Missions and Priorities

D. Kevin Brown, author of forthcoming Energion title Rite of Passage, asks about our priorities in church spending and action:

Last year in the association in which the church I pastor is a member, there was reported 200 people baptized with total receipts of almost $8 million. Do you know what that tells me? That tells me we as an association spent almost $40,000 per person to get them baptized and brought to Jesus. This is well above the per capita family income of a typical family in our county! That’s an amazing statistic! If you think we spent $40,000 on evangelism and missions per person to reach them, you would be mistaken. We spend our money tithing to ourselves. We spend money on our “fun.” Most churches (and ours is no different and we’re working on it), spend as much money on literature, supplies and utilities as we do on missions. God help us for our misplaced priorities!

Read the rest at Energion.net.

I must note that I know a few churches that spend quite a bit less than that!

Rite of Passage is so new that it doesn't even have a catalog page. Watch here for more information. Blog reviewers, if you think you'd be interested, go ahead and e-mail us at pubs@energion.com to request your review copy.