"By 1998 six of the seven largest parachurch mission agencies were World Vision (founded 1950, annual revenues $304 million), Larry Jones International Ministries/Feed the Children (1964, $128 million),MAP International (1954, $85 million), Compassion International (1952, $69 million), Food for the Hungry (1971, $53 million) and Christian Aid Ministries (1981, $43 million). All have been founded since 1945 and all make relief, development, education and health care their primary focus, with evangelism a secondary concern." - Michael S. Hamilton, "More Money, More Ministry: The Financing of American Evangelicalism Since 1945," pg. 118."The budget of just one organization dedicated to evangelism - Campus Crusade for Christ ($241 million) - is itself larger than all spending by all evangelical political group, right and left. Evangelicals spend more on summer camps than on politics, more on urban rescue missions than on politics, and more on youth programs than on politics. When we factor in the amounts that evangelicals give to their churches - probably somewhere between $14 billion and $20 billion - there is no doubt that evangelicals devote less than 1 percent of their religious spending to public affairs matters. If we follow the money, it clearly does not lead to politics." - ibid, pgs. 130-131.
these figures are from 1998, but they are still startling. to me anyway.
1 comment:
I will not attempt to speak for the other organizations but as a long-time employee of Compassion International, I can tell you that we take evangelism and discipleship seriously and celebrate that children from around the world are being brought into the Kingdom. We do try to track first-time professions of faith and that is a number that we are pleased to announce periodically. While education and health care are certainly important to Compassion, we desire to be holistic (with spiritual matters being a key part of this holism). It is our desire that children will leave our program and become fulfilled Christian adults.
Compassion has grown dramatically in the approximately 10 years since the numbers below were produced. We are now a $360+ million a year organization partnering with over 4500 church partners around the world. We view the church as the hope of the world.
Dan Trumble
dtrumble@us.ci.org
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