The total cost of Christian outreach worldwide is $330,000.00 for each newly baptized person. The cost per baptism in the United States tops 1.5 million dollars. From the book, World Christian Trends, AD 30 to AD 2200 by David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, Christopher Guidry, and Peter Crossing.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient and effective if we simply guided our small group members to love and show that love by living like Jesus did, tell their friends and family members what Jesus has done for us and that He will do the same for them, and at the appropriate time let them know… “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”? (Romans 10:9) Then step back and let the Holy Spirit to His part.
I’m just sayin’…
What are you thinking right now?
October 27, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I’m thinking that this statistic is a load of crap, simply because there are too many factors involved to come up with this kind of number. If you take the church budgets of the entire world, information you don’t have, and divide it by all those who are baptized (including, I hope, babies and children), information that you don’t have, then you could come up with some kind of number. But That number itself would imply that entire purpose of every dollar spent by the Church in the entire world is directed at baptizing people, which of course is simply not true.
Just sayin’
October 27, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Wow! Great point, Thomas. Do you think we still spend too much money on programs that don’t make much of a Kingdom difference though?
October 27, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I’m not entirely sure how you would answer that question. It is sort of truism, there are bad church programs out there that people spend money on. Well, welcome to the fallen world.
Any church activity that is not Gospel centered is a waste of money, regardless of the cost. But, more importantly, it isn’t the right work of the Church at all. The only thing the Church should ever be about is the Gospel. (By “Gospel” I do not mean the 4 spiritual laws. I mean living and proclaiming the redeeming love and work of God in Christ.)
I think that we in the West are often obsessed with efficiency, so someone saying “look how much it costs to get one person baptized” grabs us by the neck. But is is playing not to our heart for the lost as much as to our desire to see everything done in the most cost-effective way.
Efficiency, however, is not a Kingdom ideal. The Kingdom of God is like, well, a man who finds a treasure hidden in a field and sells everything to obtain it. Or it is like a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to go off looking for the one who is lost. That is inefficient, and a potentially catastrophic waste of resources.
Let’s say that we are before the great judgment seat of Christ. We tell him that it cost us $300k to bring one person into the Kingdom. I think he would judge that a small price to pay. After all, it cost him his life.
I think there are lots of bad church programs. Mainly I think they are bad because they do not embody and proclaim the Gospel. The fact that they use money is not so much of a concern for me.
I’m ranting, but I think we’re talking about two things. Financial efficiency and good church program. These are not related. Good church program, for me, doesn’t need to be financially efficient. Of course, maybe that’s why I’m the pastor and not the treasurer!