We were ahead of our time!

[Pastor Gary]

http://cogop.org/news/252/136/7-Reasons ... etail.html

[pastorables]

Is this really practical for a small church of 30 - 50 attendance where several are retired, elderly, or on other fixed incomes? Does the expense to offer this outweigh any possible benefits?

pa

[macgulley]

I checked into it for our church and you can do it through Paypal and they take a percentage. If no one uses it, it doesn't cost you anything.

[Pastor Gary]

Is this really practical for a small church of 30 - 50 attendance where several are retired, elderly, or on other fixed incomes? Does the expense to offer this outweigh any possible benefits?

I guess there's a touch of "if you build it, they will come..." here: your question presumes that the present AND FUTURE state of that church is "a small church of 30 - 50 attendance where several are retired, elderly, or on other fixed incomes." In other words, you have defined the limitations of your congregation.

One must assume that you would WELCOME young families, young singles, upwardly mobile professionals, construction workers, etc. outside that demographic, and one way to welcome them might be to put in place (before they arrive) things that relate to them.

[pastorables]

Is this really practical for a small church of 30 - 50 attendance where several are retired, elderly, or on other fixed incomes? Does the expense to offer this outweigh any possible benefits?

I guess there's a touch of "if you build it, they will come..." here: your question presumes that the present AND FUTURE state of that church is "a small church of 30 - 50 attendance where several are retired, elderly, or on other fixed incomes." In other words, you have defined the limitations of your congregation.

One must assume that you would WELCOME young families, young singles, upwardly mobile professionals, construction workers, etc. outside that demographic, and one way to welcome them might be to put in place (before they arrive) things that relate to them.

Well, that's certainly my vision (as should be for any pastor) and has been for 15 years, but 'today's menu' and 'dare to dream' are often separated by the sea of reality. In the South, we often find status quo when it comes to church vision and growth and I'm not referring to COGOP only. Yet, even some churches that seem to be doing everything just right are not growing by leaps and bounds. I was just wondering if the average church would actually benefit from this system.

[macgulley]

To me it seems you have nothing to lose. Here's a link to Paypal's description of their service. They keep 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction. If people donate through Paypal you get ~97% of the donation. If not you haven't lost anything. https://merchant.paypal.com/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/donations&bn_r=o

[lady4jc]

The church I attend gives you options of paying tithes and offerings through Paypal and we have a debit machine in the church. I usually pay tithes myself through my bank account online. It easier for me to do that so it is done before I pay my bills.

[Full Quiver]

Our AoG church has an option on our website to give electronically and also on our tithing/offering envelopes where one can write their debit/credit card info on the envelope which happens to be what our senior pastor does each time. I usually use the website.

We get a quarterly statement from the church office of all our giving.

[darylscook]

Actually it was very easy to set. It will cost us $2.50 for every $100 donated with no monthly or setup fees. Easily worth it for a small number of transactions.


Why don't some of you go try it. Go to Pearl Church Click on Donate and Donate to our New Sanctuary Fund.

Seriously, We'll see how well it works.

Pastor Daryl

[Billy n NC]

Paypal is the easisest electronic giving available.

and yes it cost about $3 per $100 of activity.

And if you are interested in one of the Kiosk type giving check this out.


https://www.givingkiosk.com/

Its owned by my Brothers company. My Niece is one of the sales persons.

[RamboPreacher]

nice billy. kind of spensive though for a small local church. but definitely what I would like to see get going in our church.

[dolfan]

SquareUp turns your iPad into a credit/debit card swipe device. A friend of mine uses it on his Android phone. Pretty cool.

[RamboPreacher]

SquareUp turns your iPad into a credit/debit card swipe device. A friend of mine uses it on his Android phone. Pretty cool.

I have square, but that means the giving has to be to "you" (the owner of the device), even if it is a church account. unless the church buys and passes around ipads. not sure how square would work for giving "kiosk". still praying/researching about how to get something going in a smaller congregation that the church building has no internet.

[Billy n NC]

Rambo,

What one church did was have people who wanted to give via a debit/credit card was fill out a 3x5 biz card with info on it .

then on sunday Am on the offering envelope they would write.

10 missions 25 tithes etc via card on file..

[Pastor Gary]

The SQUARE scanner device is not attached to any account. They are dumb terminal objects. You plug in ANY Square vscanner to ANY iPhone/Android device and launch the appropriate free APP and log in. It is the login that ties it to a certain account, in this case one established by the local church.

We have used various Square scanners (several people in the church have them) on more than 2 or 3 different phones when someone is absent. Flawless performance. We take in significant percentages of our church tithes and offerings monthly via Square & Paypal.

We leave a Square equipped phone laying by the offering box at the entrance.