This is the amount of money the US Church has raised and spent over the last 20 years! In Barna Groups State of the Church: 2005, George Barna reveals that Protestant and Catholic churches in the United States only have spent, spent, spent, spent, spent! Yet despite all of this investment in bigger buildings and increased facilities, the use of flashy multimedia, and pimped-out bands, “…there has been no measurable increase in one of the expressed purposes of the church: to lead people to Christ and have them commit their lives to Him.”
Brother Maynard at the Subversive Influence blog has some great commentary on this astounding figure here and here. He makes a great case for all of the possible uses for this money. The-next-wave blog has additional commentary on the report in general, but makes some great points regarding how utterly horrendous of a job (not to mention unproductive and unprofitable) the US church has done with reaching the American society, given the amount of money spent trying to “win people to Christ” (of course this is a bit reductionist, because there are plenty of other factors that have influenced the lack of cultural and personal transformation…). A great quote from the-next-wave:
Some churches have remained largely unchanged while others have changed the ambiance, the music, the lighting, added video screens, pastors, elders, and websites. Others have embraced bigger buildings with different architectural features. Some have turned to new delivery systems, serving up their products via seminars, books cd’s, dvd’s, live television and training by subscription satellite broadcasts. According to Barna, no matter what the Christian retail outlets have done to attract customers and change them by virtue of how or what they consume, there appears to be no measurable transformational effect on their behavior, after dining in these establishments over a period of time. It’s expensive to run a business like this, particularly when what one is serving up has eternal consequences. If the “church” in the U.S. was a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ or NYSE, there would be a shareholder revolt, SEC and Congressional investigations the likes of which would dwarf the outrage we witnessed over Enron. We would be toast.
It is interesting to see the state of the church, especially from the monetary angle. Have we been reckless with the money the US church has been entrusted? Has it been horrendously appropriated? Should churches, particularly mega-purpose driven-church growth churches, change it’s spending habits? Are churches spending money on the right things? How should churches be spending money? Some interesting and important questions as the church is emerging through terra nova into novus lumen…
be His,
-jeremy
