Givings: Does direct withdrawal cheapen the giving?

As I mentioned a while ago my Church has introduced a new system where instead of giving your weekly donation, you have a monthly direct withdrawal from your bank account. The advantages to this for both sides are:

• The Church has a reliable monthly income.
• The Church goer givings are never forgotten or missed due to vacations and such.

Sounds ideal doesn’t it? This means that at the end of the year your givings are what you budget’ed them at the start of the year, so it is very convenient.

Is there a downside to all of this? Maybe:

• I like the feeling of “giving” every week and putting an envelope in the plate, but the church gives you a token so you don’t feel out (I think).
• The withdrawal is once a month, which is convenient for the Church, but not really for me, since it is a larger sum once a month.
• If I get a sudden windfall influx of money (it happens once in a while), it is much harder to give more any one week.

Odd Side Note

What is interesting is this year the Church’s income has dropped a significant amount, I don’t think direct withdrawal is the root cause of this, however, it is quite interesting to note.