Download the Q2 2026 Unstuck Church Report
Every quarter, The Unstuck Group compiles the data we’ve collected from churches to monitor trends across the United States and around the world. The survey respondents are primarily churches connected to our work. Because of this, our data may more accurately reflect an “Unstuck” church rather than the broader trends in the big “C” church.
For this quarter’s report, we are focusing on staffing trends in churches of various sizes. These trends reflect data collected during the eight weeks between April 13, 2026 and June 5, 2026, providing a very current snapshot of ministries of all shapes and sizes.
We received survey responses from 239 churches, ranging in size from 100 to over 10,000 in physical attendance for worship gatherings. The average in-person attendance among participating churches was 917 people.
This Year’s Biggest Staffing Challenges
For three years in a row, this report has told a similar story. Staffing for a healthy ministry is hard right now. Budgets are stretched thin. Roles and reporting lines have become less clear. Finding qualified candidates is difficult.
But here’s what’s different in this year’s data. Churches are beginning to make corrections. Last year, 45% of churches were spending more than 55% of their budget on staffing, which is beyond our recommended range. This year, that number dropped to 37%. The number of churches operating with a healthy financial margin grew. After several years of embracing less healthy models, it’s possible some churches are beginning to shift their approach to staffing.
That doesn’t mean the hurdles are gone. In this year’s survey, we asked pastors and church leaders to tell us about the biggest staffing and structure challenges their church is facing. And it’s clear that there are some big hurdles churches are working to navigate:
- Financial Constraints. For the third year in a row, money was the most common challenge for churches. About one in four named budget, funding or compensation as their biggest staffing challenge. Limited funds to add staff, increase pay or absorb the rising expenses of health insurance and cost-of-living were the most cited pain points. Added to that, the biggest barrier to hiring (51%) was budget and funding.
- Role Clarity, Structure and Reporting Lines. About one in five churches said that unclear reporting and decision-making, silos and getting the right people in the right roles were their primary challenges. These challenges are typically felt more significantly when a church is growing or embracing a new vision. When there’s a new sense of direction, there also needs to be a refreshed structure to support it.
- Growth and Scaling. For 17% of churches, their structure is feeling strained due to rapid growth. They cited scaling staff to match attendance increases, adding campuses and keeping up with rising operational demands as their headline issues. These churches need to create proactive staffing plans to get in front of future growth rather than being reactive to what’s happening today.
- Finding Qualified Staff. Finding qualified, competent staff is still an uphill battle for 17% of churches with 35% of all churches saying this is their biggest barrier to hiring. Worship Arts roles were the hardest to fill this year (more on that later in the report).
- Leadership Development, Succession and Moving from Doers to Leaders. Churches also cited working to grow the next layer of leadership internally, navigating pastoral succession and shifting from paid staff doing ministry to equipping volunteers for ministry as key structural challenges. Volunteer leadership pipelines are still one of the clearest dividing lines in our data.
Rather than just collecting the challenges, we also compared the churches that are navigating them well against the churches that seem to be getting getting stuck. Churches staffed at healthy levels almost never declined in attendance. But churches that spent more than 55% of their budget on personnel grew at half the rate. Churches with younger leadership teams and deeper volunteer benches excelled in other areas of health.
These hurdles are real, but as many churches have shown, there’s also a clear path through them. And this year, it’s visible in the data. As you read this report, if something here describes your church and reveals why you may be feeling stuck, we’d love to help you and your team
Get Your FREE Copy of The Q2 2026 Unstuck Church Report
This special edition of the Unstuck Church Report features key takeaways from the most recent survey results in the areas of:
- Staffing & Ministry Trends
- Staffing Data by Ministry Type
- Staffing by Generation
- Leveraging Contractors
- Staffing Practices
- Exclusive insights from sponsor Chemistry Staffing
Thanks to a growing number of church leaders responding to the survey, we were able to include a summary of the data by church size again in this quarter’s report.
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