Crossway Baptist Church Inc: impact review
Care: At least some of the information about this charity is no longer current. Use the ‘Search charity names’ box to see if there is a later review. If the latest review has a message like this, you are welcome to make your case for an updated review via email to ted@businessbythebook.com.au.
This is a review for donors of the charity Crossway Baptist Church Inc (Crossway). It uses the information they have put on the charity regulator’s website (the ACNC Register) and the information on their own website. (We also sent them a draft of this review – see their response below.)
A charity’s activities should be chosen to advance the mission. This is Crossway’s mission:
The Crossway Register entry gives this under ‘Summary of activities’:
Crossway does not explain its thinking about the links between the services and programs it has chosen and what it is trying to achieve (a ‘theory of change’).
As Christians, we are required to be good stewards of the resources God has provided us (e.g. 1 Corinthians 4:2)[1]. To do this, we need to have discernment (e.g., Proverbs 1:5[2]). Therefore, unless we are giving just to make ourselves feel better, we should have an interest in seeing that the money we are giving is likely to be used both properly and effectively.
Everything that Crossway is doing may be being done ‘properly’[3], but unless the money is producing the change in people that Crossway intends, that is, an impact[4], the money would be better used elsewhere. And the same applies if the impact is less than is being achieved by another charity.
Impact
Crossway reports the result of pursuing its mission in its Annual Report. These results are not allocated to either ‘loving God’, ‘loving people’, or ‘disciples that multiply’, and many of them are outputs or outcomes, not changes in people (that is, impacts).
In the Annual Report 2019, the Senior Pastor divides the impacts into primary and secondary:
There were 481 ‘First Time Commitments’ and 207 ‘Baptisms’.
- These figures include those for Praxeis (46 and 23 respectively). Although included by Crossway as one of its ‘ministries’, it is a separate charity that is not in the Crossway ACNC Group, Praxeis.
- Resources consumed by Crossway [Financial Report 2019] totalled $11.45 million, including $6.32 million on an undisclosed[5] number of employees (100 full-time equivalent last year).
You can read the other results in the Annual Report.
Crossway’s response
Crossway did not respond to a draft of this review.
- And holds us accountable for their use (Luke 16:1-9). ↑
- See also Proverbs 14:15 and Prov 19:2. ↑
- The behaviour of its people, its use of money, and how it goes about its business. Here is our latest review that addresses some important things in this area. ↑
- The ACNC has previously – the Fact Sheet is no longer on the site – explained impact this way:“Every charity has a mission that is associated with producing a public benefit. As this mission is pursued, the changes produced in individuals and their communities can be referred to as the charity’s ‘impact.’ If you are donating to a charity, you may wish to make sure that your donation is creating the greatest impact possible.’There is no reason why this wouldn’t still be their view. ↑
- Crossway’s Annual Information Statement (AIS) 2019 (that is the AIS for the Group) is mostly absent the information it should have. ↑