Are you deep in religion? Or are you one of those who go to church only when they are not able to deal with their problems? While visiting the house of God you should have noticed wicker baskets and collection plates in there. They are for the donations of the churchgoers. Believe it or not, but the age of electronic donation is already here.

Electronic donation is not new in today‘s churches. Moreover, it is getting more and more popular. Churches are letting the believers to charge weekly or monthly by credit cards or automatic withdrawals from peoples‘personal accounts. This way of charging is convenient- it helps the members to avoid cash rustling at the collection time in the church. In this new electronic way you can also send your gift while travelling, being abroad or laying sick in bed.

This new way of donating is convenient for the church also. It helps to raise the church donation because now a lot of people give their gifts constantly. The church picks more or less the same amount of money in winter and in summer while without electronic donation program this has been impossible before.

The Parish Pay (a Long Island, N.Y.-based company that provides electronic and credit card payment services to churches, dioceses and religious charities), has started offering electronic payments through automatic withdrawals from checking and savings accounts since 2001. It started accepting credit card payments earlier this year. Parish Pay clients include the Archdiocese of Chicago, which serves 2.4 million Catholics in 374 churches, and the Diocese of San Jose, which serves 600,000 Catholics in 52 churches.

The ones who use Parish Pay are charged a 1-percent service fee plus 1 dollar each month. If a person decides to donate 100 dollars a month to a church, Parish Pay takes 2 and the remaining 98 is sent to the church. Donate 50 dollars a month through Parish Pay and 48.50 is sent to the church, or religious organization.

While more and more churches let their believers to charge electronically, some people are not sure if they should. Isn‘t church something deeper than just another office you must pay for electronically each month? And should tithing earn you frequent-flier miles?

“Sending it electronically is out of sight, out of mind,” says Jack Wilkerson, vice president of business and finance for the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee. “Our giving goes a very non-spiritual, mechanical way.”

“Giving is an act of worship. I just really think we’re skating on thin ice when we take a system like this to prop up our giving,” Wilkerson says.

But Parish Pay’s Goldberger says there’s nothing bad about church accepting donations via credit cards. He claims it is nothing more than just the modernization of donating.

The truth is, it is difficult to change the old habits. Thriven Financial for Lutherans has been offering a free, electronic-donations service to Lutheran churches since 1998. But only 4,500 out of more than 20,000 Lutheran congregations have signed on. And none of the congregations accept credit card donations. Most of the believers still choose the old way of giving.

It is an individual choice how and when to donate. The most important is not to forget why you are doing it- only for the high aims.