Courtesy: Yahoo News
Rev. Robert Cooke says his church’s new handheld debit machine is just keeping up with the times and making giving easier for parishioners. “It’s a way to reach out to people who maybe find themselves in church that don’t have cash or cheques,” Cooke said Tuesday at St. Mark’s Anglican church on Logy Bay Road.
“You may be here and want to make a donation to St. Mark’s and we’re just trying to make it easier to do that for people.” He said the machine will not be passed around with the collection plate, but will be in the office if people want to use it to make a donation. “Actually [the idea] came from the people, from the congregation and from other people who said, ‘You need to make giving more accessible,'” he said. Cooke explained it’s the next step in donation options — monthly deductions, Visa and Mastercard payments have been implemented over the years. “People expect the church to be stuck in its ways, to be outdated. So I can see when the church is trying to do something new and progressive like this that people would respond in a negative way,” he said. “But we are no different than any other charity or religious or spiritual group. This is just where society is right now.”
