Numbers speak for themselves

Sometimes numbers are just too huge to comprehend. And so easy to read quickly and not really digest. But here's a few that speak for themselves --- digest away (statistics from Richard Stearnes - "The Hole in Our Gospel"):

Average giving of American church goers (the Christians.... you know.... the ones given the mandate to "go unto all nations" and "feed my sheep" and "take care of the widows and orphans":

• In 2005, only 5% of American Christians tithed - an average of 2.58% of their income.

• In 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, Christians gave an average of 3.3%

• Of that tithe going into the American church - 98% goes back into those churches and communities, with only 2% going out into the world to fulfill Christ's commandments.
  

So 2% of 2% of American Christian's income
goes to the world's poor, widows, and orphans.

That's about 6 cents per day from you and I.

BUT - we NEED that money right?? It's a recession and we all are on hard times ---

IF your family makes more than $25,000 a year. You are wealthier than 90% of the world's population.

For the next big numbers, just a reminder - a billion is this big: 1,000,000,000.

Amount Americans spend on entertainment and recreation -
$705,000,000,000

Amount American teenagers spend, ages 12-17 -
$179,000,000,000

Amount Americans spend on their pets -
$31,000,000,000

TOTAL US-government foreign assistance budget -
$39.5 billion

TOTAL amount spent on all overseas ministries - $5 billion.

More numbers -
Cost to eliminate the most extreme poverty - $168 billion
Cost to bring universal primary education for children - $6 billion
Cost to bring clean water to most of the world's poor - $9 billion
Cost to bring basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world - $13 billion

Number of orphans worldwide today - 165 million.
Number of children (2006) waiting in US foster care to be adopted - 126,967
Number of children (2006) adopted domestically - 50,379
Number of children (2009) adopted internationally - 12,782

"To better understand the spiritual priorities of our churches
- and ourselves -

we have to do what any detective would do: "follow the money"
- Richard Stearnes "Hole in our Gospel"