Americans in the '80s, the last years of the cable-television evangelists, were prompted to give to the six primary cable televangelists nearly $700 million. Besides financing the show-biz evangelists' television and promotional costs, the money didn't support very much else. Supported by this $700 million were four schools, one hospital, three churches, a couple of ministries for needy children, one home for the poor--and six television shows.

The denomination I serve, and there are many like this one, also received that year about $700 million. With that same amount of money, local churches sponsored some 3,700 foreign missionaries, 3,600 home missionaries, about 1,000 state missions, 67 colleges, 6 seminaries, and 23 hospitals. The list goes on and on. Perhaps the world is hungry to see again not people who take our money and entertain us but people who say, "For this money I spend, there's this much need and this much work, and this much touching that needs to be done."