December 8th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Since we’re now members of our church, we got a newsletter that showed the budget for next year, to be voted on Sunday. I noticed under income that the church uses the Simply Giving® program provided by Thrivent Financial. Simply Giving® is a program that lets one give to their church via automatic withdrawal.
I can see immediate advantages to this: we don’t make it to church all the time, and this would keep our offerings steady. It would allow the church to budget more efficiently.
One thing I don’t like is that signing up requires printing and signing three copies of a form, then mailing all the copies in. Registration itself is not online, which makes changing one’s mind rather hard to do. Today, a church can get a PayPal account, tie it to a checking account, and collect donations from credit and debit cards within a day. The transaction is done with total control to the donor.
Vanco Services, LLC, operates the program for Thrivent, and there are offers to help churches set up the ability to take credit cards. I don’t know how their fees compare to PayPal. I also don’t see any indication as to how long Vanco holds the funds before it transfers them to the church. There’s money made in holding money.
Despite participating in this service should I eventually choose to do so, it would still feel funny to put nothing in the offering plate — what a lesson to teach the kids. I suppose one could put some in the plate and use Simply Giving® to put in a backup amount so the church gets something in one’s absence. Putting a slip in the plate that says, “I donated online,” seems goofy to me, even slightly Pharisaical.
At least a person would never be accused of making change in the offering plate. 
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December 9th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Christian freedom. I suspect some Christians balked at the idea of writing checks instead of putting in cash. Now we don’t even blink.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
You must have gotten a hold of a really old form or something. I am a church secretary at a Lutheran Church (though no longer a Lutheran myself) and there are many families which use Simply Giving at the church were I work. They are required to complete a single sheet - just 1/3 of the sheet, actually, and turn the form in to the church office with a voided check or a deposit slip. When I receive the completed form, I add to the form their contribution number, our congregation’s account number with Thrivent, and initial it and send it in to the local company handling this for them.
It’s incredibly simple, really … really!
-C
December 19th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
By the way, changing the amount you are giving or changing the account information is just as simple as regsitering for it. But these things do, of course, require authorized signature. But both registering for EFT and changing information can become effective in less than a week from the date the form is sent in.