Cost of Outreach? Looking At The Numbers

This is not exactly breaking news, but I'll assume that most of you hadn't known it before - at least, I didn't.

With its last megacensus in 2001, World Christian Trends produced some striking facts. Check it out here.

More than one striking trend there, but this is the one I'm picking on for a post today:

The total cost of Christian outreach averages $330,000 for each and every newly baptized person.

Why?

I don't know exactly how the 'cost of outreach' was calculated, but I'm assuming it does not include humanitarian aid, development, or other charitable deeds, which should not be done as nor counted as a proselytization effort. I'm assuming that this 'cost of outreach' is indeed 'cost of outreach'.

This figure is - a high figure. And as you can imagine, the secular of society look at it and wonder how many starving mouths could be fed with that investment.

Souls must be saved, at any cost. However, I believe that this shows that there is probably something dearly wrong with the general approach of modern Christianity to the mission field. Why is that figure so high?


You see, this means that a whole lifetime of the average believer's tithe won't pay the cost of outreach for one single conversion. That's bad.
It took only about US$22M to come up with that figure. (Dividing the US$1.1B cost of the annual megacensus over the fifty main points that are gleaned.) That's enough to pay for 66 conversions.

There must be some overhead somewhere.


You know, somehow I get the picture that when Jesus walked the earth, when Peter preached and when Paul traveled, they didn't work on that kind of a budget. It didn't take twenty years' worth of savings to reach a soul.

We always took for granted that organized religion made things like outreach operate more efficiently. Evidently not.

I'm sure there are many reasons why. I don't know them all, but I see a few:

1) The edifices of religion have built themselves boats the size of Queen Mary 2, and are trying to fish off the sides. It may look absolutely magnificent plying the Grand Banks, but it will never work as a fishing boat. The Gospel was meant to be spread from one Christian to another, through interaction and witness and preaching and evangelism. It's time for us to get out and weather the waves in the fishing boats of old Judea - as disciples of Christ, not 'authorized representatives of the (insert union division) of the (insert conference denomination)'.

2) Bad Christian witness. Meet my friend Joe. (not his real name) Joe became interested in Christianity after a tumultuous teenage life and became friends with a young Christian pastor who was starting a downtown mission in a city not far from here. Some months later this pastor was found to be in an adulterous relationship with Joe's girlfriend. Joe moved on to other religions, studying with Wiccans and considered them to be at least honest in their corruption instead of hypocritical like Christians were.

'Going out and witnessing' is a secondary duty. The first is to be a good Christian witness. First inreach, then outreach.

3) Too much religion, not enough salvation. Jesus declared: John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. We thought we were lifting up Christ, but we were only waving church signs. Jesus Christ is absolutely the only one we ought to be lifting up.

4) We haven't been listening to the Master. We've been toiling all night long and caught nothing. Somewhere, He is standing on the shore, and He has advice as soon as we'll listen. "Cast your net on the other side of the boat." When we start listening to Him, the harvest is more than the net can hold, or the ships.


In the meantime, look, and count the cost of doing it our way.