So, Jesse Duplantis thinks that a $54,000,000 donation toward his private jet would be a good investment in missions.

Use this Excel worksheet to plug in your own figures and see if he’s right.

He reasoned that “if Jesus was physically on the earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey.” The private jet is his missions strategy. “All it’s gonna do is it’s going to touch people, it’s going to reach people, it’s going to change lives one soul at a time.”

(This is just one of many reasons he can’t–or, more accurately, won’t–submit to ECFA standards of responsible stewardship.)

As a former project manager, my industrial engineering mind immediately questioned this reasoning. $54,000,000 to send one person out to “change lives, one soul at a time” versus sending… how many missionaries?

Is it a wise use of funds to sink $54,000,000 into a piece of equipment that will depreciate in value? What if we invested that money into a fund that will grow?

How many missionaries might we fund for ten years if we established an endowment?

How many missionaries could we fund in perpetuity from this endowment?

This simple Excel worksheet allows you to adjust these figures:

• Initial Investment
• Annual Rate of Return
• Number of Missionaries
• Missionary Annual Salary

See the effect of your investment over 10 years.

How would you invest $54,000,000?