Charging into heaven's gates

Move over wicker baskets and collection plates, there's a new way to give in God's house. The age of electronic donations is here.

More and more churches are letting members charge weekly and monthly offerings via credit cards and through automatic withdrawals from checking and savings accounts.

No last-minute stops at the ATM before church. No rustling around with cash or a checkbook at collection time. And because your gift is sent electronically, you can even give when you're traveling or home in bed sick.

"It makes people think a little more about giving," says Roger Jaroch, executive director of stewardship and development at the Diocese of San Jose. "They don't just reach into their wallet and see what's there."

Churches catch up with the times
Advocates of electronic giving say it helps to boost and stabilize church donations. While church expenses remain constant throughout the year, weekly financial offerings from congregations vary widely, especially in the summer when many families take vacations.

"It can be as dramatic as a 50-percent drop off," says Andrew Goldberger, co-founder of ParishPay, a Long Island, N.Y.-based company that provides electronic and credit card payment services to churches, dioceses and religious charities.

ParishPay has been offering electronic payments through automatic withdrawals from checking and savings accounts since early 2001. It started accepting credit card payments earlier this year.

"Most people right now are switching to credit cards," Goldberger says. "They like the convenience. They like the rewards points."

ParishPay clients include the Archdiocese of Chicago, which serves 2.4 million Catholics in 374 churches, and the Diocese of San Jose, which serves 600,000 Catholics in 52 churches.

Church members that use ParishPay are charged a 1-percent service fee plus $1 each month. Deductions from bank accounts and credit cards are made on the fifth of each month.

Let's say a parishioner decides to donate $100 a month to a church. ParishPay pockets $2 and the remaining $98 is sent to the church. Donate $50 a month through ParishPay and $48.50 is sent to the church, religious organization or charity.

Many of ParishPay's first clients were Catholic churches, but now other churches and religious organizations are flocking to the service.

"At least 10 or 12 different denominations have called us and we're in the process of broadening our service to include them," Goldberger says.

Church giving is going modern, but some wonder if it should.

Spiritus ex creditum?
Should a donation that is included in a religious service be treated as just another bill that you pay electronically? Isn't giving to your church a little different than say, paying your utility bill? And should tithing earn you frequent-flier miles?

"Sending tithe electronically is out of sight, out of mind," says Jack Wilkerson, vice president of business and finance for the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee. "Our giving goes a very nonspiritual, mechanical way."

Wilkerson called charging your tithe to a credit card so you can rack up reward points "giving for the wrong reasons."

"Giving is an act of worship," Wilkerson says. "I just really think we're skating on thin ice when we take a system like this to prop up our giving."

But ParishPay's Goldberger says there's nothing radical about a church accepting donations via credit card. Organizations such as Amnesty International and the American Heart Association have been accepting credit card donations for years.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Goldberger says. "It's sort of the modernization of church giving."

Still, old habits die hard. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has been offering a free, electronic-donations service to Lutheran churches since 1998. But so far only 4,500 out of more than 20,000 Lutheran congregations have signed on. And none of the congregations accept credit card donations.

Most church members seem to prefer the old way of giving.

"Some of them just like the old traditional way of putting money in an envelope," says Lori Goudreau, community program developer for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. "That's an individual choice. You can't change that."