I picked up a book last year that changed my whole paradigm on life. The scandalous title of The Hole in Our Gospel invited me to peek inside. Once I saw it was written by the President of World Vision, Richard Stearns, my hands were tied – I had to read it. As a Christian, the Hole in our Gospel was fairly sobering but also fairly sickening. Of all the suffering described by a man who left the corporate board room of Milton Bradley to become World Vision’s President, one particular idea put forth continued to prick my conscience after I put the book down. Deemed the “Two percent of two percent” norm, Stearns describes how the average giving of American church members is just 2.58% of their income. On top of this, American churches as a whole, send only 2% of this 2.58% to overseas missions. Thus, those outside of America are only getting 2% of 2% or five ten-thousandths of our income! And oh by the way, American churchgoers’ income was $5.2 trillion in 2005.
Now, of course these numbers do not tell the whole story. Millions of dollars are not given to the church for this very reason. Some would prefer to just give to an NGO that specializes in the given cause. The term “church” is obviously ambiguous by default as many would argue whether or not certain Christian oriented sects or denominations belong. However, the spirit of what Stearns is getting at should not be explained away. If Christians were truly tithing and churches were spending less money on, what are sometimes, unnecessary building funds, the world may indeed be a better place.
