Offering Envelopes, Old and New

The late Don Caffee used to have an amusing little saying about church. He said, “Whenever two or more are gathered, there will be an offering.” This little quip, called a Donism by his son, is fairly accurate.

At the end of every year Zion Chatt’s members get their offering envelopes for the new year and we got our 2017 envelopes a couple weeks ago.

I also have a couple old 1928 offering envelopes that I found among my grandpa Carl Miller’s old papers. Apparently he did not use all of his envelopes that year.

1928 Offering Envelope

These old offering envelopes are really small—just a little over 3½ inches long. I don’t see how they could get very much money in them. I wonder if he put cash or a check in the little envelope.

Today’s offering envelopes are certainly larger than the ones they had about 90 years ago. Today’s envelopes are about 7” long, nearly twice the size of Grandpa’s envelopes.

2017 & 1928 Zion Chatt offering envelopes

I don’t remember an offering envelope quite that small but I do remember when we switched to the larger envelopes that we use today.  I guess they reason that the larger the envelope, the larger the offering will be. It must be a psychological thing.

At Zion, a member gets his/her first packet of offering envelopes soon after he/she is confirmed, at about age 14. Each married couple and each single person gets their own set of envelopes every year.

I do not know when Zion Chatt first started using printed offering envelopes. Early on, members may have just put their money in the offering plate when it was passed to them. Or perhaps they used regular envelops and wrote their name on it.

Today, as in 1928, each member/family has a number on the offering envelope. Grandpa Miller was number 139! Did they have that many members back then? Our membership is smaller today. We are number 2 because our surname is at the beginning of the alphabet.

The Sunday offering provides money to support the church, salaries, maintenance, pay the bills, and support missions.

God loves a cheerful giver!

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.