revolution of my mind

I am reading K. P. Yohannan's Revolution in World Missions right now. I was dusting some of Mom and Dad's old bookshelves and found it lurking.

I am shaken. Chapter 4 "I Walked in a Daze" speaks about his first impressions of the United States. And I am convicted.

Here are some of the passages:

"Those of us who grow up in Europe and Asia hear stories about the affluence and prosperity of America, but until you see it with with your own eyes, the stories seem like fairy tales. Americans are more than just unaware of their affluence--they almost seem to despise it at times...

A friend in Dallas recently pointed out a new church building costing $74 million.  While this thought was still exploding in my mind, he pointed out another $7 million church building going up less than a minute away. These extravagant buildings are insanity from a Third World perspective. The $74 million spent on one new building here could build nearly fifteen thousand average-sized churches in India. The same $74 million would have been enough to guarantee the evangelization of a whole state--or even some of the smaller countries of Asia...

If the affluence of America has impressed me, the affluence of Christians  impressed me even more. The United States has about 5,000 Christian book and gift stores, carrying varieties of products beyond my ability to imagine--and many secular stores also carry religious books. All this while more than 4,000 of the world's nearly 6,500 languages are still without a single portion of the Bible published in their own language! In his book My Billion Bible Dream, Rochunga Pudaite says, 'Eighty-five percent of all the Bible printed today are for the nine percent of the world who read English. Eighty percent of the world's people have never owned a Bible while Americans have an average of four in every household'...

The saddest observation I can make about most of the religious communication activity of the Western world is this: Little, if any, of this media is designed to reach unbelievers. Almost all is entertainment for the saints."

So my mind goes there. Yes, THERE.

I am a spender, a shopper, a collector. And have been for years. I love beautiful clothing and beautiful things.
I love concerts and shows, movies and books.
I also love God more.

So...
How do I spend my money, my hard-earned salary?
And do my spending habits make my God happy with my priorities?
Do I support evangelistic missions and national Christian workers with my finances in proportion to how much it is in my heart and prayers?
I determine to do better.
I must do better.