Churchgoers are donating an increasingly smaller share of their incomes. The percentage of income Protestants give fell from 3.1 in 1968 to 2.5 in 1998, according to Empty Tomb (see link #1 below), a research group in Champaign, Ill. That means church members gave $4 billion less in 1998 than they would have if they were giving at the same rate they did in 1968. Total annual contributions rose by an average of $202 to $570 per church member, after inflation was taken into account, because incomes also rose. …Most of the money is being spent on salaries, in-church programs, and building-maintenance rather than on outreach efforts such as missions and services for the poor. Donations for external church activities dropped to a 30-year low as a percentage of income, falling below .4 percent, according to the study. Gifts to support local congregations represented 2.2 percent of church members’ income in 1998. …The report said that if U.S. church members had tithed, or given 10 percent of after-tax income in 1998, churches would have had an additional $131 billion to help the poor. About 30,000 children die each day, many from problems that would cost relatively little to fix, the authors of the report said. The study, “The State of Church Giving Through 1998,” tracked 30 mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations.