First you hear them coming: the squeak of rubber on linoleum, the squawk of excited voices in the hallway. Then comes the chaos of 40 elementary-school kids-yellow polo shirts and khaki pants in various states of disarray at this late hour-swarming the cafeteria. It's 6:30 p.m. and STEPdc's evening tutoring is about to begin. Children munch pizza and salad but keep an anxious eye to the door. "There's Miss Melissa!" A little girl's face bursts into a smile. Tutors in sartorial styles ranging from laborer to lawyerly file in, some with their ID badges dangling.

Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, responded, "Because that is where the money is." Fundraisers for Christian ministries have learned that successful Christian businesspeople represent one of the easiest ways to raise significant sums for their cause, because that is where the biggest gifts are. It is not that Christian businesspeople are more generous than other Christians; they just have a greater capacity to give.

Americans have a long history of responding generously to tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti. Christians, in particular, are often among the first to get into action by offering their time, talents, and treasure to relief efforts.

But can donors respond too quickly? The desire to assist those in desperate need is admirable, but in their haste, donors may not always act in the best long-term interests of the afflicted. Or they may react too hurriedly to slick advertising from professional fundraisers, thereby producing less effective gifts.

Rick Warren's "urgent" post-Christmas plea to Saddleback Church members for $900,000 in donations to cover a budget shortfall shocked observers around the country. Not surprisingly, critics of Warren and his ministry were quick to speculate on nefarious reasons for the surprising and pressing need for such a large sum of money at one of the nation's most successful churches (see below). The real reason for the shortfall, however, appears to be shared among Christian ministries across the nation, if not the world-the lengthy and deep economic downturn.

The number of megachurches-churches with more than 2,000 in regular weekly attendance-has increased 100-fold since the 1970s, from less than 20 to almost 2,000 today.

For Mark Holbrook, an evangelical Christian who graduated from Biola University in the early 1970s, this growth was a great ministry-and a great business-opportunity. So he joined the staff of a small California credit union, and by 1979 he was president. Today, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union (ECCU) is a financial powerhouse.

Joel Osteen is fond of telling reporters that he hasn't accepted a salary from the church he pastors-Houston's mammoth Lakewood Church-since 2005. When Pastor Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life made bestseller lists, he said on Larry King Live that he had reimbursed his church for all the salary he had ever taken from Saddleback Church, and that he and his wife Kay were "reverse tithing": keeping 10 percent of their income and giving away 90 percent.

Franklin Graham has long had a reputation for being larger than life and going his own way. His 1997 memoir, Rebel With a Cause, chronicled his prodigal period and his return to God. Eventually, he made it to the top spots at both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and Samaritan's Purse (SP), a Christian relief organization ministering to the needy around the world.