A Year's Experience With the Offering Envelopes
By MRS. M. I. REEDER
Our church at College View, Neb., has to-day completed one year in the use of the little envelopes in taking up the ten-cent-a-week offering, and the total is $670.67, an average of $55.89 per month, or $12.90 per week. Our plan for using the envelopes is a very simple one, and thus far has proved very effective. We have small pockets, made of tin, painted to correspond with the seats. These are large enough to hold twelve or more of the envelopes, and are securely fastened to the backs of all our seats, near enough together so that all may be conveniently accommodated with the envelopes. Our janitor is faithful, and each Sabbath the deacons pass the baskets before the regular service begins, taking up the offering, the organist playing softly meanwhile. Each fourth Sabbath our donation for the home mission work is taken, and each second Sabbath our collection for the poor. These donations are simply dropped loosely into the baskets, it being understood by all that the money in the envelopes is sacred to the foreign mission work. During the winter it was necessary to do some repairing about the church that called for more than the usual amount of money for church expenses, and it was thought that perhaps it would be well to discontinue the use of the envelopes until this amount was raised, but our people were too thoroughly converted to their use, and so pleased with the steady stream flowing through them to the regions beyond, that many of them found their way into the baskets marked “Foreign Missions.” We accepted the reproof, and for the present two collections will be taken each Sabbath, that dropped loosely into the baskets to be taken for church expenses, except the two Sabbaths already mentioned. We did not reach our present system in a day; every inch of the way was thoroughly canvassed; and when at last adopted, the officers at least were united to a man, and prepared to give it a fair trial. But ere it all came about, several thousand of the little envelopes had accumulated on our hands, and our members had begun to inquire, “What are those little envelopes that the Mission14Board speaks about in the REVIEW? Why don't they send us some of them? I have never seen any of them.” I have been much surprised to learn in the past few weeks that there are leading brethren in our larger churches who have advanced no further in this respect than these members were a year ago, inasmuch as they have not only not introduced the envelopes into their churches, but they themselves have never seen them. One good brother who had wrestled with us over the envelope problem, but who was called to labor in another conference before it was solved, visited us not long ago, and was quite enthusiastic over our solution of it. He carried away a sample of our envelope pocket. I think a visit to our church would convince the most conservative of the utility of the envelopes. And now lest some think that all our contributions go through the envelope channel, I would like to tell you that during this same year our Sabbath-schools have given to foreign missions $130.52, and nearly a score of different fields have been remembered by us, amounting in the aggregate to $773.24. We rejoice in this evidence that the Lord is moving upon the hearts of his people, and that they are being made willing to sacrifice for the truth's sake.