The Christian Standard Church Report for 2024: Continued Growth (Part 2)

Kent E. Fillinger

The Church on Missions 

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21, New International Version). After working more than eight years for a global mission organization in fundraising and development, I know firsthand how the affections of church’s hearts change when it comes to mission projects—and how the dollars invested shift accordingly. 

In my November/December 2017 Metrics article I shared some statistics on churches’ involvement in global missions. Our annual church survey this year asked many of the same questions to gauge what changes have occurred since then. 

Mission Projects 

We asked churches to identify which types of global mission projects their church financially supported and gave them 21 options to choose from ranging from Bible translation to clean water and sanitation. 

Evangelism remained the top priority and focus for churches of all sizes with 82 percent of churches giving to such projects. Discipleship initiatives increased from 55 percent in 2017 to 61.9 percent this year and held a slight edge over church planting, which dropped from a first-place tie with evangelism in 2017 to third place overall this year (61.5 percent).  

Disaster response projects surged into fourth place overall with over half of the churches (55 percent) contributing to such projects globally. And theological training for nationals remained in fifth place with 53 percent of churches supporting these efforts.  

Child sponsorship previously was the third most funded project, but it dropped to seventh place. Listed below is a breakdown of the top five global mission projects for each size category of churches with the percentage of churches supporting these efforts listed.  

Mission Partnerships 

The churches financial partnerships were broken into these categories: 

• global-missions organizations or strategic projects 
• international missionaries 
• local or U.S.-focused ministries 

These churches, on average, supported 21 total mission partners, which was an increase from 19 in 2017, broken down as follows: eight global-missions organizations or strategic projects, six international missionaries, and seven local or U.S.-focused ministries.  

Megachurches supported an average of 31 missions agencies or projects; emerging megachurches, 28; large churches, 21, medium churches, 20; small churches, 14; and very small churches, 10. 

Mission Emphasis 

In 2017, 79 percent of the churches surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed that global missions is a critical part of their ministry and a part of their D.N.A. That percentage dropped to 71 percent in 2024. Interestingly, the larger the church the more likely global missions is a top priority. Eighty-one percent of megachurches either agreed or strongly agreed that global missions is a critical part of their overall ministry while only 60 percent of very small churches said the same. The priority of global missions successively decreased with each church size category.  

Less than half of the churches overall (42 percent) either agreed or strongly agreed that they plan to increase their emphasis on global missions this year. Emerging megachurches were the most likely to report a desire to increase their emphasis on global missions with 59 percent of these churches either agreeing or strongly agreeing. Small churches were the least likely to increase their global missions focus with less than a third (32 percent) agreeing or strongly agreeing. 

Forty-two percent of the churches said they agreed or strongly agreed that they want to expand or revamp their global missions ministry, which was down from 55 percent in 2017. Small churches were the most likely to agree or strongly agree they wanted to expand or revamp their global missions and medium churches were the least likely (46 percent and 38 percent respectively). 

Missions Giving 

The average church invested 15.3 percent of last year’s total budget in ministry beyond the walls of the church (i.e., from local community service to global missions), which was a slight increase from 14.7 percent in 2023. Very small churches gave the most to missions (17 percent) among those surveyed, while large churches gave the least (13 percent). 

The increase in giving corresponds with 61 percent of the surveyed churches that said they increased their giving to missions in the last fiscal year. A little over one-third (35 percent) of churches said their outreach giving remained the same and four percent decreased the amount given to missions. 

Missions Leadership 

John Maxwell said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” This adage holds true when it comes to churches and missions. Our survey this year asked churches to identify who was responsible for leading their missions ministry. Overall, the most common form of leadership was a missions team or committee followed by a volunteer leader. The responses for each church size category varies and the chart below shows the person or group most likely to lead the missions ministry at our churches today. 

Leaders can also help to recruit and mobilize others to serve. Much has been made in the last few years about the shrinking pipeline for preachers and ministers, but I’ve not heard much about what I’m assuming is a declining pool of international missionaries. Our survey asked churches to agree or disagree with the following statement: “Our church is trying to develop and send our members as missionaries.” If our churches aren’t raising the next generation of missionaries, then where else are they going to come from? 

Overall, 38 percent of the churches surveyed said they agreed or strongly agreed that they were working to develop and send new missionaries. Forty-two percent neither agreed or disagreed and 20 percent said they disagreed or strongly disagreed that they were trying to mobilize missionaries. Megachurches and emerging megachurches led the way with just over half of these churches (53 percent for both) agreeing or strongly agreeing they were trying to develop and send missionaries. Large and very small churches were the least likely to agree with just one-fourth (25 percent) of each making such an effort.  

Church Finances 

In the July/August issue, I’ll examine the financial health of our churches.