Why We Don’t Pass the Plate

This is part of a series that provides examples of how you can manage different details of church leadership. You can read about how we handle church membership here.

At Watermark Community Church, we’ve never passed an offering plate at any of our services. We don’t even own offering plates. Since Watermark has been around for over 20 years now, there are probably young adults in our body who have been going to church their entire lives and yet don’t even know what an offering plate is.

So why don’t we have offering plates, and how do people give instead?

Giving Motivation and Method

There are pros and cons to every decision, including the choice of how to handle offerings. But there are a couple of reasons why we’ve decided not to pass the plate.

Passing a plate or a basket is a visible, public way of giving. Other people can see whether you gave or not; they might even be able to see how much you gave. Because of that, people can feel pressured to give. They may end up giving reluctantly or under compulsion, which is exactly what 2 Corinthians 9:7 warns against. Because other people are watching, they may give in order to impress onlookers or earn praise from others—which is the wrong motivation (Matthew 6:1-4).

In addition, the fact that part of each service is focused on collecting money can give some people (especially newcomers or those who are not yet believers) the wrong impression. It can feed into negative stereotypes about how churches are focused on money, or make it seem like there is a price of admission into the church family.

Of course, giving to support kingdom work is a good thing, and we should encourage people to be faithful and generous in how they give. It’s just that having a public offering plate isn’t necessarily the best way to do that.

How We Help People Give

The goal should be to make it easy for people to give privately.

The first way we do that is by having giving boxes placed at the entrances to our auditorium. In our early years, when we were renting space to meet on the weekends, we simply used wooden boxes with a hole cut in the top. When we were later able to build our own facility, we built the giving boxes into the wall, sort of like mail slots. It is just as easy for people to put money into the boxes as it would be for them to put it into a plate; the difference is that people can be as discrete as they want to be, slipping in an offering as they pass by.

Of course, people can also mail in checks if they want, which is a second way of giving privately.

However, there is a definite trend—especially among younger generations—away from using checks or cash at all. And you can’t put a debit card in a giving box, or snail-mail a Venmo transfer. Because of this, it is important to also have a way for people to give online. The majority of our giving comes in through online donations. Giving online is easier and more convenient for many people. It is also more private, keeping with the spirit of Matthew 6:3-4. And all of this was true even before the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders made in-person offerings unavailable for a while.

It does take some work on the church’s part to set up an online giving option, and there are typically processing fees or other small costs involved. However, we strongly believe the benefits of online giving outweigh the costs.

How We Talk About Giving

Passing around a plate every Sunday makes it obvious that you are asking people to give. So, without that ritual, you may wonder how we prompt people to donate.

The answer is that we actually don’t talk about it much, and certainly not on a weekly basis. On rare occasions we might mention the giving boxes or the online giving option, just in case people hadn’t noticed them on their own. Mostly, we find that people are able to figure it out. We’re also not really concerned about whether visitors or new guests give. Our members, who are on mission with us, should support the mission as they are able and as they feel led. Part of that mission is to serve newcomers and not put any stumbling blocks in the way of them receiving the gospel.

However, that doesn’t mean we never talk about giving and stewardship. The Bible has a lot to say about money and tithing, and we teach the Bible. We also want to shepherd our members (and have them shepherd each other, in community groups) in how they steward the resources God has given them (Romans 12:6-8) and in the conditions of their hearts (Luke 12:33-34).

We also do announce to the body whenever special giving opportunities come up, such as building funds. We want people to know about the ways in which they can make a difference, so that people who are giving joyfully can have even more joy.

Giving It a Chance

However you choose to collect offerings, the important thing is that you are discipling people on how they should think about giving. Help members see themselves as stewards of what God has entrusted to them. Provide them with a way to give cheerfully, not under compulsion or as an act of compulsion. And then trust that God will provide the resources that He wants the ministry to have.