Only a small percentage of money collected in churches actually goes to outreach, evangelism, missions, or benevolence activities outside the church membership itself.  That is what the Empty Tomb, Inc. (Champaign, Illinois) found out in their sixteenth annual survey of church giving.They say that Christianity in the United States is quickly heading toward the place where it will spend all of its income solely on itself.  If current trends continue, they predict 100% of church offerings will be used for maintaining the organization of the church.  All funds would be directed to keep current programs and activities for itself.

I would differ on terminology.  I believe that phenomena is happening in churchianity, not Christianity.  I would define churchianity as those collections of people trying to keep doing things like they always have done them to be like all the other churches they know. Things are done for no other purpose than because that is what they feel churches have always done.

The real church takes its cues, instead, from God’s Word, the Bible.  They know that the mission of the church is not simply to keep the doors of a church open.  If the only purpose of a church is to keep a church building open on Sundays, they should consider giving it to someone who has a more God honoring purpose.

The Empty Tomb, Inc. study found that while U.S. incomes have increased 116% in the last forty year, giving to churches has increased only 78%.  Church goers are not only becoming less generous.  The percentage of income given by the average person who claims to be a Christian is now below the level given in the 1930’s during the height of the Great Depression! People had little then.  But God and His church remained a priority.

Most know that giving a tithe, 10% of income, has been a standard for millennia. Giving more than a tithe showed generosity in the New Testament times. But during the Old Testament, it was standard to give more than 20% of one’s income to help the poor while still maintaining worship.

Today, the average U.S. church member gives only 2 1/2%! Close to a quarter of all church members give nothing at all. Instead, we, as a country, spend on entertainment more than four times what we give to God through churches.

I am thankful our church and our many sister churches work to buck that trend.  Our goal as a church is to give more to others than we keep for ourselves by 2015.  More specifically our goal is for outreach, non-member benevolence, and missions to be more than 50% of our budget.

Toward that end we yearly try to increase our gifts in several areas to help people in our town, our state, our country and in other lands.  We want them to know the love of God and also to have basic life-sustaining support.

I love the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions that Southern Baptist Churches collect at this time of the year.  It is named after Lottie Moon, a single missionary to China in the nineteenth century.  Chinese were dying during a famine.  To keep Chinese alive, she gave away her own food eventually dying herself.  Her sacrifice is remembered by the once a year offering that Lottie suggested.  100% of every dollar raised goes directly to international missions and missionaries.  Not a penny stays home for anything.  Even the cost of taking the offering is already covered by regular giving of Southern Baptists.

If you have a moment, please pray that God might keep churches from joining the “churchianity” trend and caring just for themselves.  And if God has blessed you financially this year and you want the best bang for your buck, find a church that supports the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  Or you can give to it directly through the web site below.  You could not give a better gift or one that is better used.

Dr. John M. Gauger, pastor of First Baptist Church, Perryville, Maryland
If you would like more information on this offering, go to: http://www.imb.org, then look for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.