Giving Kiosks

It seems that one of the last bastions of historical conservative tradition is changing to keep up with the times.

At Stevens Creek Community Church in the United States, jeans are welcome.

Sermons are now available as podcasts.

The house band plays contemporary uplifting songs as well as hymns.

And the Pastor, Marty Baker, has installed Giving Kiosks.

Not unlike a auto-teller machine, a Giving Kiosk, is a sleek black pedestal topped with a computer screen, numeric keypad and magnetic-strip reader.

Prompted by the on-screen instructions, a parishoner pulls out their bank card, swipes it and punches in some numbers. The machine then spit out a receipt and a donation is then routed to church coffers.

Baker came up with the kiosk idea a couple of years ago when he kicked off a major building drive, but noticed that few people seemed to keep cash in their wallet anymore for the collection plate.

So he began studying the electronic payment business. He designed his machine with the help of a computer programmer who attends Stevens Creek, and found ATM companies willing to assemble it for him. In early 2005, he introduced the first machine at his church.

Since then, kiosk giving has gradually gained acceptance among his upper-middle-class flock. His three Giving Kiosks are expected to take in around $US240,000 this year — about 15% of the church’s total donations.

Baker and his wife began selling the devices to other churches through their for-profit company, SecureGive.

The kiosks can let donors identify their gift as a regular offering, or direct it to building or missionary funds. The machines send information about the donation to a central church computer system, which shoots the donors an e-mail confirmation.

The Bakers charge between $US2,000 and $US5,000 for the kiosks, which come in a variety of configurations. They also collect a monthly subscription fee of up to $US49.95 for licensing and support. And a card-processing company gets 1.9% of each transaction - a small cut of that fee also goes to SecureGive.

So far, seven other congregations have installed or ordered the machines. All of them are Protestant, and most are in the South.

The Bakers have had naysayers mutter disapproval of the kiosks with some church leaders fearing that a technology so closely associated with commerce might come across as crass.

But this isn’t stopping the Bakers who are developing new systems to assist churchgoers make their donations such as automatic contributions from their bank accounts and donation machines that attach to the backs of pews.

You can expect this new wave of giving to roll its way into Aussie churches sometime soon.