Resources, Conversions, and Priorities…

Here is the average church budget according to Lifeway (HT: Alan).

49% – Staff Personnel
9% – All Other
5% – Missions Evangelism
7% – Computers, Office Supplies, Literature
9% – Denominational Contributions
9% – Utilities
13% – Buildings, Rent, Mortgage, Capital Funds, Projects

To simplify this, I will group, “Computers…,” “Utilities,” and “Buildlings…” into one group called “Structure Costs.”

49% – Staff Personnel
29% – Structure Costs
9% – All Other
5% – Missions Evangelism
9% – Denominational Contributions

I am going to be VERY generous and say that 100% of the “All Other,” “Missions Evangelism,” and “Denominational Contributions” are used directly towards some sort of discipleship/evangelism/missions/etc. project, which we will label as “Good Works.” Thus making our statistics look like:

49% – Staff Personnel
29% – Structure Costs
23% – Good Works

So, on average, 23% of any money you drop in the offering plate MIGHT be used for some sort of “good work.” And we probably can all agree the 9% sent as “Denominational contributions” is probably cut in half by administration costs, and I have no idea what “All Other” means. To be safe we can say that of the money you give, only about 5%-23% is used for some sort of mission outreach program.

(Here is some more information about where your money goes CP, IMB)

In Masters Plan of Making Disciples, Arn takes a poll of how people “came to their new relationship with Christ and their church.” This is what the poll looks liked: (NOTE: I do not always trust statistics, but I have a feeling these are fairly accurate)

I wonder, if 75-90% of all conversions happen because of a friend/relative, why do we spend most of our resources on building buildings, instead of building relationships?

Think about it.