Dear HTLC Members and Friends of the Congregation,

Here are a few updates on church members and a few thoughts in preparation for Sunday’s message:

• Elaine Rummage spent several days at AnMed earlier this week and has been moved to the Summit Place this afternoon.  She is in room 13. We keep Elaine and Paul in our prayers during this time of transition.
• John Dickson underwent a procedure earlier today at the Greenville Memorial Hospital for a blockage in his intestine.  All went well and he is expected to be there another day or two.  We keep John and Sandi in our thoughts and prayers during his recovery.
• Scott Brady spent several days at AnMed this week but is now home and doing better.  We keep Scott and Anita in our prayers.
• You may have seen in the news of a house fire in Easley on Tuesday morning from a lightning strike.  The home owner is Michael Bagwell, the nephew of Sharon Christmas.  We pray for all the family members affected.

• For my sermon message on Sunday, I will be focusing on the last verse of John’s Gospel, where Jesus says, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
• What exactly does this mean?
•  If it is true, then why are all my prayers not answered in the way I request?
• This verse supports the “gumball theology of prayer” – put a “quarter of prayer in” and get what you want.  Is this sound theology?

Options for Giving
The suspension of worship services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has lead Holy Trinity Lutheran Church to expand the ways offerings can be received by the church now and into the future. This article outlines options currently available to you.
Option 1:
Place your offering in an envelope and mail it to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 209 Broad St, Anderson, SC 29621. This option is the easiest way to send in your offering and incurs minimal cost to you, a $0.55 stamp, and no processing cost to the church. It allows you to easily earmark your donation to various categories. Using the USPS may be old school; but most of us have paid bills in this manner for many years.
Option 2:
Use your bank’s bill payment service. You can logon to your bank website, go to their payment center and create a ‘company’ payee for HTLC. Most banks will ask for the following information:
• Name of payee (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church),
• Address (209 Broad St, Anderson SC 29621,
• Telephone number (864-224-4220),
• Account number (use the number on your envelope), and
• Contact email address (htlc@htlc-anderson.com).
Once this information is entered, you can have your bank send your offering to HTLC on a date specified by you. HTLC will not be known to your bank as an Automatic Clearing House (ACH) partner and thus the bank will mail a check to HTLC usually 5 days prior to the date you request it be delivered. The check will arrive at HTLC in all appearances as if written and sent by you. Most banks prefer to use ACH withdrawal and deposit to send funds from your account to the payee account but have their own internal processes for determining if ACH will be used for a payee account. Over time, your bank may switch to using ACH vs. the US Mail, it is up to them.
One of the benefits of using your bank’s bill payment system is that you can have your pre-specified offering automatically sent on your schedule. Another benefit is that using your bank’s bill payment system is normally done without cost to you, check with your bank to make certain, and there is no processing cost to HTLC.
The major limitation to using bill pay is that the memo line on a check is usually limited to 32 characters making it difficult to designate multiple categories for your offering

Option 3:
Use Holy Trinity Lutheran Church’s new eGiving option. The ELCA has two preferred partners for eGiving — Tithe.ly and Vanco’s GivePlus. HTLC has selected Tithe.ly as our processor for eGiving. This means that you now have the option of making your offering by credit card or from a checking account via an ACH withdrawal. Tithe.ly allows you to apportion your gift by category and schedule automatic reoccurring offerings to HTLC among other options.
There is no cost to you to create a Tithe.ly account. However, there is a cost to the church each time you use Tithe.ly to make your offering. The costs incurred by HTLC for each transaction are:
Credit Card (other than AMEX): 2.4% of the gift + $0.25
AMEX Credit Card: 3.5% of the gift + $0.25
ACH/eCheck: 0.5% of the gift + $0.25
When you make a donation to the church using Tithe.ly you will have the option of “Covering the Fee”. For example, if you wish to use your VISA card to give $75 and elect to cover the cost of the processing in order that HTLC receive the full $75, your card would be charged $77.10, which is ($75 + $0.25) / (1 – (2.4 / 100)). If you covered the cost of an ACH withdrawal for a $75 donation, the amount would be $75.63.
To use Tithe.ly for eGiving, you need an account. You can create your account at any time by
going to https://get.tithe.ly/ and click on the red “SIGN UP FREE” button, then click the “GIVE TO CHURCH” option which will take you to a page that allows you to “GIVE
ONLINE”, which will take you to a page where you can create your account. Or, carefully type the direct path to create an account:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give
At the date of this writing, March 29th, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Anderson will NOT be visible in the Tithe.ly app church list as our enrollment is in progress.
If you check the HTLC website (https://htic-anderson.org ) occasionally, you will know when eGiving is operational — a “Give” button or link will appear on our web page that will take you to Tithe.ly site where you can create a userid, set up your checking account or credit card as the source of your giving and begin using the service to send your offerings to HTLC. Lastly, there is an iPhone and Android app for Tithe.ly.
Option 4:
Soon, very soon we hope, the offering plate will be passed in worship service to collect your
offerings. But until then, please consider one of the above three options to give.
Feel free to reach out to Mike Cox (email: salzburg1951@gmail.com or cell: 301-788-8420) if you have questions.

Dear Members and Friends of Holy Trinity,                                      March 19, 2020

The Church Council has officially suspended all church services due to the coronavirus situation until further notice, including Midweek Lenten and Sunday services.  Also, all congregational activities and church organizational meetings are suspended as well, including all groups, such as the Lutheran Men In Mission, both WELCA Circles, Never Too Late, the Youth, Operation Inasmuch, as well as all meals, etc.  These meetings and activities will resume as soon as the situation allows.