DALLAS - The weak U.S. dollar is having an impact on all sorts of American activities — including the work of the country’s overseas Christian missionaries.

The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination with about 16 million members by some counts, says it has not yet been forced to reduce the number of missionaries it is sending outside of the country. But it is still feeling the pinch of the softer dollar.

David A. Steverson, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer of the SBC’s International Mission Board, offered this concrete example of how it is being affected by the greenback’s sagging fortunes.

“We have a line item called the Field Parity Supplement that is designed so that all of our personnel have the same buying power around the world,” he told me.

“It is similar to a cost of living allowance - those that live in more expensive places get somewhat more and those that live in less expensive places get less - bottom line they should all be able to buy the same amount of goods and services,” he said.

He said because of the dollar’s woes the Mission Board had to spend about $2 million more on that item in 2007 that it had initially budgeted for, bringing the total to around $19 million.

Of course more costs for one thing means less money can be spent elsewhere.

“We have not cut back on sending people but we are cutting work budgets somewhat … fewer bibles and copy machines are being bought in the field because the dollar is not going as far,” Steverson said.

The SBC sent about 850 missionaries overseas last year and is planning on sending anywhere between that number and 1,000 in 2008.