The above title is taken directly from a World magazine editorial by Joel Belz. He wrote this article in response to a statistic he read in his annual copy of The State of Church Giving. According to this report, only about two cents out of every dollar given to local churches in America gets used for denominational world missions. Just two cents!
Granted, this includes a very wide variety of churches, including extremely liberal ones. But even denominations that are in our evangelical ballpark were right at, or slightly above, the national average of two cents per dollar going to missions.
We also have to consider that some churches do not contribute all of their outreach funds to denominational missions. Indeed, some may not contribute any at all. But even if you allow for that by doubling, tripling, or quadrupling the two-cent statistic, churches are still falling woefully short of what their missions giving should be.
Every now and then I am asked by a pastoral colleague how much of our overall church budget is devoted to world missions. When I say “around 30 percent,” they fall off their rocker! So I am thankful for the priority that our church places on supporting world missions.
I think the challenge for us, as I mentioned last Sunday evening, is remembering that missions is not a program but a way of life. In other words, putting dollars into the offering plate doesn’t relieve us of our personal duty to “preach the gospel to all creation.”
When it comes to missions, some churches — perhaps most churches — need to put their money where their mouth is. On the other hand, some churches like ours need to put our mouth where our money is. That is, in addition to supporting missionaries with our finances, we need to be sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with our neighbors, co-workers, classmates, family members and friends.
That’s my two-cents’ worth, anyway!
It is a sad fact that no matter how much we give to missions there are always missionaries who aren’t fully supported in need.
The good news is that when talking to some of them – it is nice to hear that God always provided. Even the one who got their food when they were down from one of their seminary students going dumpster diving.