Offerings

We attended one of the smaller local churches during their Thanksgiving season.  This was an interesting experience.  As I'm sure you can imagine, passing the collection plate on Sunday doesn't quite work out when your main form of currency is agriculture  The offering process, which takes about an hour all together, started with singing and dancing as people made their way out of the church.  The music continued, and the congregants then danced their way down the isle with their offerings, which were placed in front of the pulpit; this is where it got interesting.  The first offering was a goat.  Please don't picture a group of Baptists standing around an altar sacrificing a goat--not that kind of offering.  The goat, quite alive, was walked through the church, and then out of a side door.  It was followed by chickens, potatoes, firewood, sugar cane, bottles of honey, and the like.  People did have the opportunity to give money as well (as I left my goat, chickens, and sugar cane at home, I joined the line for money).  After the service everyone met in the field next to the church, and the offerings were auctioned off.  I wondered why people didn't just give cash in the first place, given that it was the same congregants who gave products instead of money who were buying the products after the service.  In the end it really seemed like more of a currency exchange that benefited the church--someone may not have enough money to give it to the church because they either need some variety of products, or the money needs to be used for a necessity.  However that same person may have an excess of, say, firewood.  With this type of offering they can effectively use some firewood to help buy the vegetables that they need, and the church ultimately benefits.  Kinda cool.  I was trying to think of what a similar system in the US would look like.  Maybe someone with very little money could offer hours of cleaning.  Someone with a lot of money could give food.  The wealthier person pays the church for the cleaning services, and the less wealthy person pays the church for the food at less than market value, and everyone wins.

BTW, we bought potatoes.   They were yummy.