Reflections of a stormy petrel

Pretty much the same as Catholics, then. Thank you.

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Oh, may I ask what kind of amount one would expect an individual to give at each collection? Among Catholics, my experience is that it is small sums, most often coins and rarely over the worth of a small banknote. Would you say the same?

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expectare.livejournal.com

My first church pulled about $1000 (500 pounds) a week from about twenty families. The smallest regular contribution was $5. I don't know about the finances of the much larger, wealthier one my parents go to now. When I have a regular salary, I will pay 10%.

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Thank you. So you believe in the principle of tithing?

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dr-dgo.livejournal.com

As one raised as a Christian Scientist, I can state that there were collections on every Sunday in the branch churches. There may have been on Thanksgiving, but it has been a long, long time since I attended church. Further, as a member of The Mother Church (main church in Boston, MA) you are expected to pay $1/year (minimum) for member ship dues (though they are called something else, the exact name I forget). The church also gets money from trusts and wills, and those members that are Practitioners (healers) pay to be listed in the various publications, as do the authorized Teachers and Lecturers. I was very active when younger, but have drifted away since then. My mother, before her passing, was a Teacher and Lecturer in Africa, travelling the whole continent. My dad still lives in Kenya.

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One dollar a year does not sound like much. On the other hand, our clergy is paid - when they are paid - rather than pay to be on the list. But this is all very interesting, and it is beginning to sound as though the practice of a Sunday collection during services is universal.

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I've certainly contributed the smallest or second-smallest banknote in both Catholic and Protestant churches, in France & the US, with similar pass-the-collecting-wicker basket styles going.

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Which Protestant churches did you attend? I mean which denomination.

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My father's family is half Protestant, half Catholic (in the Cévennes and Rhône area: to this day, the Protestants live above 1,000m, where Louis XIV's Dragoons couldn't get them; the Catholics are in the valley) & I was raised a Catholic but then sent to school in England, where we had C of E chapel every morning. Not very practicing in this or the religions on the other side of the family (Jewish or Russian Orthodox; my grandmother used to take me to Cathédrale Saint Alexandre Nevsky for Russian Easter, but that was a long time ago and I have no recollection of collections...)

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(Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, which is the church of dear friends there; Eglise Saint Philippe du Roule in Paris, which is my parish church; Cathédrale de Chartres, which is near my favourite aunt's house in the country and where we used to go as children for Christmas Midnight Mass; Holy Trinity Sloane Square in London, which is the church my best friend in London goes to.)

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I particularly wanted to hear about Baptists, so thank you. I do know a thing or two about Catholics, and I have been in Anglican churches, but the Baptists are the most important and original American denomination and I was particularly interested in their practice.

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Incidentally, you used to have Midnight Mass at ***CHARTRES CATHEDRAL***?? I know that having lived in places like Milan, Rome and Oxford I should be used to greatness, but Chartres is widely regarded as being as close to Paradise as we will get this side of the veil.

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Yes, weren't we lucky? Even my free-thinking Socialist father approved, but then he said when I was a child that I should read the Bible, otherwise "you'll never understand a thing in a museum." He knew every sculpture and window in the Cathedral and took us round every time another of our friends came down for the week-end.

Of course we took it completely for granted, horrible brats that we were.

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Children do. I only realized - for instance, that my mother was a gloriously beautiful woman, or that I had been living through a golden age in the comics artform on both sides of the ocean, only when both things were fading away.

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dustthouart.livejournal.com

When I was a Protestant (my entire childhood), in the Methodist church, there was a collection at every service, and sometimes a second one for a special thing (like some kind of relief effort or whatever).

It was more or less identical to my experiences now as a Catholic, regarding collection of money.

People also make donations in other ways, and there are fundraisers. Things like selling inscriptions on tiles in the entryway, for example. Leaving things in one's will. Etc etc.

My experience is that amount given really depends on ability to pay. In the past I've frequently not put in anything at all (being a college student without a job). On the other hand, I have a friend with a very good job and I accidentally picked up his donation envelope once and read the amount on it; it was $100. (My guess is that he was tithing 10%.) My hazy recollections from my own childhood is that my dad would put in around $20, and that me and my brother would chip in, like, a quarter each from our own allowances.

Now, when I was a teenager and went to a evangelical house church, that was totally different. There were no collections. Most of the adults were "pastors" who took turns preaching, and all had other jobs and thus did not need financial support (they believed this was following the example of St. Paul). We chipped in with donation of time and goods, for example, each week someone would provide lunch. But I don't remember ever even being asked for money.

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A lot of what I hear make us Catholics feel like real tightwads, Just as well there are so many of us.

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dustthouart.livejournal.com

To clarify, the friend giving $100 was a Catholic, and from what I understand, even the Oratory on campus (which has a tiny chapel and mostly college attendees) makes a not inconsiderable sum in basket passing every week.

There is no basket passing at all at daily Mass.

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malabud.livejournal.com

My church is not Protestant or Orthodox, so I do not know if you want the information. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not solicit donations in church meetings. In fact, visitors would be dissuaded from trying to give money if they asked about it. Members are asked to tithe ten percent of their increase, which they do through donation slips and sealed envelopes so that no one knows what anyone else contributes. The definition of what is their increase is left to the individual member's conscience and God.

Also, members fast once a month for 24 hours and donate what they would have spent on food (or more if they are able) as fast offerings. Fast offerings are used to help the poor and needy in the local area. Aside from tithing and fast offerings, members may contribute to specific categories, such as humanitarian aid (worldwide relief aid), local mission funds, church-wide mission funds, temple building, the Book of Mormon fund, and the Perpetual Education fund. (The Perpetual Education fund gives small loans to young adult men and women in developing countries so that they may get an education. Once they have left school, they go to work and eventually repay the loan. Thus, the fund is perpetual because each recipient is expected to repay what they received.) These categories for donation are not required and are strictly left up to the discretion of the member.

Also, most young men serve a two-year mission for the church sometime around the age of 19 or so, and many young women also serve missions around the age of 21. These missions are usually paid for by the missionaries themselves. Help can be provided by the local and church-wide mission funds as needed. Older couples who are retired and have no children left at home may also serve missions, again at their own expense.

The church operating budget comes out of the tithing, with the other monies going to their designated categories. Since we have no paid clergy and everyone is a volunteer, that reduces costs substantially.

I think that about covers it. Let me know if you need any further information.

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Most useful and interesting. Thank you. Every bit of information makes the picture clearer. So far, I'm only missing Orthodox Oriental (Coptic, Armenian, Jacobite) and Chaldeans.

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starshipcat.livejournal.com

My faith background is the Independent Churches of Christ and Christian Churches (Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement), and in all the congregations I've been in, it's customary to pass the offering plate, usually after Communion. Typically people who put in loose cash do a five or ten. People who give larger amounts generally write checks or put cash in a numbered envelope so that they can get an accounting at the end of the year for tax purposes (here in the US, charity contributions are deductible on one's Federal income taxes, although it really only matters if it's large amounts, for the simple reason that the standard deduction is such a substantial amount).

If a missionary is visiting or if there's been a significant disaster in the area that's affected members of the congregation or neighboring congregations, there may be a second, special offering taken up for that specific purpose, but typically there's just the single offering.

The church budget is generally worked out by the elders, usually on a line-item system (these amounts for general operating expenses like rent/mortgage, utilities, routine maintenance, these amounts for each of the various benevolent and missionary activities the congregation supports, etc.) and the actual process of writing out and sending checks to the appropriate entities is generally the responsibility of the church secretary, unless there's a separate treasurer. The church secretary and treasurer may be elders or deacons, or may be other members of the congregation who do the work either on a voluntary basis or as paid employment (different congregations do it different ways depending on local circumstances).

My dad was an elder in several different congregations and would know more specifics from personal experience. If you need more specific information, I can ask him.

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"Usually after Communion" answers a secondary but significant question I was asking myself. Catholics contextualize the Collection by having it together with the presentation of the Offerings (bread and wine) and before the consecration. Would, I was wondering, a theology that denies Transubstantiation and the sacerdotal role of the Priest contextualize them differently? To have them after the Eucharist answers my question. Thank you for that and all the other rich and interesting information.

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starshipcat.livejournal.com

You know, I've never even thought about there being any significance to that part of the order of service -- Communion first, then Offering -- it was always just one of those things that's always done in a set order. But now that you bring it to my attention, I can see the symbolism of receiving God's free gift of salvation and then giving back by giving forward, supporting the church, both in the terms of the local congregation and the entire Body of Christ. And yes, it does fit very much with the Restoration Movement's theology of salvation and of Communion.

Thank you for taking me outside my own experience and letting me see it from a new perspective.

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That's a really interesting connection, and reminds me of a detail I had forgotten -- in one of the churches (Baptist, I think) I used to go to, the metal plates used to distribute the communion bread down the rows were of the same pattern as the plates used to collect the offering (though the latter had felt lining the bottom).

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See how significant details come out even without noticing? As you know, in the Catholic Church - and I assume in the Orthodox and Eastern churces as well - the faithful line up to take the Host at the hands of the priest - indeed, there is much fuss in some quarters when the priest deputizes someone to help him in giving the hosts out. Now you tell me that in a (probably) Baptist church, the bread is passed down the rows of seats in the same way as the collection plate is. This shows the huge difference between the Catholic idea of a priest and the Baptist/Protestant idea of a minister or preacher.

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Although my experience may not be representative, that was the norm in all the Protestant churches I've attended in this area, actually, with the exception of the Lutheran church (which, as I recall, had a communion rail). The Baptist (I think) church was remarkable only in the choice of nearly identical vessels for collecting the offering and distributing communion.

In case you were curious, for the wine (i.e. grape juice), trays with holes accommodating single-serving plastic cups (roughly the size of a small shot glass) were passed down the rows. In the churches I attended which did this, the pew book holders also had racks attached to receive the spent disposable cups (which would be collected and discarded after the service ended).

(Unless I'm misunderstanding, it sounds like the Methodist church which

dustthouart had attended also did this.)

(Curiously, most of the official Protestant guidelines for the distribution of communion which I have been able to find online tonight suggest that communion should be directly distributed by a minister or deacons, and strongly emphasize weekly communication -- presented as being in the tradition of the Reformers. I wonder now how licit the pass-it-down-the-pews approach actually is, even in Protestant circles. Licit or not, it is at least common enough to support a small industry making the trays and disposable cups.)

On a slightly different note, while I've declined the invitations I've had to observe, my understanding is that at LDS sacrament meetings, the blessed elements (bread and water in modern practice) are also passed down the pews.

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malabud.livejournal.com

On a slightly different note, while I've declined the invitations I've had to observe, my understanding is that at LDS sacrament meetings, the blessed elements (bread and water in modern practice) are also passed down the pews.

This is true, though the Sacrament must be prepared, blessed, and passed by those who are ordained to the priesthood. When passing the Sacrament, a deacon will give the tray of bread (or water) to a person sitting at one end of the pew. The tray is then passed from person to person down the pew to be received by another deacon at the other end. Each member usually takes the bread (or cup of water) from the tray while the previous person is holding it. He or she then holds the tray for the next person, and so on.

It is most important that the Sacrament is prepared, blessed, passed, and received in the proper spirit. We renew our covenants with God each time we partake of the Sacrament, and it is arguably the most important ordinance members participate in, though it happens every week.

It had never entered my mind that it is unusual to receive the Sacrament in this manner. I've attended masses before and thus have seen the Catholic way of doing things, and I've been to a Protestant church a time or two, but I believe they passed it down the pews as well.

I can be sure of one thing, however. The Sacrament is prepared, blessed, and passed the same way in every LDS congregation all over the world. I've attended church everywhere from Arizona to Cambridge, UK to the Philippines, and it's always the same. The language may be different, but the ordinance is the same. It's quite comforting, actually.

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dustthouart.livejournal.com

My remembrance is that at my Methodist church we did it in that order too. We only had a communion service every six weeks, and my chief memories of it from childhood are trying to sneak extra bread cubes (and an extra cup of juice, if I could manage it--much more likely to get caught, though). I was usually hungry at that point in the service.

No one even suggested the bare possibility of it being the body or blood of our Savior. Even the symbolic sense wasn't weighed too heavily.

It was Welch's grape juice in little plastic cups and cubes of white bread, for the record. When I was in middle school, well, before I stopped being a Christian and wouldn't go to church anymore, I occasionally went to a youth service at which for "authenticity" they used torn bits of pita bread. Still grape juice, though.

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That's pretty much how it was at the Protestant churches I went to in my childhood, although the common thing at the time was fat little die-punched rhombuses of unleavened bread rather than whitebread cubes. (In any case, I remember wishing the portion sizes were larger, for similar reasons...)

At least in the particular churches I went to, I don't feel like it was taken that seriously either. I was baptized in the Presbyterian church, but later on I refused to get confirmed. I took communion with everyone else my age though, and nobody seemed to object -- it was just this thing we did. (Though one Presbyterian I've talked since to was horrified at the idea.)

I do get the sense that in the intervening years, Protestant churches have started to become more serious/regular about communion than they were during the period when we were Protestant.

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I have read an observation along those lines in the Catholic magazine First Things, which claimed that in the past the Eucharist itself used to be pretty rare in Protestant services, and that it is due to Catholic influence that it is now given every week.

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fellmama.livejournal.com

In every Episcopal church I've been to, the collection takes place after the confession of sin and before the Eucharist. I'm not sure what the average contribution via the plate is--if I'm giving at a church I'm visiting, I'd usually put in $5, but I'm broke as broke can be.

ECUSA buildings and priests are usually supported by pledge income. At the beginning of every fiscal year, congregation members are asked to pledge money to the church, to be given as either a lump sum or in increments. If I'm giving monthly (as in my church now), I put an envelope in the collection plate, which I think is how most people do it.

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A poor Episcopalian? There goes another stereotype. Seriously, thank you. That is interesting, among other things, because it is considerably different from Anglican practice.

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fellmama.livejournal.com

You're welcome--reading about this is very interesting indeed The discussion above regarding how the Eucharist is served makes me goggle. Episcopalians always receive the sacrament from either the priest or a lay minister, and always at the rail--never ever ever would it be passed along pews.

On that note, I believe we're the only major denomination in the US that routinely kneels for Communion; I've been to Lutheran and Roman Catholic services where the congregation comes to the rail, but they always stood. In fact, I remember going to a wedding mass as a child and being really puzzled by the lack of kneeling, whereas the only people I've ever seen stand for the Eucharist in an Episcopal church have been those with mobility issues, or under exceptional circumstances such as a cathedral service where space is arranged oddly.

More details, should it prove useful: in every ECUSA church I've attended regularly (and I think in all that I've visited), the time allotted for collection space is perceived as a time for multiple sorts of offering. That is, in addition to the plates being passed, there's always a musical offering as well, and it's always the most complex and dramatic of the music played at the service. After the piece is finished, the offering and the bread and wine are brought forward to a hymn sung by the whole congregation. It's often the Old Hundredth a la Capnflynn's experience, but there's no particular theological rhyme or reason to it, and individual churches and priests are welcome to substitute according to church season or even personal preference, within reason. My current church changes the hymn used in this way--for Easter we're singing the traditional Old Hundredth words to the tune of Lasst uns Erfreuen. (And can you think of anything more Anglican than that, haha.)

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capnflynn.livejournal.com

I grew up Episcopalian, and it was almost exactly like the Catholic church I attend now: a hymn sung while the collection baskets are passed around the church, then the collection brought up, then the eucharist. The big difference was, we would always sing "The Old Hundredth" while the collection baskets were being brought to the altar.

I was just a kid, so I don't know how much people typically put into the baskets.

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linnapaw.livejournal.com

As far as I know with my experience in the Orthodox Church is that there really is no set "time" for a collection, but almost all churches that I've been to have a collection where somebody will come around with a collection plate/basket. That being said, at the church I am currently attending, they simply put the basket out there, and the priest will encourage people after the service if there is a special collection that they want to do besides. I have also seen at least one church (in Munich) have two baskets that go around - one for the general fund, and one for the choir.

That being said, I've also been on the parish council of a church, and we were trying to set up a merchant account so that people could do automatic monthly gifts, etc. but the priest didn't think it was all that important, I guess, because he stalled, and so it never got done.

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Thank you. I wonder how much variety of usage exists among national Orthodox churches and emigrant and refugee churches in America.

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In my Protestant days, I bounced between Lutheran, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. Collection was taken in shallow baskets passed down the rows. People contributed small bills and pocket change; larger amounts were normally put in as folded checks and/or in special envelopes mailed out to members (we would get a month's worth of weekly envelopes in a mailing). 10% tithes were encouraged. Collections normally went to the local church; occasionally there were collections for specific missionary or charity efforts.

I don't remember whether the collections took place before or after communion in the Protestant churches I attended, on days when communion was distributed. (While the collections were weekly, communion was less frequent, typically monthly.)

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