Chapter 21

Making Dollars and Sense of Missions and Ministry

Who gets more pay, your preacher or your plumber?

   According to a 1990 Gallup Poll, Americans think the clergy should be paid less than plumbers. Less, in fact, than all the professions. Less than doctors and lawyers, engineers and mechanics, and a bunch of other people. Slightly more than one in three surveyed said the folks who fix your pipes should make at least $40,000 a year, while only one in four pegged $40,000 as an appropriate salary for those who try to save your soul.1

   Appropriate or not, it's usually only the big churches that can afford that kind of money. (The U.S. Department of Labor estimated a $23,000 average salary for Protestant ministers in 1988.)2 Finances are indeed one of the most formidable hurdles for religious groups in the 1990s.

   In fact, the Rev. Dick Spencer, my Presbyterian minister friend, picks "longterm stewardship" as a key challenge for the turning of

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the century: "We must have a sustainable technology, a sustainable economy, and a sustainable church," he says.3

   The good news about finances, missions, and church management is that religious faith has a firm foundation of charitable giving. With total contributions of $75 billion a year, U.S. religion would rank fifth on the Fortune 500 list of organizational income if philanthropy were included.4

   The bad news is that most wealthy Americans are stingy when it comes to charity: contributing households earning $100,000 a year gave, on the average, 2.9 percent while households with incomes of less than $10,000 gave 5.5 percent. According to a 1990 report.5 And some experts predict that future generations will give a smaller percentage of personal income to support mission and ministry.

   Thus, the extent to which pastors and other religious leaders acquire management and monetary skills may spell the difference between the success or failure of their work.

The Greatest Depression Since the Great Depression

   John and Sylvia Ronsvalle, a husband-wife team who run an organization called Empty Tomb in Champaign, Illinois, are pioneers in the field of congregational and missions giving. Their findings — the result of scientific tracking — are not entirely encouraging.

   Back in 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression, church members were giving an estimated 3.3 percent of their disposable income to churches. But the proportion has fallen ever since.6 The Ronsvalles project that if the 1990 trend continues, people at the beginning of the third millennium will be giving a scant 1.94 percent of their disposable income to their churches.7

   If church members were to boost their giving to an average of 10 percent of their income (the tithe), the additional funds could eliminate the worst of world poverty, which James Grant, the executive director of UNICEF, says would require $65 billion. The 10 percent would provide that plus another $17 billion for domestic need — all while maintaining church activities at current levels!8

   Crisis fund-raising has already become a standard practice for many churches.

   "The wolf at the door is actually welcome," said a pastor in one

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of six congregations studied by the Ronsvalles. "It gives you a valid excuse for talking about money" — a topic that is difficult for many congregations.

   One parishioner, suggesting that church members have switched from being "stewards" to "consumers," said, "They no longer return a portion of their incomes to God. They buy certain services — like a youth program or a place to have ceremonies — from the church."9

   Advertising, suggest the Ronsvalles, may influence giving habits as strongly as convictions of fund-raising pleas. "Advertising is addressing many of the same felt-needs that have been the church's area of concern over the years," said Sylvia. "Communication companies suggest that you will never be lonely if you use their service; vacation spots promise your family will be happy if you spend your money at their place; disappointments in life can be met by buying an expensive product."

   God will meet all these needs, the church says, but he's definitely losing market share.

Boomer Boom or Bust?

   The Ronsvalles hope their pilot project will demonstrate that giving downturn can be reversed and that members can be converted from consumers to stewards. But another expert in marketing, research, and strategy isn't so sure. Can the resources be generated to carry out the rallying cry to "Evangelize the World by A.D. 2000!"? wonders James F. Engel, a professor at Eastern College Graduate School.

   Engel, who also heads the worldwide Institute of Leadership Development, says the generation of American Christians that has given time and money to support world missions is aging and shrinking and unable to meet new demands:

We are at a time when the resource burden should be shifting to the pivotal . . . baby boomers. But there is real doubt that they will meet the challenge, because boomer priorities and interests diverge sharply from that of traditional missionary enterprise. They will be the missing link in the resource chain that could doom AD 2000 visions unless churches and

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mission agencies radically change present resource mobilization strategies.10

   As a generation, boomers are motivated by immediate gratification, the nontraditional, and the noninstitutional. Nevertheless, as Engel and social researcher Daniel Yankelovich indicate, boomers could be challenged to consider the cause of world missions if their interest in "holistic ministries encompassing economic development and social justice" were aroused.

   "This means," says Engel, "that they will come aboard full steam when their entrepreneurial spirit can be channeled into direct, hands-on strategy development. They will not buy into someone else's program unless they have a hand in shaping it . . . short-term service is the key to the problem."11

   As a matter of fact, the number of short-term missionaries sent from the United States has increased 13.2 percent annually during the past five years. according to the 14th Mission Handbook.12

$igns of Generosity

   Other assessments of boomer generosity show hope.

   "The caring spirit is alive and very much growing, even [among] the so-called 'me generation' of baby boomers," said Brian O'Connell, president of Independent Sector, a coalition of 650 corporate, foundation, and volunteer organizations. A report released in October of 1990 said that three-fourths of American households contribute an average of $734 a year to charity — up 20 percent from 1988. And 98 million Americans were volunteering their time and talents to charitable endeavors, a gain of 23 percent from 1987.13

   Respondents identified religion as a major motivating force in their giving, in line with other findings that from 50 to 70 percent of all charitable giving is directed to religious institutions.14

   O'Connell pointed to the baby boomer generation as an important catalyst in the giving pattern. Noting that people usually give more as they age, he said the trends "make the picture for future giving and volunteering in this country very bright."15

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   Other plus signs from the report: both giving and volunteering in the black community show strong increases; 90 percent believe that charities are needed today more than ever.16

   Meanwhile, in a survey by Money magazine, religion-related charities came away with flying colors, taking the top three spots and five of the top ten in a list of the nation's 100 largest charities. The magazine's criterion for performance was the percentage of funds raised that "actually went toward good works."17

   Good press like that should help ease donor reservations about giving to religious causes; the 1990s are still a time of overcoming backlash from highly publicized religious financial scandals of the late 1980s.

   Still, discernment and accountability will be the paramount watchwords for 1990's stewardship.

   And there are mixed signals. Making dollars and sense out of the financial future of missions and ministry is no simple task. The fact that people are giving a smaller percentage of their disposable income to churches is a cause for concern, if not alarm.

   Another disturbing statistic is that of all the money Christians give to charity, 99.9 percent is passed on to themselves or other churches! Of the $8 billion or so in missions budgets worldwide, "just one-tenth of 1 percent benefits the non-Christian world," said David Barrett, editor of World Christian Encyclopedia.18 Another study showed that the average church in America allocates about 5 percent of its budget for evangelism but 30 percent for buildings and maintenance.19

Missions Strategies for 2001

   So where are we — in the plus or minus category?

   Barrett, on the plus side, thinks he's caught wind of "the largest spiritual revitalization in history" breaking loose. More than a million church members were involved in renewal movements in 1990.20

   Thomas Wang, editor of AD 2000 and Beyond, agrees that statistics show initial signs of "a massive international Christian movement." He cites figures:21

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   If the planet is going to be won for Jesus Christ in the near future, the job most likely will be done by evangelical agencies. Eighty percent of Protestant missionaries spreading the Gospel abroad are affiliated with evangelical groups rather than mainline denominations. The same is true for overseas relief and development; contributions to Church World Service, the National Council of Churches' most successful agency, have fallen well below those to World Vision, the leading evangelical group.22

   An end-of-the-century deadline for evangelizing the world had been set by many missions groups. Barrett, peering into his computer data bank, says there are 254 such plans 3,030 population segments yet to be reached, and 230,000 martyrs dying for the cause of Christ each year, a figure he projects will zoom to 835,000 by 2050.23

   Among the plans to preach the gospel to all the world's people before the millennium:

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   Other evangelistic trends to look for: more cooperation between missions agencies during the 1990s; a missions push by aggressive Korean Christians throughout the world; a surge of evangelism activity to the Muslim world; and the deployment of large numbers of "tentmaking" missionaries — skilled professionals like engineers, teachers, and communications specialists who are welcome in countries where missionaries are not.25

   Paul Pierson, dean of the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary, sees alternative training as another 1990's mission trend.

While academic institutions are still valued, we see a growing number of informal and nonformal training programs, of which theological education by extension is only one . . . With the rapid growth of the church in many parts of the world, there's no way an adequate number of leaders can be trained using academic models, which are too expensive, too limiting and tend to become elitist and eventually distance the church from the majority of the people.26

Alternative Training Programs

   I saw a positive example of alternative training during a tour of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1990. In concert with American businessmen who supplied "seed-money," a successful, self-perpetuating enterprise is flourishing under the leadership and direction of Soviet Christians. It's capitalizing on perestroika for joint-venturing.

   In the progressive southern area of this vast country, near the northern shore of the Black Sea, several dozen laymen, mostly members of the Evangelical Christian Baptist Church of Maikop, have pooled their capital and harnessed techniques of private enterprise

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to turn a profit. They are using the funds to establish and run a Bible college and gain a controlling interest in a new commercial bank.

   A few years ago the Soviet laymen gathered together and decided to acquire a wood shop to make furniture moldings. They obtained contracts with larger furniture fabrication firms in major cities and then rented a state-built wood shop from the government. The group also rented the adjoining decrepit brick factory from the state. Slowly, they modernized it and have improved its efficiency so that it turns out 15,000 bricks a day.

   The Dekor Brick Company is able to pay the workers nearly four times as much as they made when the Communists controlled the factory. The Christian management has built six new low-cost housing units for workers' families, runs a co-op where they can buy food at reduced prices, and allows workers to observe religious holidays.

   The other piece in this Baptist scenario is Logos Bible School in Belorechensk — also a child of perestroika. For years, Logos has operated a biblical-theological program, based in Fresno, California, to train young Soviet Christians through extension courses. In 1990, the organization teamed up with the Soviet business leaders to sign a lease-purchase agreement for a former Communist youth camp on an abandoned collective farm.

   The new school, one of the first resident Bible programs in Russia welcomed about 100 Soviet students in the fall of 1990, using more than twenty teachers from the West to get started. Students concentrate for seven weeks on theology and three weeks on business principles.27

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   "The school . . . is a real miracle," declared Viktor Reimer, a Logos founder. "Many times we thought it would be closed because of tensions with local authorities and with the KGB. The school continues because it is God's will to prepare workers for the harvest."28

   Joint-venturing is also involved in other Soviet projects, such as publishing badly needed Christian literature. "Our goal is to enable the Soviet Christians to make it on their own with training, support and encouragement from us in the West," explained Bill Greig, a board member of GLINT (Gospel Literature International), a Christian organization that has been involved in the translation and publication of 501 books in thirty-nine languages.29

   Projects based on this type of philosophy can be copied in many parts of the world during the closing years of this century.

   So we see-saw between the optimists and the pessimists.

   One thing is certain, however: churches can no longer put out appeals and just expect the dollars to pour in simply because people have a fondness for giving to religious charities.

   Those who will make the most dollars and sense out of missions and ministry will do so by showing the tangible, personal benefits of giving.30 They will see themselves as delivery systems rather than as accumulators of human or monetary capital.31

Chapter Twenty-two  ||  Table of Contents