Dr Sas Conradie, co-ordinator of the Resource Mobilization Working Group, says research provided by Todd Johnson in the Atlas of Global Christianity concluded that 82.4% of Christian giving in 2010 was spent on pastoral care, 12% on home mission and 5.6% on foreign mission.

Christians in 2010 gave 96.8% of their giving to ministry in the Christian majority world, 2.9% to ministry in the evangelised non-Christian world and 0.3% of their income to ministry to unevangelised non-Christians. Thirty-five billion dollars of Christian giving is annually embezzled - more than the total of $32 billion the global Church (all Christians included - not only evangelical Christians) spends on foreign mission.

Dr Conradie says there are tremendous opportunities for Christian generosity and stewardship, but he identified 11 challenges that discourage Christian giving.

To help turn this around, the working group is developing a global strategy to encourage increased generosity and improved stewardship. It believes the outcomes could facilitate increased giving by evangelical Christians to Christian causes from the present $80 billion a year to $120 billion, or 3% of their income a year by 2016, with giving focused on global mission. That means an increase of $40 billion a year more for Christian causes.

Glyn Carpenter said, ‘some of the figures from the working group seem a little confusing, so I have contacted the authors for clarification.'

More on the strategy can be read here.

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