A survey of a large cross section of Church budgets reveals that Churches are spending more and more money internally and letting less and less of it go out for causes like missions and local benevolence. This has been the trend for quite some time. When giving decreases there is not always a corresponding decrease in internal spending. Further cuts to missions and benevolence are often made to maintain spending on expenses like salaries, facilities, programs, etc…
The result of this trend is that giving to missions has declined and missionaries are being called back from the field and terminated at record rates. The International Missions Board terminated 1,132 mission workers in 2016 alone. That brings the number of IMB missionaries in the mission field down from 4,700 to about 3,800—a return to 1993 levels. If you listen to pastors you would think that the problem is lack of giving to these programs by members. You will hear sermons calling on people to repent and give more. But the sad truth is that the budget shortfalls correspond with a decrease in giving from the church itself to the mission board, not a decrease in giving from members. In other words, people are still giving but the churches that they give to are keeping more and more of the money and not passing it on for missions. In 1971 churches passed on an average of 12% of their budget to missions. In 2000 that decreased to 6.2%. That statistic is now 4.2%. So it is easy to see that the problem lies with church leadership.
When people realize that this is going on they drop out and stop giving all together which perpetuates the problem. As a side note, guess who is not cutting back on missionaries. (see image below)
