“While the third of the world that are reached, the Christians, receive 97% of the resources, the third of the word that’s ‘least reached’, receive less than 1%. This is a great injustice.”

So says Mike Frost in the second of these videos (see below) from Global Interaction. But, what should our response be?

On a Facebook discussion the initial reaction to the statement seemed to be, “Yes, but it’s not that simple”, followed by a slightly heated tangential conversation about how do you determine whether money is being spent by the wealthy western church on itself, or whether it’s giving it away sacrificially.

I acknowledge that there is a slightly messy patch in the middle about where the money goes and what it’s used for. Money that goes to the church probably pays upkeep for a building, which may be used for worship services, but may also be used for community services which could also be seen as mission.

But, I think this discussion is a good way for us to give our excuses and to avoid making tough decisions. The west is wealthy enough to worry about having buildings in which to put on events… others don’t even have clean water… how much do we care?

One commentator suggested that 95% of the church’s budget should be given away and that the community should learn to live on the 5% that’s left over. Could we? What would church look like if that were the case in reality? Or what about 50/50. Could we at least do that?