'Cash-machines for Jesus' a hit at California churches

Sep 28, 2006, 16:56 GMT

Los Angeles - An enterprising preacher has found a better way of raising money for his church than passing around an old collection box.

He has installed electronic cash machines in his congregation's three churches and has set up a private company to market the devices to other houses of worship, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

'It's truly like an ATM for Jesus,' Pastor Marty Baker of Stevens Creek Community Church, using the official acronym for the automated teller machines that dot banks and high streets around the world, was quoted as saying.

Baker said he came up with the idea as traditional collections dropped because people were carrying smaller amounts of cash in a society where commerce is increasingly conducted with a swipe of a plastic card.

Unlike regular cash machines, the ATM's for Jesus do not allow users to withdraw money. The specially designed 'Giving Kiosks' just allow donors to make electronic donations, and gives them a receipt. Some donors place the receipt in the traditional collection plate to retain the old-time sense of giving.

This year Baker's three churches are expected to raise between 200,000 and 240,000 dollars via the kiosks. His company has also installed them in seven other churches.

Baker says the technology is essential for churches to keep up in the modern economy and compares the shift to another upheaval centuries ago, when offerings of grain and animals were replaced with what was then the newfangled medium of money.

'I'll bet that caused a stir, too,' he said,

Baker is sure that his electronic donation machines are the wave of the future in a cashless society, and his company is already looking beyond the horizon. It is working on individual donation machines that attach directly to the backs of pews.