By and large, religious giving is only (relatively) larger when you include the entirety of religious giving, which can include everything from soup kitchens to "erecting the world's biggest cross, because the next town has the world's now second biggest cross" to helicopters for your pastors to ferry between churches "because traffic".

"Elevation Church does post some financial records on its website, reporting that the church took in $33.5 million in offerings last year and gave away about $3.8 million in outreach, spent $9 million on personnel and reported $13.9 million in cash assets."

(this after their pastor purchased a 'not that great' 16,000 sq ft home on 19 acres, and said that would be 'against Christ's teachings' to disclose what he was paid).

A study by ECCU (http://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu.o...) stated that churches use 3 percent of their budget for children’s and youth programs, and 2 percent for adult programs. Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget.