Cost per Baptism

From Guy Muse's Blog

However, I was COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY this past week after reading James Rutz's, Megashifts. On page 117 he quotes Barrett and Johnson from their World Christian Trends. Their own calculation for the cost of each U.S. institutional church baptism is...

$1,551,466!!!

Can you believe it?

Could this be the difference between seeking to work solely in the power of the Spirit, and instead relying on the power of money for Kingdom work? I know we must be careful to judge and criticize. One cannot compare "apples with oranges" but surely the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us something if we would but listen!

Of course, this is what Rutz's Megashifts is trying to point out about the global grassroots megashift where:

"...traditional, top-down [church] systems are turning into gigantic, bottom-up co-ops...The revolution now upon us is a complete paradigm shift...It is going to be a lot bigger than the reformation...It is, at last, the reformation of Structure--not just flattening the pyramid a little, but turning it upside-down so that the true leaders are the servants, lifting up and equipping those they serve..."