God and Mammon

I recently opened an email from a trusted source, only to find an advertisement from a company hawking en electronic giving technology for churches.  The tagline is, 

"Finally. A simple, easy and affordable giving solution for your church."

Which got me thinking.  

“Finally”??? 

Have Presbyterians all over the country been flooding the GA with overtures demanding relief from the arduous task of putting cash or a check in an offering plate?? 

Have parishioners been petitioning church treasurers to please spend more of the church’s money to obtain the offerings that the congregation has hitherto been giving the church for free?

Has the Goliath of Silicon Valley failed time and again over the last twenty years to satisfy the raging consumer demand for a “simple, easy and affordable giving solution” with regards to church gifts, tithes and offerings, only now to be beaten by the David of this vendor?

Who in heaven’s name decided that the church has a “giving problem” that requires the marketplace to deliver a “giving solution”?  Furthermore, who concluded that such a solution was to be found not in any teaching, discussion or study about the theology of giving (and more importantly, the theology of God’s generosity and faithfulness), but rather in computer-based technology that dangles promises of greater revenue in exchange for an open-ended commitment of parishioner’s offerings to using this technology?

Any practice that persuades and invites Christians to remove the spiritual discipline of tithing from the act of worship in community, and relocate it somewhere else in the building, away from worship – however financially profitable it may be in the short term – will surely corrode and erode the church’s engagement with the profound practices of tithing, offering, worshipping, and faith.  One does not “encourage a culture of generosity” by making the “experience” accessible and simple.  If that were true, every streetcorner panhandler would be a millionaire, since it is clearly simpler and quicker to pull money out of one’s pocket than it is to stand in front of an electronic kiosk (perhaps maybe even in line) and type in one’s identifying information, the amount to be given, the “confirmation” button, etc.  No, one encourages a culture of generosity by bearing sustained and joyful witness to a God Whose generosity and overwhelming love transforms people’s lives.  One encourages a culture of generosity by having members of the community tell stories of how God has upheld them through the direst of financial crises in their lives, and how 10% of what we receive from God is barely a token to return to Him in gratitude for His unfailing love.  People don’t want to give money because "it’s easy."  People want to give money when they learn, through acts of faith, how utterly faithful God is, and are thereby freed from their psychological and spiritual dependence upon Mammon. 

How can a Christian possibly characterize pressing buttons on an electronic screen as “user-friendly,” implicitly in contrast to physically surrendering actual money to God in the midst of worship as an act of trust and generosity?  Maybe next we should encourage members to stay home Sunday morning and watch the video stream of the service, since that’s clearly much “simpler” and more “user-friendly” than having to get dressed, load the kids into the car, find a parking spot, and get everyone where they’re supposed to be – only to turn around a little more than an hour later and “reverse” the whole sequence (but now with kids that are whiny and/or pumped up on cookies and kool-aid).

I realize that churches are going to do what churches are going to do, and I have no power to stop them.  I also realize that publications need money, and advertisements can be a helpful and lucrative source.  But that fact in itself does not thereby bless a practice of inviting a wolf into the sheepfold, even when the wolf is spouting promises of fatter sheep.  Every church that purchases a system like this chooses to assume a fixed expense (of monthly subscription and transaction fees to this vendor) in the sole hope  - but without any guarantee whatsoever - of increasing revenue.  Put another way, such a church chooses to surrender real, actual money ONLY because it hopes that, by doing so, it will receive even more money in return - even though it has absolutely no control or influence over the results.  

Which, when I stop to think about it, is a pretty accurate definition of “gambling.”