Bad weather, summer vacations, flu season _ all can seriously interrupt Sunday giving, the money that helps pay a church's utilities, maintenance, outreach programs and other bills. But if a church can convince its members to allow it to debit parishioners' bank accounts or charge their credit cards automatically, fluctuations in donations could become history.

• "We're heading toward a cashless society in five to eight years when the checking system won't be there to support churches," said Brian Walsh, president and founder of Faith Direct. "That will have a huge impact on collections if we don't get people to embrace this technology."

• The online giving trend is a people's movement, says Sue Erschen, director of stewardship education for the archdiocese. She said the archdiocese began to look seriously at online giving again after pastors reported that their parishioners were inquiring about the technology.

"People have been informally asking for this for the last year or two," said the Rev. Robert J. Reiker, pastor of the 3,800-family Immaculate Conception parish in Dardenne, Mo., which has chosen Parish Pay as its online giving company.

If the owners of these online companies can be believed, it's only a matter of time before the weekly practice of passing the collection plate for envelopes goes the way of the dodo.

Tim Dockery, president of Chicago's Parish Pay, said getting people to think of giving to the church as a monthly exercise rather than a weekly one is the first step. People tend to think of budgeting as a monthly concept, he said. And if pastors can get their congregations to think monthly instead of weekly, they'll be more likely to accept the concept of online giving, and their gifts will increase.

• The average family who gives electronically to their church gives 75 percent more than they did when they dropped a check in the offertory basket each week, said Dockery.

More people are paying their monthly secular expenses online. A report done last year by Forrester Research Inc. said 31 percent of households paid bills online in 2004. By 2010, Forrester predicted, that number will jump to 52 percent. In 2010, 73 percent of those born between 1976 and 1990 will be paying their bills online, according to the report.

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