church account. Our tithe is there all the time!
“should we accept money won on the lotto or in Vegas!”
That money is likely cleaner than that of the companies and corporations in your mutual fund or 401. So I answer yes!
How can you say no to debit cards and accept checks?
The are both monies the giver has in a positive balance…. one is given with a swipe the other with a signiture but both come from the same place.
In fact a person can write a bad check
however if your account is overdrawn you can’t use a debit card
There has been several times I haven’t had cash on me and being a relatively young man of 26 I never have really needed to use checks because online bill pay is more convenient hense I don’t carry them on me so I can honestly say I would have given more to the church is I had a debit card access available.
And isn’t giving what it is all about?
If my church had run voting regarding such feature, I would be one of those people agreeing to the feature. I’m saying that not only because I am a credit card user. I am paying all my card debts in full at the end of each month and I consider online banking and debit card are good. Those are clear and bright practice of christianity, but credit card provide extra layer of security. If there’s a breach, the lost won’t be directly on your cash. If there’s another option. I would consider paypal instead of credit card.
I put this on another site, then found this site. It is a copy and paste from a message board. I thought I’d put this here just to see what comes of it:
The thing that we have to consider is that the day of cash and check being the common method of trade is dwindling. While both are still commonly used, there is competition in this space is making these forms obsolete (come to think of it, you know there was a debate when somebody in the church first wrote a check to the church. I wonder how that went! Don’t forget, this was back in the day when there was a substantial fee for writing a check!). There are more and more places that don’t accept check, there are also more and more places (even if they are still rare) that will only take a credit card despite the extra fees.
I think it is great that you raise the issue of the money changers in the temple because this gives us an opportunity to look at why they were there and what their sin was.
So the question about the money changers and why they existed: My grasp of history is that while the Roman currency during this era of the temple was the common currency, the ones who ran the church decided that the only acceptable money was the Hebrew currency (I guess since it was Hebrew it was more holy). Therefore, somebody needed to be able to handle the exchange – hence the bankers. Tradition holds the people who were brought in were there to fulfill their own selfish desires and not because they actually had a legitimate care for the worship going on there.
I think that the problem here is probably two fold: 1. The people running the temple went the extra and unnecessary step to make giving difficult and costly for believers by posing a silly currency standard. 2. The people they hired to do this were more than happy to oblige and fill their own greedy pockets.
Why couldn’t the temple just accept money in the common currency of the day?
I think ultimately, the decision comes down to motive. The problem is, it will be difficult to find a merchant (merchant is what those of us in the biz call a company who provides electronic credit card / debit card / ACH transactions) who hasn’t been demonized and made into evil and greedy by the people they try to help and serve. In other words, Americans are strapped with debt and virtually everybody blames the companies who provide credit services. Yet, the companies who provide credit services are really only trying to provide a service, a risky service, that they think people will benefit from. I know many people who work for credit card processing companies. I know them at all levels. I would never classify any of them as greedy (and I know some seriously greedy people). This isn’t to say that there aren’t greedy people at all levels of the business. Of course, you also have to recognize that there are greedy people running our churches too.
Anyway – back to the issue at hand: I think it is good for a church to concentrate on doing what it can to NOT mandate either by intention or accident, difficult currency systems for people who want to give. This isn’t to say that we have to be concerned with convenience, giving is about sacrifice. But at the same time, why make things more difficult than we have to? Churches who have a global audience need to be extra vigilant here. We take for granted that the US dollar is the acceptable trade most everywhere in the world. But we have abused the dollar so badly that its reputation and value is slipping and becoming less important. Same with cash. For a lot of people, dealing with cash is more difficult than dealing with a credit card. You can put me on that list. I don’t carry a wallet and probably haven’t for 10 years. I carry an ID holder. I have by driver’s license, two debit cards, and a P card from a group that thinks that I need a P card, several “Get out of Hell Free” cards, and a few old business cards. If you are one of the few businesses left that doesn’t take credit card, you don’t get my business.
On the other hand, I think that it is prudent for a church to be cautious about how it goes about creating methods for people to collect money. Lets face it folks: we will never resolve the issue of profiteering from tithe. Envelopes are cheep, but somebody bought a house or two from those envelopes. There is tons of money to be made in the offering plate business too (honestly, have you looked the prices for such luxuries? I just about fell out of my office window when I saw how much they can run). Some churches bring in enough cash and check on a weekly basis that they pay for armored transport of these funds.
I think the key here is to recognize spending frugally, and not out of whack with the going rate. The important thing to keep in mind here is that people were allowed to profiteer in the church not because something had to be done for any real reason. If the leaders of the church would have been more willing to work with what the people had to give and been more vigilant, there wouldn’t have been money changers in the first place. Or, if the Hebrew currency was really so important, the church could have collected the Roman money and done one or two conversions on a daily or weekly basis instead of making each and every contributor (which makes it more costly anyway) do it on their own.
Now, if your church decides it is going to start selling doves, we have a problem.