Ministry Insights from the Q3 2025 Unstuck Church Report
If you enjoy this episode, subscribe on your device for more:
Apple Podcasts RSS Stitcher Spotify
The newest edition of The Unstuck Church Report is here!
Over the past few years, our Unstuck Church Reports have told a pretty encouraging story. On average, churches are seeing double-digit growth. In fact, if you look back at the last 13 quarters, attendance growth has landed somewhere between 13% and 30%. Incredible!
But let’s be honest: not every church is experiencing that kind of momentum. Some are still stuck or even losing ground.
In this episode, Sean and I explore what sets healthy, growing churches apart by breaking down each section of the report: reach, connection, staffing & structure, and finances.
Subscribe to the Quarterly Unstuck Church Report:
This Episode is Sponsored by MortarStone:
MortarStone equips churches with actionable giving insights that drive real ministry impact.
Generosity is more than numbers—it’s discipleship, spiritual formation, and lasting Kingdom work. MortarStone combines powerful analytics, custom dashboards and real-time reporting to help you understand and grow your church’s giving. Confidently build budgets, forecast with accuracy and make informed decisions with tools designed for ministry. Plus, you’ll partner with a dedicated coach to create a tailored, data-informed strategy that supports your unique mission and goals.
Learn more and get started at mortarstone.com.
Write a Review—It Helps!
Your ratings and reviews really do help more pastors discover the podcast content we’re creating here. Would you take a minute to share your thoughts? Just open the podcast on iTunes on your phone or computer, click Ratings & Reviews, and leave your opinion. Or leave us 5 stars on Spotify.
Transcript
Sean:
Well, hey listeners, before we get into the data and the research around this quarter’s Unstuck Church Report, I want to tell you about a tool that I’ve been recommending to a lot of churches, and it’s called MortarStone. MortarStone equips churches with really what I’d call actionable giving insights that drive ministry impact. You know, generosity is about more than just numbers. It’s about discipleship, spiritual formation, and a lasting kingdom impact. And MortarStone actually uses powerful analytics, custom dashboards, and real-time reporting to help you understand and grow your church’s giving. You can very confidently build your budget forecast with accuracy and make informed decisions with tools that are designed specifically for ministry. Plus, you’ll partner with the dedicated coach at MortarStone to create a tailored data-informed strategy that supports your unique mission goals. You can find out more about their tool at mortarstone.com.
Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church podcast. I’m Sean, your host here with my teammate Amy Anderson. And today we’re unpacking the quarter three 2025 Unstuck Church Report, looking at the current data and trends in churches across North America. Amy, this has really become one of our favorite podcasts to record, hasn’t it?
Amy:
It really has, Sean. And this report gives us a quarterly snapshot of the data and trends from churches, what I call in our tribe. And the good news is we’ve been on a strong run of health and growth. We are now at 13 quarters in a row of average attendance growth in the double digits, which is really, it’s amazing. It’s quite amazing.
Sean:
It’s awesome.
Amy:
And we also know that not every church has momentum right now. We did see some stuck churches in the data as well. And there are churches still losing ground. So today we’re going to dig into what sets these growing churches apart, specifically the ones growing at 10% or more. There’s some data that these fastest growing churches have in common. So we want to share that. And for any of our listeners, if you haven’t received the report and you would like to download it and follow along, you can download it for free at theunstuckgroup.com/trends.
Sean:
That’s good. And Amy, let me clarify before we get any emails that we’re looking at the overall health of these churches, not just growth, right?
Amy:
Right, right.
Sean:
But what we’ve seen in the data is that these churches that are growing the fastest in this report are also seeing the greatest increases in health in other areas. So before we get into the data more closely, would you Amy, just kind of give us a quick overview of the report as a whole?
Amy:
Absolutely. This quarter we had 252 churches participate in our survey and they range from just over a hundred in attendance to more than 12,000 on average in-person attendance was 1,169 people. And that’s an 11% increase over the one we did 12 months ago. So that also mirrors the growth. And here’s the best part, Sean. These churches, these 252 churches reported that more than 35,000 people made decisions to follow Jesus over the last 12 months.
Sean:
Incredible.
Amy:
That’s remarkable. I actually did the math because I was like, did we type a number in there wrong, but I think on average that would be for those 252 churches, like somewhere in the ballpark of 150 yeses for Jesus. I mean, just awesome. That’s the power of the local church when it’s going well. When it’s working.
Sean:
Incredible. I love it. That is a fun data point. We could probably just stop there, but let’s not do that.
Amy:
Drop the mic.
Sean:
We’ve got a lot more to talk about.
Amy:
Proud of you churches.
Sean:
Absolutely. Alright, let’s break down each section of the report and what we learned from the data in terms of, we’ll look at reach, connection, staffing, and structure. And then Amy, one of my favorite topics, finances.
Amy:
You can have it.
Sean:
Alright, let’s start with reach. And by that I mean how churches are connecting with people outside the church and outside the faith. What are the headline trends this quarter?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, again, for reach, we’re seeing steady healthy movement. As I mentioned in-person attendance is up 11% year over year. And the number of decisions to follow Jesus equals 15% of average in-person attendance, which tells us, like you said, Sean, this growth is not just attendees, it’s life change. Life change is happening. Online engagement is up 22%. And I think in the data it was like 96% of churches now offer online services. Let me just comment for a minute on that 96%.
You know, the online experience is that digital front door. And it seems to have settled into a legitimate part of most churches’ strategies now their reach strategies. But I don’t know if you ever have this conversation, but I’ve talked with some pastors who actually get frustrated by the number of people watching online because they’d rather have them in the seats in the building. And I get that. I think in-person should be the long play. We just have to remember though, that online helps keep our regulars connected. We all know they’re busy; they will not be there every weekend. It keeps them connected in the life of the church. And it’s a safe space for people who are just getting to know you. You know, it takes time before people are brave enough to walk through a door and so your online experience can grease those skids and the data shows, this is the important part, that growing churches have online growth as well. So those two data points seem to go hand in hand.
Sean:
Yeah, that’s good. One real quick story on that, I just saw on my church’s Facebook page that where the service had streamed last weekend. There was someone that just mentioned in the comments, Hey, we’ve been watching for two weeks now and we’re going to be there in person next week.
Amy:
There it is.
Sean:
So yeah, great opportunity to connect with people who aren’t a part of your church and like you said, just create an opportunity. They walk through the doors in person for the first time. Amy, you analyzed what fast-growing churches are doing differently. So what rises to the top from what you saw there?
Amy:
Yeah, pretty clear. They do three things differently. These churches that are growing at 10% or more; first, they’re reaching young families. In churches growing 10% or more kids ministry grew 15% and student ministry grew 23% and that’s compared if you look at the other churches to 3% kids, 9% students. So those are some big gaps and I think it just really points to the intentional strategies these churches are running with young families. Second, they simplify their worship models. 76% of these growing churches only offer one style of worship, modern or contemporary. And you know this, for several years, our data has suggested that multiple styles under one roof often correlate with decline. It’s not causation. But there’s a correlation there. And then the third thing they’re doing is that their online strategy is not an afterthought. Growing churches treat it as a lead indicator and a pathway to next steps.
Sean:
Good. Alright. So just really practically, if I’m leading a church that isn’t experiencing the growth that we’ve talked about and we’re struggling to reach new families, what are two or three moves that you would suggest that they take this fall?
Amy:
Yeah. Well if growth has softened or stalled and you’re beginning to notice gaps with the percentage of kids connected at the church, those are likely indicators that you’ve kind of peaked in the church life cycle and are now in maintenance, or at least you’re headed there. In fact, Sean, I just got back from spending a few days with a great team at a large multi-site church. And this is a situation that they find themselves in. Historically, they have been experiencing double-digit growth year over year, but it has softened the last 12 months. Additionally, though they’re overstaffed and they’re probably overprogrammed. They shared that they have had this culture over the years of addition not subtraction. I wanted to say you are normal, but they’re adding, they’re not subtracting, which is very common for churches that are find themselves in maintenance.
So I’ll share with our audience here, what I shared with them. I think it begins by recognizing where you are on that lifecycle. If you’re in maintenance, you’re losing momentum. You’re likely losing momentum, you haven’t lost it. And the focus is likely shifted away from an organizational posture to love people. And here’s what I mean by that. When you’re in launch phase and momentum growth, when you start a church, right? It’s all about reaching new people. And then you get this momentum going and now you’re like, we got to make room for new people. It’s all about loving people outside the faith or church in those phases. When you get into the maintenance part of this lifecycle, the organizational posture starts to be more like, instead of love people, it’s love God. We hear that about the deeper teaching and deeper things people want to do.
Sean:
Right.
Amy:
And decisions are getting made around if the people at our church will like the changes we need to make. In other words, we want to keep people happy. In this phase, we’re making decisions through this lens of what will people think? Like what if we canceled that? What if we change that instead of what our mission requires? So the important part here is to get back to the left side of the church cycle. You just can’t claw your way back up to sustained health. You can’t tweak little things to get your way back there. You actually have to swing to the other side and start to rebuild that momentum. The momentum of a growing church.
So here’s my advice, if that’s where you feel you’re at, and it comes right out of Tony Morgan’s book, The Unstuck Church, but there’s three things you need to focus on if this is you. One, most likely your church needs some fresh vision, you need to bring clarity to where the church is going in the future. You know, what are the bold moves you’re going to embrace and you have to use this renewed vision to really rally people. We always say great vision rallies, people time, prayer and financial resources. But some fresh vision. In other words, we’re here but we can’t stay here, we need to go there.
The second thing is prioritizing reaching new people. You have to ask yourself, what are we willing to do to reach people outside the faith and the church. When so much of what you do is focused on the people who already attend your church, you actually create barriers for engaging new people and that’s how churches start to die. So focus on new people and by the way, the vision will kind of grease the skids for helping your church remember that the church is about reaching new people.
And then third, most likely you have to do some form of pruning to reduce some complexity or overprograming. We have to remember, busyness does not transform a personal life. So most churches and maintenance, like the one I just mentioned, are trying to do too much. And overall, the quality bar, I believe will likely drop when the church is just spread so thin.
Sean:
That’s true.
Amy:
Now if you don’t feel like you’re in full on maintenance, but you see the early warning signs that you’re heading there and you want to beef up the experience for young families, then here are just a few ideas that are a little bit easier than what I just talked about. If it’s not already, make sure your kids’ ministry has visibility in the main gathering space. You want to communicate to everyone who walks through your doors that we love and we invest in your kids. Ensure way finding is clear and that the kids check in is visible. And of course it’s manned by volunteers with this high EQ to put new families at ease. And when new families show up, be sure to have a follow up process in place that just kind of lets them know, you know, they were here and you’d love to see them back again. Something as simple as a short text message that maybe includes a what to expect next week link and maybe a two minute video from your kids’ director. So prompt follow up just as we were expecting you.
Sean:
That’s so good, Amy. I also wanted to, and we saw this in the data, just kind of point out the multisite churches in the survey. Of the churches that averaged a thousand to 2000 in attendance, 43% of those churches were multisite. But that jumps all the way up to 72% for churches that are over 2000 in attendance.
Amy:
Yeah. It makes sense. This continues the trend that we’ve been seeing over the last few years. Fast-growing churches are finding it more effective, both from a ministry and a cost perspective, to expand the number of locations they have rather than expand the footprint of their current facility. Now you need to have a good footprint for your sending location, but once that’s established, we’re just finding they’re reaching out in a new communities or communities people are coming from as a way to continue to make room for more, more people.
But there’s a caution here too, with the data, you know, going multi-site too fast in order to keep up with growth can actually leave you multi-stuck. I’m working with a handful of churches right now. They’re just so far behind their multi-site strategy because they were just so busy growing their church. But we encourage churches to create a runway of about 18 to 24 months in order to plan effectively to launch your first multi-site location. And by the way, we can help you with that if that’s you. But allowing time, this is not a three month or a six month process to actually launch a healthy campus that’s going to have deep roots and grow.
Sean:
Yeah, absolutely. And you can actually refer back to some of our previous unstuck church reports to see the data and what happens to churches when they launch too fast. Amy, before we move on to the next section, what’s a simple metric dashboard maybe that a pastor could look at weekly just to monitor their church’s reach effectiveness?
Amy:
Yeah, well you said simple. So here are three key numbers. One, make sure you track the new people in your database, and this is a number you want to compare year over year. And it’s a great lead measure and predictor of a healthy front door at your church. You should look at those year over year numbers to see is that number increasing or is it decreasing? And people always ask like, well, how do we get people in the database? Well, one way of course is people who fill out a connect card or whatever your mechanism is for gathering people’s names and emails when they choose to be known. Your kids’ check-in is a built-in way because they have to check in anyways and provide information. You’ll be able to better track, you know, your in-person front door with that data. And then there’s certain events and outreach where you could do creative things to have people actually give you their name and address. The whole point of this is that we want to make sure we’re getting enough new people coming to the church, getting connected to the church so that we have a better opportunity.
Second, your kids’ attendance as a percent of your total attendance. The benchmark here is 20%. So that data will help you gauge your effectiveness at reaching young families. And lastly, online engagement. Again, online engagement is another leading indicator to in-person growth. So if those are steady and improving, you’re building reach strategy momentum.
Sean:
That’s good. Alright. Amy, let’s shift from reach to connection. I feel like you’re on a roll right now, so let’s just move right into what’s happening with groups and serving.
Amy:
Sure. Here’s what we saw in the data this quarter. So groups engagement rose to 46% of adults and students overall. So we are finally getting back a lot closer to that benchmark of 50%. 64% of churches now offer home groups only, and that’s up from 57% last year. Fast-growing churches saw a 10% increase overall in group participation. And if you compare that to churches with little or no growth, those churches actually experienced a decline in groups engagement year over year. So again, the growth is not just attendance, it’s health in these fastest growing churches.
And then I think this is good news too. Serving is also up, it was 33% last year. Today we’re up to 37%. Again, this has been the hardest metric to come back from the pandemic with. So in fact, fast-growing churches, this was amazing. Saw a 23% increase in volunteer engagement while other churches saw only a 6% bump. So things are still trending in the right direction. I know a lot of churches have been working hard to get those, get those participation areas and serving in groups back up and it’s working.
Sean:
Those are good indicators. Alright. What about volunteer leadership? I mean, we’ve talked about in the past how important engaging volunteer leaders is just to the overall health of the church. What did you see in the data there?
Amy:
The news here overall is fairly good as well. On average in the report, we saw one volunteer leader for every 13 attenders. And what we define a volunteer leader as anyone that is leading other people, including small group leaders. The best practice is one to 10. That’s kind of our benchmark and best in class is one to five. This is just saying for every one volunteer leader, they have five people under their care. Discipleship happens so much easier when we have that span of care versus, you know, one on 30. And this ratio helps churches understand the degree to which they’re giving ministry away. Specifically giving ministry leadership away. So the lower this number right, thirteen, ten five, the lower the number, the more you’re engaging your body to lead ministry. And here’s what we know, increasing the number of volunteer leaders increases your ministry capacity without increasing payroll. And the bonus of course is people who are engaged in leadership at your church, they’re more aligned with your mission, they give more generously and they just experience more personal development themselves. So 13 to one is good, but I would challenge churches to keep working at building out their volunteer leader roles in all areas of ministry. Give it away.
Sean:
Absolutely. Yes. Let’s talk about small groups specifically. Why are home groups outperforming Sunday school formats right now? I mean, we’ve seen it in the data for a while, but what do you think is driving that?
Amy:
Yeah. Two primary reasons that I’ve seen and it comes down to kind of flexibility and ownership. First home groups meet where people live and where they work and this is just tends to be better for people and families with busy schedules. Right? Busyness is not decreasing. Second Sunday school tends to be kind of space and time restricted. It’s usually Sunday morning between services or during service times. And for growing churches, this makes Sunday mornings a challenge because those classes plus the weekend service goers, well it eats up all the real estate. Right? Now we don’t have enough parking spots. We can’t add a third service when it’s needed. Plus, at least for my seat, I just don’t see millennials or Gen Z wanting a three hour Sunday morning experience each week. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. So the fastest growing churches are choosing one model, mostly small groups and then resourcing it well instead of investing in the complexity of multiple models.
Sean:
That’s good. That makes sense. Alright, let’s shift over to the practical side of serving. We’re kind of jumping around here, but we’ve got a lot of data to get through in a short form podcast. If your church is at let’s say 25 to 30% of adults serving and wants to move towards that 40 plus percent mark. What is the first step? How would you encourage them to start to address that?
Amy:
Yeah, and I hope you’re asking this question if that’s where you are. So I would actually start with a leader. Make it someone’s job on your staff team to be the champion for serving at your church. Now it doesn’t mean they do all the recruiting, but they are the leader who’s doing these things. They’re developing your serving tier churchwide, installing a common language around your volunteers and volunteer leaders. They’re also overseeing the follow up systems with people who step up to serve. They’re ensuring every ministry has easy on and off ramps for serving. And this is a leader role. It’s not an admin role. This should be a developer and a strategist. So get that champion in place.
Second, and this is key set a volunteer and volunteer leader goal for every ministry area. Every ministry leader should have clarity on what the volunteer and volunteer leader targets are for their ministry. Then that should be cascaded down to every person on the team. You know, Sean without a target to aim for, I think people will just keep doing what they’re doing and they’ll wait for people to come to them. And so I’ve got two or three churches right now. Their WIG, their wildly important goal for this year, is they have a global target for volunteers and volunteer leaders. They are breaking that out and they’re completely focusing the team because this is the area they have not recovered in and they know the success of the church is getting the body engaged with the ministry’s good. So those would be my two steps.
Sean:
Yeah. Amy, you mentioned on and off ramps for volunteers. I actually think a lot of churches could double their number of volunteers if they’d cut the onboarding time in half. Double your volunteers. That’s could on onboard onboarding in half.
Amy:
Sometimes we just make it so hard. Now some areas of course need background checks.
Sean:
Of course.
Amy:
And I understand that delay, but many areas don’t. And I think that’s what part of the serving director would be developing: efficient onboarding and training processes as well as follow up to see like how did your first serving opportunity go? So we have those systems in place so that we have many touchpoints with our volunteers.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s good. Alright, let’s wrap up this section. Any quick metrics to watch for on the health of the church’s connection strategy?
Amy:
First of all, we want to know the basics, like percentage of adults and students in groups, percentage of adults and students in serving. And then I would also encourage you to begin, if you aren’t already, track your volunteer leader ratio. Again, some of the healthiest churches overall have a high number of volunteers, volunteer leaders engage. So you count how many people, how many volunteers do we have leading other people? Take your average attendance, take divide that number in there and you’ll get your ratio.
Lastly, just keep an eye on your time to onboard. I think Sean, that’s what you were just saying, right?
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
From sign up to first serve. I’m not saying like grab a stopwatch, but monitor whether your ministries are onboarding and placing volunteers quickly. If time to onboard is under 14 days, then you’re probably removing friction in your systems, which is a good thing.
Sean:
Yeah, that’s good. And if it takes your new volunteer interest, 14 days to hear from someone, you’re probably not removing friction. So other side of that. Alright, Amy, let’s shift to one of your favorite parts of the report. The staffing and structure section. What are the trends this quarter?
Amy:
All right. Well overall staffing is still a little heavy. Our listeners know this. We recommend churches hire one full-time equivalent for every 75 people in attendance. And this quarter’s report on average are showing that churches are staffing at one to 56. I think we actually lost a little bit of ground from the last quarterly report. So this data though, Sean actually confirmed a hunch I had while preparing for our next podcast series when we’re talking about breaking growth barriers. As I was working on that, I was thinking, I have always thought that the most staffing stress hits a church in the climb to break through that 1000 in attendance. And this data, this quarter’s data confirmed at those churches were staffing at 45 to one on average. Remember benchmarks at 75. So that’s a season where we start to overstaff. So just continue to pay attention to that.
There are some bright spots in the data. Larger churches are staffing leaner, so churches with 2000 or more in attendance had a ratio of one to 87 while other churches, again, we’re averaging closer to that one to 48. I feel like I’m throwing so many ratios at it. It makes so much sense when I’m looking at all my Excel sheets.
Sean:
Absolutely. Well if they’re following along with a report in hand, it makes sense to them too.
Amy:
And the other bright spot, the fast growing churches, 10% or more are at one to 65 and they’re spending a smaller share of budget on staff. Only 46% of the budget goes to staffing or it’s 54% in other churches.
Sean:
So that’s that mindset shift that we often talk about showing up in the data. Right? Those churches are shifting from staff that are doing ministry to staff that are equipping people for ministry.
Amy:
Exactly. Healthy churches hire equippers, their job descriptions emphasize things like recruiting, training, multiplying leaders, not just executing tasks. And you’ll also see like clearer role clarity when your staff focuses on building teams.
Sean:
Amy, we always include some data about governance in our surveys, but we don’t always discuss that data in on the podcast in depth. So I just want to ask you this time around what did we see in the report?
Amy:
Yeah. Well the okay news here is that the average board has nine members. That’s a little more than we encourage churches to have on their board, but better than some past reports. We also saw some outliers in the data. One church had like 45 board members and one had 45 committees, different churches. Now the one with 45 board members is actually part of the Presbyterian denomination, which I believe requires that. And in our next podcast series, when we’re talking about breaking through some growth barriers, I’m actually going to talk about that because I worked with a great Presbyterian church who was able to navigate the requirements of 45 board members and get a little bit more stealth and healthy.
Sean:
What a great hook for all of our Presbyterian listeners.
Amy:
Well polity just plays into some of these things. However, the church with 45 committees, they probably did that one on their own. And here’s what we know, that level of complexity, it slows down decision making. It saps energy from the staff team and the mission. Instead of committees where people are sitting in meetings, these folks should be serving on a ministry team in a volunteer or volunteer leader role being part of the ministry, not meeting about it.
Sean:
Yeah. Amy, if a church wanted to right-size staff and streamline their governance without rocking the boat too hard, how should they approach that? What would you recommend?
Amy:
Well, not surprising my first recommendation, but I would bring an outside facilitator to help with that process. If that was unstuck, if we came in I’d encourage you to go through a staffing and structure review. And whether it’s through us or some other group, you’ll likely need someone with some expertise in this area to develop a clear plan around your team and structure. But having said that, if you need to rightsize your staff team and streamline governance, there’s three activities to undertake.
First you need to create an org chart focused on strategies, not titles. So an org chart that’s focused on your reach strategies, discipleship strategies, kids and student ministry and operations. Second, clarify three things. What decisions does the board make? What decisions does the senior or pastor or lead pastor make? And what is delegated to staff? Organizations need that clarity. And then lastly, if you do have a large number of committees, you can begin to reduce them by sun setting or consolidating areas that overlap with your new structure. Most often with committees, you’re going to want to tuck those committees under the staff leader and give them a role and a purpose on that team.
Sean:
That’s very good. Super practical. I’ll bet a lot of pastors can sense this, but what are the warning signs that the structure of the church actually was choking the momentum of the church.
Amy:
Yeah. If you’re wondering, ask yourself questions like these, are your ministry siloed? Are priorities unclear? Like can your staff name their top three individual goals? Is there a constant sense that we need more staff? Is your volunteer bench thin? Are your meetings boring and ineffective? Do decisions always have to rise to the top because no one knows who gets to make what calls? As a lead pastor, do you have a gut feeling that you have some of the wrong people around the decision-making table? Sometimes we, when we’re just in this addition no subtraction, we end up keeping people around tables where really the leadership lid has gone past them and they are now a lid to it. Is your leadership team larger than eight people? That would be an indication. So if you answered yes to some of those questions, those are the warning signs. Just some—I could ask a hundred questions, but yeah, those are some warning signs that your staff structure is out of alignment and could be stalling momentum.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s a good list. Alright. Flip that to the positive side then. What does healthy staffing culture feel like in a church?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, in a healthy staff culture, people love coming to work and they love who they work with. Staff are clear and focused. They know what their wins look like. Leaders celebrate their volunteers both specifically and individually. Meetings are shorter and end with clear next steps and deadlines. Like we land the plane well. There’s regular leadership development happening as new leaders are working alongside experienced ministry leaders in that way. When you do have staff openings, you already have a volunteer leader bench to draw from people who already know your church and know your culture. That’s what it feels like when it’s humming well.
Sean:
I love that. It sounds like a place everybody would want to work.
Amy:
Right. Okay. Sean, before you dive into conversation four here on ministry finances. I think you should talk about this. Number one, I’ve been talking a lot. And second, you actually like this stuff. So you tell us what’s new this quarter when it comes to ministry finances.
Sean:
Amy, I feel like we just saved the best for last. You don’t think this section is fun?
Amy:
It’s so fun. It’s so fun.
Sean:
Okay. Alright. Well here’s what’s fun about it. First of all, total giving is up 7% and weekly per capita giving actually increased from $51 to $58 a week. Churches are spending about 51% of their budgets on staff, and that’s within a recommended range of 45 to 55%. 55 would definitely be the high end, but so good percentage there. Cash reserves are still strong at just over five months on hand. So that’s a good indicator. And I’m also happy to see that number, Amy because we’ve actually seen that higher in the past that there was a larger amount of cash reserves and I mean we recommend that churches have at least six weeks in cash reserves. Maybe not a bad idea to have three months. But when it’s eight months, nine months, 12 months, you need to start investing some of that capital into ministry.
Amy:
Yeah. I’ve actually worked with a lot of churches this year that have a lot of cash reserves, but it’s all because they’re getting ready to launch into multi-site.
Sean:
Perfect.
Amy:
So they’ve been hanging onto it to leverage it.
Sean:
That’s great. And then on the average debt is about 0.7 times annual giving not seven times 0.7, which is below our recommended ceiling of two times. So let’s just say you bring in a million dollars a year, if your debt is no more than 2 million then you’re in a good place, healthy place.
Amy:
Yeah. There’s a nuance in the data. With fast-growing churches, Sean, their total giving was up 13% versus 2% in other churches. But per capita giving is actually lower. So these fast-growing churches, their per capita $55 versus 63. Can you help us interpret that?
Sean:
Yeah, absolutely. So here’s the good news. It’s normal. As new people come to your church, they don’t give right away. Per capita giving is actually a lagging indicator of discipleship. If attendance, serving, groups are all rising, short-term dip isn’t a crisis at your church. But you should definitely keep discipling people towards generosity and share the impact stories of the impact of generosity often and this data, seeing it in the report, Amy actually just confirmed what I’m seeing with churches as I work with them on site. Fast growing churches have seen a decrease in per capita giving because they’re seeing lots of new people show up to their church. And I actually think that’s an encouraging, exciting number. Doesn’t let us off the hook for the generosity conversation, but it’s encouraging.
Amy:
Yeah. Funny. It’s actually indicator of health, right?
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
What are we seeing Sean, as like financial practices that are separating healthy churches from the rest?
Sean:
Yeah, let me call out three things specifically. First, proactive communication. Healthy churches tell monthly impact stories in service and email rather than just making year end appeals to meet budget. Second, they seem to really have disciplined budgeting. They’re keeping those staffing costs between 45 and 50% of their, or 55% of their overall budget. And they have real reserves policy with quarterly forecast to adjust as needed. So they’re looking out into the future and anticipating challenges if they arise. Third, they’re making strategic investments. Amy you just mentioned this, but you know, if reserves are healthy, they’re allocating those towards growth. Things like expanding their building footprint, multi-site, other areas. They’re investing in equipping roles and leaders, digital reach tools and making those facility improvements, even if it’s just facelift that make their space more attractive for families and new guests.
Amy:
And what are the key metrics, Sean, that churches should keep an eye on when it comes to their finances?
Sean:
So there are a few that we encourage churches to track. First, of course, we’ve talked about this, the staffing percentage of budget. This should land somewhere between 45 and 55% of your overall budget. The months of cash on hand. We encourage churches to have at least six weeks in reserves to cover your full operating budget. Your debt to annual giving, like I mentioned before, that rule of thumb is not to have more than two times of debt, your annual giving. And then the last thing I would add is just to pair the per capita numbers in your church with those connection metrics so that you can interpret those in context. Like I said before, fast-growing churches, we often see their per capita start to decline a bit.
Amy:
Yep.
Sean:
Well, Amy, we actually had an opportunity to connect with the team at MortarStone. MortarStone has a great financial analysis tool that they offer to churches. They’re really a fantastic resource for churches. And we included some questions in the survey for the Mortar Stone team to analyze and give us some feedback on. So I had a chance to connect with DeWayne from MortarStone and ask him some questions about the data and here’s what he said.
Well DeWayne, thanks for joining me on the podcast and thanks for your help with this quarter’s report. You know, your data shows that less than 10% of givers in an average church are tithers and only about one in 20 attenders tithe regularly. Does that tend to surprise pastors that you talk to?
DeWayne:
Absolutely. It’s a huge eye-opener for most pastors. We track over 530 churches, and our data consistently shows that less than 10% of givers are regular tithers. What’s even more surprising from the survey that was done, a lot of them, the pastors guess it’s closer to 30%. This gap highlights a massive opportunity for churches to disciple their people in generosity and truly advance their mission. The bigger surprise though is when we look at the giving capacity in the church, most churches have another 2 to 3x giving capacity in their church over what their regular budget is. We believe God has provided each church the resources they need for their mission. Discipleship is the key to unlocking it.
Sean:
Well, DeWayne, your research also indicates that many church leaders don’t know critical information about tithing patterns and boomer generational giving. Why do you think this knowledge gap exists and what are the first steps churches should take to become more data informed?
DeWayne:
This knowledge gap is exactly why MortarStone exists. Our founders who are actually leaders in a church themselves saw firsthand how challenging it was to get a clear picture of giving patterns from existing church management systems. They just weren’t built for deep insights. The first step, start looking at your giving data differently. Most systems just tell you what happened. We help churches understand why it’s happening, especially when it comes to generational giving shifts. So you can build specific strategies to disciple people in generosity. For our next step, connect with us at MortarStone, get some real insights into your giving. Benchmark yourself against other churches and start to implement real strategies.
Sean:
DeWayne, you’ve mentioned that inflation has essentially negated much of the giving increases churches have seen in the past six years. How can churches differentiate between nominal growth and real growth in their giving metrics?
DeWayne:
This is a crucial point many churches miss. While giving might look like it’s increasing on paper, inflation has essentially been eating away at that growth. In the last four years, if your church hasn’t seen at least a 5% increase in giving year over year, you’ve actually fallen behind on the rising costs of ministry. Think of it this way, if your giving grows by 3%, but inflation is 5%, you’ve actually lost ground. In our recent report, we found that 41 out of over 530 churches actually beat inflation over the last four years. Churches need to actively compare their giving growth to inflation rates, which you can easily track with public data like the Bureau of Labor Statistics to understand their true financial health.
Sean:
As we see more of the boomer generation retiring from their earning years, what data points should churches be monitoring and looking at and what proactive ministry approaches do you recommend?
DeWayne:
There is a massive demographic shift impacting church giving right now. As boomers retire, their giving naturally decreases as they move to fixed income. But data also suggests that boomers and older generations are leaving the church potentially faster than other generations are joining due to death, health, and other family-related reasons. While younger generations are starting to give more, it’s not yet replacing the giving power of older generations, especially for churches heavily reliant on Boomer giving. We found that it currently takes 10 Gen Zs to replace one boomer’s giving.
So to address that, churches need to be monitoring the generational breakdown of their giving. We recommend focusing on two key strategies. First, seriously discipling your younger generations in generosity starting today. Second, building a robust legacy ministry. This encourages older generations to consider planned giving and really fund the church’s future, creating that essential bridge as the next generation grows in their giving.
Sean:
And then last question, DeWayne. You emphasize the importance of looking at both current giving trends and future expectations. How can this dual focus help churches develop better discipleship strategies around generosity?
DeWayne:
Think about driving a car. You need both a rear-view mirror and a windshield, right? The rear-view mirror tells you what’s happened with your giving, a vital report. But the windshield, which is our new forecasting capability at MortarStone, tells you what’s coming. This dual focus is game-changing. If giving is up, you’ll know if that trend is sustainable and where to invest. If it’s down, you can identify the why and what adjustments are needed, whether that’s strengthening discipleship in generosity or adjusting expenses. Understanding both the past and the forecasted future empowers churches to move from just reacting to proactively building stronger discipleship strategies around generosity.
Sean:
Well, DeWayne, thanks again for your help with the report and for adding more context to what we saw in the data.
Well, Amy, once again, it’s been a lot of fun to look through the data and talk about the practical ways that churches can use the report to actually inform their ministry decisions. But before we wrap up, any final thoughts from you?
Amy:
Yeah, first of all, I’d just like to thank the churches who participated in the quarter’s survey. We now have over 17,000 leaders subscribing to this survey every year. And if you’re a subscriber, I know we would love you to begin sending in your data every quarter. The more of us that send this in, it’ll just help us get a better understanding of what’s working and what’s not in the Big C Church. If you didn’t participate this time but would like to include your church’s data in the future, you can sign up at theunstuckgroup.com/trends and we’ll email you future surveys when we get ready to collect the data for next quarter.
And if you’re a leader listening today and you heard a metric that maybe alarms you when you think about your church, we’re here to help. Our friend Tony Morgan used to say metrics are like the check engine lights on our car’s dashboard. When the light turns on, it’s not an emergency, but something that we need to pay attention to and get to the mechanic quickly. So if you need help with diagnosing your church’s data, please reach out to us. We’d love to partner with you to maximize your church’s health.
Sean:
Well, thanks for joining us today for this episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast. Don’t forget, you can find the show notes and additional resources for today’s conversation at theunstuckgroup.com/podcast and subscribe there via email so that you never miss an episode and you have access to the full resource archive from all of our past episodes. We’re back next week with a brand-new series; Amy already teased that out. So we hope that you’ll join us then and have a great week.
Leave a Reply