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.

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.

ChristianityToday.com Staff: These are books that have shaped evangelicalism as we see it today—not an evangelicalism we wish and hope for. Books that have been published since World War II—not every book in the history of Christianity. Books that over the last 50 years have altered the way American evangelicals pray, gather, talk, and reach out—not books that merely entertained.We asked dozens of evangelical leaders for their suggestions, and they sent in their nominations. Then we vigorously debated as a staff as we ranked the 50 books. (We're still debating.)

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently conducted surveys in 10 countries with sizeable renewalist populations…

• Pentecostals and Charismatics comprise nearly one-quarter of all Christians.
• 5% of the U.S. label themselves as Pentecostal, 18% charismatic. (23% renewalists)
• In the Philippines, the number of charismatics, most of them Catholic, is 10 times the number of Pentecostals.
• Majorities of renewalists in every country surveyed say that it is important to them that their political leaders have strong Christian beliefs.