Xerish and Your Local Church
Our position, stated first and plainly: the local church is the primary storehouse of the Christian life. Your congregation — where you are known, taught, shepherded, and held accountable — has the first claim on your giving. Xerish teaches this in our onboarding, and we will keep teaching it: give to your local church first.
Then why does a giving platform exist at all?
Because Scripture’s picture of generosity has never been confined to one offering. The same Paul who taught believers to support their own congregations also organized one of the most ambitious giving projects in the New Testament — the collection for the church in Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians 8–9) — carrying gifts from many local churches, across provinces, under trusted stewards, to a need none of those churches could see with their own eyes. Beyond-the-plate generosity, handled with accountability, is not a workaround of church life. It is church history.
Xerish exists for that giving: the missionary a family supports, the crisis a congregation rallies around, the rescue ministry three states away, the para-church work your elders commend but your offering plate can’t route. And it exists for the plate itself — churches on Xerish receive tithes and offerings directly, with zero platform fee on wallet giving and zero cost to the church, ever. Xerish is not a detour around the local church. Local churches are first-class recipients on Xerish — many members’ shortest path to their own congregation.
About the name “Storehouse.”
We know Malachi 3:10 — “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse” — and we know some traditions teach that the storehouse simply is the local church. We chose the name with that verse open, not despite it. Israel’s storehouse was never a vault; it was the place provision flowed through — to the Levites, the widow, the orphan, the sojourner. It stored in order to send. That sending function — gathered gifts, faithfully distributed to real need — is exactly what Xerish Storehouse does, under a formal legal structure that vets every recipient. If you hold the storehouse-tithing conviction, we honor it — and nothing on Xerish competes with it: your tithe belongs to your church, your church can receive it on or off our platform, and Xerish will never solicit it away. The Storehouse serves what you give beyond.
About “Reforming Generosity.”
Our mission is Kingdom Economy · Reforming Generosity · Uniting the Body of Christ. What needs reforming is not the local church’s role in giving — it is what has happened to giving in an age of fragmentation: thoughtless, scattered, fee-eroded, disconnected from discernment and from joy. We aim to reform that — to make generosity deliberate, accountable, and whole again. Eldership, the diaconate, and the ministry of the local congregation are not the problem Xerish solves. They are the pattern Xerish serves under.
About giving in secret.
Jesus taught that giving is between you and your Father (Matthew 6:1–4), and we built the platform around that verse as binding design doctrine: your giving history is permanently private, there are no leaderboards, no public giver profiles, no follower counts on your generosity, and no one — including the organizations you give to, if you choose anonymity — ever sees a number beside your name. Your Treasury exists to help you steward faithfully, in secret, before God.
About the fee, honestly.
Xerish is built by Xerish SPC, a for-profit social purpose corporation, and running real payment rails costs real money. Here is the entire model: a flat 2.5% platform fee, paid by the giver on top of the gift, collected once and never twice — so 100% of what you give reaches the recipient. No tips are ever solicited. Churches and organizations never pay anything. And by charter covenant, at least 20% of the company’s profit — computed before the founder is paid anything — is transferred every quarter to the Storehouse for Kingdom causes. That floor can rise and can never be lowered. We would rather be examined on this than take a vow of vagueness: the numbers are published on our transparency page.
“To hold dear what God holds dear.” That is what the word xerish means — and the local church is first among the things God holds dear that we intend to hold dear too.