Monday Morning Reality Check
Inform! Remind! Persuade! 1.1 billion people have yet to hear the Good News.

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How are we expanding our funding?
by Justin D. Long

How are Christians expanding their spending for the cause of world evangelization? The analysis below is derived from our new annual table from the January 1996 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (p. 25). All figures are average annual rates of increase, covering 1970-1996.

The facts:
Personal income of church members3.91%
Personal income of Pentecostal-Charismatics8.53%
Giving to all Christian causes3.98%
Church income2.46%
Parachurch and institutional income6.39%
Ecclesiastical crime33.75%
Income of clobal foreign missions4.94%

We've heard many people recently who've said we're in the midst of a financial slump. In the USA this may be true - but on a global scale, the figures in total don't bear this out -- and neither do the majority of mission agencies. The Foreign Mission Board, for example, reported a large increase in its annual budget. Other organizations continue to do well.

Therefore two interesting questions arise: if giving is growing, not decreasing, then where is the giving going, and why is it going there? Although the church supports more missionaries than parachurch organizations do, nevertheless giving to parachurch causes (usually short-term projects instead of the church's long-term missionary presence) is virtually triple that given to churches.

Likewise, Pentecostal-Charismatics represent almost twice the giving expansion rate of all church members: but this is mainly caused by a rapid demographic growth of Charismatics in general.

Studies have indicated that some Christians are not giving to foreign missions as much as to other Christian causes because of a lack of vision on the part of individual Christians for God's missionary call on the church. Moreover, missionary activities don't usually garner the media attention that other causes do, and so attract less attention from potential supporters.

Steps to take

  1. We must educate our constituencies on the place of mission as the primary calling of the Church; the major reason for its existence.
  2. We must educate our constituencies on the importance of stewarding resources and contributing to the building up of the church worldwide - not through building structures, but through evangelistic and discipling work.
  3. We must educate our constituencies on the need for world missions and the results, both immediately practical and long-term eternal.
  4. We must work to promote missions so that the vision catches with more Christians.