It Costs to Reach Your Community, and It’s Worth It

There are tens of thousands of churches in America that haven’t baptized anyone in at least a year. Even though The Great Commission and The Great Commandments are core to who we are as the church, we’re struggling to engage our culture with the Gospel.

One of the reasons so few churches effectively engage in outreach is because they ask the wrong question. Too often, the first question asked is, “How much will it cost?”

The right question is, “Who will it reach?”

How much is a soul worth? If you spend $500 on a social media ad that reaches one unbeliever for Christ, is it worth it?

If your church gets serious about developing a comprehensive evangelism strategy, it will cost money! With this in mind, let me share some insights about financing your strategy, based upon my experience as Saddleback has grown over the years.

First, money spent on evangelism is never an “expense,” it’s always an investment.

The people you reach will more than repay the cost you invested to reach them. Before we held the first service at Saddleback Church, the people in our small home Bible study went about $6,500 in debt preparing for that service. Where did we get the money? We used our personal credit cards! We believed the offerings of the people we reached for Christ would eventually enable everyone to be paid back.

One of the “miracles” of our dress rehearsal service was that a man who had not attended our home Bible study came to that first service gave a check for a thousand dollars when we took the offering. After it was over, the woman in charge of counting the offering came up and showed me the check. I said, “This is going to work!”

Sure enough, we paid everyone back within four months. Please note: I’m not advocating that your church use credit cards to finance it. I’m just trying to illustrate how willing we were to pay the cost of reaching people for Christ.

Often when finances get tight in a church the first thing cut is the evangelism and advertising budget. That is the last thing you should cut. It is the source of new health and life for your church.

Second, people give to vision, not to need.

If “need” motivated people to give, every church would have plenty of money. It is not the neediest institutions that attract contributions but those with the greatest vision.

Churches that are making the most of what they have attract more gifts. That’s why Jesus said, “It is always true that those who have, get more, and those who have little, soon lose even that” (Luke 19:26 TLB).

If your church is constantly short on cash, check out your vision. Is it clear? Is it being communicated effectively? Money flows to God-given, Holy Spirit inspired ideas. Churches with money problems usually have a vision problem.

Third, when you spend nickels and dimes on evangelism, you get nickel and dime results.

Do you remember the story about the time Jesus told Peter to go find money in a fish’s mouth in order to pay the Roman taxes? In Matthew 17:27 Jesus told Peter “go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin” (NIV).

I believe there is an important lesson in that story: The coins are always in the mouth of the fish! If you’ll focus on fishing (evangelism), God will pay your bills. That doesn’t mean we reach people so that they will give. We reach people because Jesus loves them and wants to save them. But one of the supernatural fruits of discipleship is generosity toward the cause of reaching others.

Fourth, remember that “God’s work done God’s way will not lack God’s support.”

This was the famous motto of the great missionary strategist, Hudson Taylor. And I think it’s a timeless truth.