Story number 2 for 1 Aug 2002

(India)–Next, some upsetting numbers are coming out of a research group showing a breakdown in how the Western church looks at missions. According to the report, Christians spent nearly 97-cents of every dollar on themselves, and nearly three-cents on already evangelized countries. Mission India’s John Devries. “It leaves three-tenths of one penny out of every dollar we spend that is being used to reach the one-point-six-billion people on earth who’ve heard about Coca Cola, but have never heard about Christ. It’s really an incredible, startling statistic.” DeVries says the crying need for the hope of Christ requires a response from the church body. “India is open to the Gospel. Many of these one-point-six billion are in totally closed countries; they’re very difficult to reach. But that’s not so for India today. The church there desperately needs the help of churches that are wealthy in resources; the Gospel is just going wild.”