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Story Behind
Passing the Plate
After America ended state support of churches in the early 19th century, the collection of "tithes and offerings" became a standard feature of Sunday morning worship.
Mark Rogers | posted 3/12/2009 04:10PM
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In the late 19th century, people had come to see giving as a biblical mandate, a spiritual matter, and an act of worship. Therefore, it made sense to incorporate the collection of offerings into Sunday morning worship alongside preaching, singing, and prayer. By 1900, most American churches took up weekly offerings. A dedicatory prayer or the doxology normally preceded the collection. Members enclosed their money in preprinted, two-sided envelopes. By this point, churches depended on these weekly offerings for most of their funding.
The weekly offering has remained the chief method of church funding for over one hundred years. Today, more and more churches are making online giving available; nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that the weekly offering plate will ever lose its privileged place in American worship.
Mark Rogers is a Ph.D. student in historical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History & Biography magazine.
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