Comments on: What Does $347k Per Baptism Mean?

By: paul

paul — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:03:39 +0000

So……….are you saying that God isn’t working enough on his responsibility to bring me unto salvation. We preach the true gospel message every week. Baptisms is not a measure of our faithfulness to money, but to God…Grow UP!!

By: Yonas

Yonas — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:46:33 +0000

I should probably tell this to those people from my past who gave me TREMENDOUS grief of being baptized by sprinkling (we’re talking mental manipulation, ‘you’re not our friend unless you’ve been dunked’ kinda manipulation…Dunked? what am I, a donut?)

Guess how much money we were saving in using less water.

Yes, I’m a Christian- with lots of issues with some other Christians and their illogical and self righteous ways…other than that I’m not as snippy…really!

By: Dave Stewart

Dave Stewart — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:20:54 +0000

The figure of $374k per baptism…

North America is a heavily evangelized region of the world. Evangelization of other parts of the world is quite cost effective, not only in general living expenses of those doing ministry there, but also the fields white with harvest. In fact, if you were to factor in international baptisms which were a direct result of missionary effort from North America (a much harder figure to compute, by the way) it might come out to be far less.

I think I’ll write a check to a missionary…

By: Bekah

Bekah — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:11:49 +0000

I work as a bookkeeper for a mid-sized church. We work really hard to be as efficient with our resources as we can. I read this and can’t help but wonder if it is the church leadership that isn’t being efficient and using their resources wisely, or if it is the people of the church that are not sharing the love of God. I also work with the youth in our church, and we can plan an event geared for them to bring their friends and do all the “right things” as a leadership team, but if the students in our youth group don’t tell their friends about it and bring them, the event doesn’t work. My point is, I read this and my first thought was not that we need to become better stewards with our money (all though this is still needed), but that we need to start telling more people about Jesus.

By: What Does $347k Per Baptism Mean? « Claridon Christian Fellowship

What Does $347k Per Baptism Mean? « Claridon Christian Fellowship — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:33:43 +0000

[...] May 14, 2009 by zoelavie What Does $347k Per Baptism Mean? « man.of.depravity [...]

By: zoelavie

zoelavie — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:26:36 +0000

Makes me think that we (American Christianity) are doing something wrong. It feels like when Jesus talked about the Pharisees traveling all over the world just to make one convert. Perhaps our money could be better spent on mission to third world countries…
I agree that there is a lot of lumping together in this number but it also means that there are some that are way over $347K per baptism. It seems like we have missed the mark.

By: Yonas

Yonas — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:19:47 +0000

Just do like John The Bap did. Down by the river.

By: Mike Mahoney

Mike Mahoney — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:03:23 +0000

BTW, Northpoint is a “big” church, not a “bug” church!!

By: Mike Mahoney

Mike Mahoney — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:35:59 +0000

I think you can’t make a blanket statement like that, as all churches aren’t alike. Apples and oranges. There are churches that pay their senior pastor more than my church’s entire budget is.

It would be an interesting exercise, though, to break these numbers down by demographic. To be fair, let’s not go by attendance, but by annual budget. Put them in catagories: Less than $100k, 100k-250k, 250k-500k, 500k-1M, 1M+. How about a bug church like Northpoint (and I’m not picking on them, it’s just an example, and their financials are on their website) with a 35M budget. (that boggles the mind, BTW)

I’ll bet you’ll find that economies of scale work in reverse. If a 100k church baptizes just one person a month, then Northpoint would have to baptize 350 per month to be “as efficient.” Now, it would be cool if they baptize 4200 people a year! I don’t know if they do or not.

I would imagine smaller churches are more fiscally efficient because they have to be. They have to “make do” with a sub-par sound system, no stage lights, a free website, volunteer staff and locking up the copy paper. They have to really look at what they can do, and look at what gives them the most “bang for the buck” so to speak.

Does that make them better stewards? Whose to say? But a smaller church also spends a larger percentage of its budget on non-ministry items as well, probably. Equipment, utilities, insurance, etc…

It’s easy to just throw a number out there.

*I’m going to post this comment on the original article as well, and see if I get a response.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:55:43 +0000

$347K is a 2000 square foot house on a 7000 square foot lot in a nice neighborhood, with all closing costs and fees.

$347K is 17,500 pizzas, or roughly, 1 pizza per day for the next 48 years.

$347K is the salaries for 7 full-time employees, before benefits, at $50K/year, each.

$347K is more than you will spend on buying automobiles your entire life (especially if you are a bicycle rider).

$347K is enough money to send 2 people through OHSU’s certified nurse/midwife program, with left over money for graduation presents.