Your general admission ticket, which admits you to all of your church’s activities for the week, costs $30 per person. This price seems to hold true for large churches, small churches, and medium churches. Your weekly pass is only for general admission, and does not include special costs, such as building programs and missions.

Each family, however, does not pay full price. It turns out—studies show over and over—that 20% pay for 80% of the costs. This means the top 20% regular givers in a church pay about $130 per ticket.  Ouch. The others pay about $10 per ticket.

So the regular givers pay a $100 premium so the others can pay $10. These facts might be troubling to premium givers. The issue is not whether the ticket price is fair—it is not. The issue is whether or not, on balance, the price of admission is worth it. It may be; but maybe not. Could that premium be placed in another venue, giving the giver more value?

What do you think?