If you’re a faithful churchgoer, there’s a good chance the coronavirus pandemic affected you terribly. Throughout the spread of COVID, we saw the closing of churches – along with several other businesses and organizations – and many people could not worship the way they wanted to. Churches and Bitcoin… Who Would Have Thought? Now, it appears churches across America and all over the world are beginning to reopen their doors, but there is a change associated with many of them. As several parishioners and attendees are still worried about cleanliness and the spread of germs, they are taking a different approach to the donation system. Instead of passing out collection plates, they are willing to accept online donations in bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency. One
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If you’re a faithful churchgoer, there’s a good chance the coronavirus pandemic affected you terribly. Throughout the spread of COVID, we saw the closing of churches – along with several other businesses and organizations – and many people could not worship the way they wanted to.
Churches and Bitcoin… Who Would Have Thought?
Now, it appears churches across America and all over the world are beginning to reopen their doors, but there is a change associated with many of them. As several parishioners and attendees are still worried about cleanliness and the spread of germs, they are taking a different approach to the donation system. Instead of passing out collection plates, they are willing to accept online donations in bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.
One such establishment taking this approach is the Sun Valley Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. As one of the largest churches in the area, Sun Valley has more than 10,000 members, and it is one of several large religious institutions to accept digital currency donations through its website. People are afraid to use the collection plates as they are being handled by several people. Everyone is touching them and holding them, and as a result, these objects now look like germ factories.
Thus, everyone feels doing things online is much safer, and bitcoin is a prime tool to ensure people can give to the organizations they love and trust and that churches obtain the funds they need to stay in practice. Mika Casey – the lead director of digital strategies at Sun Valley – explained in an interview:
We are just trying to keep up with the way people prefer to give, and with younger people, they don’t really carry cash. We want to be accommodating to ways that people are transacting.
Cryptocurrency continues to build on its growing reputation as a hedge tool. Prior, it was known strictly as a speculative asset; one that was risky, but that could potentially make one rich overnight if they played their cards right.
A New Way of Donating
However, ever since governments around the world began printing stimulus funds to assist people during the pandemic, bitcoin’s reputation has changed. With fiat being printed all the time and inflation spiraling out of control, many see BTC and its digital counterparts as hedge tools; items that can keep one’s wealth stable during times of economic strife.
Now, it’s making its way deeper into the world of businesses and nonprofits, and churches are viewing bitcoin in a new light. Another church that has said “yes” to crypto donations is the VIVE Church in Palo Alto, California. The organization is run by Reverend Michelle Stewart, a former lawyer, who says that many members of her church were used to making crypto investments already. Thus, allowing them to make their donations via digital currencies made perfect sense.