Faith Leaders 3min read

Two Thoughts On Giving

By Russell St. Bernard
Published June 30, 2021

Russell St. Bernard is a Reverend at Kingdom Fellowship AME Church and founder of Ministry Pivot. In his series for Givelify, he explores two thoughts on giving that have been impacted by recent changes.

During this last year, every area of Church life has been impacted, and giving was not spared. In comparison, some Churches were still able to receive a large amount of the tithe and offering through the mail or by members who dropped off cash and checks during the week. The majority of the Churches received the tithe and offering online. That meant that people either had to use what they hadn’t used often before, or they had to create new accounts. Either way, I think it’s a benefit of this season, and we should continue going forward. Here are two thoughts:

The weather didn’t matter

– I live in the northeast, and every weekend during the winter, where we knew there was the possibility of snow or other weather, we had conversations to discuss the plans. However, during this season, because we weren’t meeting in person and every service was online, there was no conversation about weekend snow.

We planned for worship the same way; we made sure those who the snow might impact had the resources they needed. Similarly, we must remind and encourage our people to use online giving tools such as Givelify and others to send in their tithes and offerings.

The location didn’t matter

– Another time that can be interesting for the offering is when the congregation might take a vacation. In other words, Summertime between July and August. We still need to see this season as the world begins to open up and see if members’ location is not an issue. However, last year if people weren’t home or weren’t in the State, it was okay because they didn’t need to bring their tithe and offering to the building but simply give it online.

These are simple reminders for us to think through as the world begins to reopen and as in-person worship begins to happen that our strength in online giving and our expectation of the use of online giving should remain high. Using QR codes can be very helpful as we continue to be a touchless society.