Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study
The Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study Series is the first ever comprehensive national research on how Canadian Evangelicals engage with “mission” or “missions.” With over 3,400 Canadians polled and qualitative interviews with 56 Evangelicals, this series of reports provides a snapshot of how and why Canadian Evangelicals engage with missions, and forms a baseline for future study.
A forthcoming fifth report in this series will look at mission definitions and mission geography. These reports are produced in cooperation with the Canadian Missions Research Forum.
This report looks at evangelical practice and belief with respect to short-term missions: who goes on short-term mission trips, where they go, what they do, and what motivates them to go on these trips. Read the report.
This report looks at how Canadian Evangelicals understand calling to missions, the local church’s roll in sending missionaries and what training Evangelicals think a contemporary missionary needs. Read the report.
This report looks at local church priorities in mission activities and mission support, as demonstrated in church budgets and spending. This report also examines the influences and factors in making decisions about supporting missions. One key trend throughout the report is that lay people who attend religious services and read the Bible frequently were more aware and engaged with long-term career missions. Read the report.
This report examines how local churches connect and communicate with missions and missionaries. It looks at who promotes missions within local churches, as well as when, where and how missions content is communicated and relationships developed. Read the Report
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Report 1: Canadian Evangelicals and Short-Term Missions
Download the complete report as a PDF document
Executive Summary
The Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study Series is the first ever comprehensive national research on how Canadian Evangelicals engage with “mission” or “missions.” With over 3,400 Canadians polled and qualitative interviews with 56 Evangelicals, this series of reports provides a snapshot of how and why Canadian Evangelicals engage with missions, and forms a baseline for future study.
Forthcoming reports in this series will look at: long-term, career missions; mission communication and local church promotion; local church mission budgets and local church mission priorities; and mission definitions and mission geography.
First in the series, this report looks at Evangelical practice and belief with respect to short-term missions: who goes on short-term mission trips, where they go, what they do, and what motivates them to go on these trips.
Who goes on short-term missions trips?
Pastors, frequent attenders and younger Evangelicals are more likely to go on short-term missions trips, as are Evangelical lay people from larger congregations or in Canada’s western provinces.
Two-thirds of evangelical pastors (67%) and one-fifth of evangelical lay people (22%) reported going on at least one short-term missions trip (STMT) in the past decade.
Lay people who attended religious services at least weekly in the last year were 8 times more likely to have taken a STMT in the last decade than those who attended religious services just once or a few times in the last year.
Younger Evangelicals were more likely to have taken a STMT than older Evangelicals. Lay Generation Y (Gen-Y) Evangelicals were twice as likely to have gone on a STMT than the next most frequent trip takers, Generation X (Gen-X). One in three Gen-Y Evangelicals went on a STMT in the last decade compared to just one in seven Evangelicals from the Silent generation.
Both pastors and lay people from larger congregations were more likely to have taken a STMT than those from smaller congregations.
Lay people from western provinces more likely to have taken a STMT than those from the East.
Where do they go and for how long?
Many short-term missions trips are close to home and the duration is usually two weeks or less.
One in five STMTs by lay people in the last decade were to locations in Canada. A common sentiment in the qualitative interviews was that STMT and mission resources needed to be “rebalanced” back to Canada to deal with spiritual and physical poverty at home.
Nearly one-third of missions trips were to locations in the United States, Mexico or the Caribbean.
Younger Evangelicals were more likely to stay closer to home on STMTs than older ones.
Three quarters of lay STMTs and 80% of pastor STMTs lasted two weeks or less. Trips made to closer destinations tended to be shorter in duration than those to more distant locations.
How much do they spend?
On average, pastors reported spending $2,118 on their most recent STMT compared to $1,691 for lay people. Generally speaking, pastors reported spending more on STMTs than lay people even for trips to the same locations.
Older lay Evangelicals, those from larger churches and those from the West tended to spend more on STMTs than those who were younger, from smaller churches or lived in the East.
Why do they go?
Three-quarters of pastors agreed that STMTs are an important form of discipleship for their local congregation.
About two-thirds of pastors and half of lay people agreed that the spiritual growth of STMT team members was the primary purpose of these trips.
Many see non-Christians’ participation on STMTs as a form of outreach to those non-Christian team members. Two-thirds of pastors agreed that spots on STMTs should be made available to non-Christians who have skills and abilities to contribute.
What do they do on these trips?
The STMT tasks most frequently reported were those that could be accomplished in a short timeframe.
The five most commonly cited STMT tasks were: building, construction and repair; vacation Bible school; evangelism and discipleship; encouraging missionaries; and working with orphans and orphanages.
The least commonly cited STMT tasks were: social justice; teaching English or French as a second language; combating human trafficking; environmental stewardship; and peace and reconciliation ministry.
Report 2: Canadian Evangelicals and Long-term, Career Missions: Calling, Sending and Training
Download the complete report as a PDF document
Executive Summary
This report is based on ground-breaking, comprehensive, national research on how Canadian Evangelicals engage with “mission” or “missions,” as part of the Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study series.
Second in the series, Canadian Evangelicals and Long-Term Career Missions looks at the interplay of local church engagement and beliefs about calling, sending and supporting missions. The responses of pastors and lay Evangelicals indicate broad similarities of belief, but with some significant differences.
With over 3,400 Canadians polled and qualitative interviews with 56 Evangelicals, this series of reports provides a snapshot of how and why Canadian Evangelicals engage with missions, and forms a baseline for future study.
One key trend throughout the report was that lay respondents who attend religious services and read the Bible frequently were more aware and engaged with long-term career missions (LTCM). Involvement in the life of a local church was associated with greater knowledge and investment in missions.
Calling
In-depth interview informants usually indicated they would be reluctant to encourage their children or grandchildren to consider long-term, career missions (LTCMs), but that they would accept their family member’s LTCM call if they were convinced the Lord was calling them.
The majority of pastors (90%) and lay people (67%) agree that local churches should challenge young people to consider long-term, career missions. Although two-thirds of lay respondents agreed that the local church should be challenging young people, only 19% strongly agreed.
Pastors (90%) were far more likely than lay people (63%) to indicate the local church is critical to discerning an individual’s call to LTCMs
During in-depth interviews, several informants expressed ambivalence about the missionary enterprise and the role of Canadians in it. They expressed a belief that Canadians should have limited roles due to concerns such as LTC missionaries being a threat to indigenous culture.
The majority of pastors and lay people disagreed that LTC missionaries do more harm than good. However, a significant percentage, almost one in four (23%) lay Evangelicals, either indicated that LTC missionaries do more harm than good or said they did not know. Seventeen percent of pastors said the same.
A minority of pastors (44%) and lay respondents (29%) indicated “It is better to send money to indigenous missionaries than to send long-term, career missionaries from Canada.”
Sending
One in three lay respondents (35%) indicated LTC missionaries should not be sent to work in dangerous situations, compared to just one-sixth (16%) of pastors.
Most pastors (68%) agreed that their congregation would at least consider supporting business persons or professionals as LTCMs, while 18% did not know and only 14% disagreed.
The majority of pastors (85%) and lay respondents (63%) agreed that the local church holds the primary responsibility for the Great Commission.
Pastors (76%) were more likely than lay respondents (50%) to indicate that mission agencies or denominations are “better equipped to care for and supervise missionaries than local churches.”
More than one-third of pastors (37%) said their local congregation sent out at least one LTC missionary in the last 5 years.
Training
In-depth interview informants tended to see Christian higher education institutions primarily offering training for “classic” missions, i.e. theological and language training for pastoral and evangelistic roles. Informants broadly agreed that training should fit the specific task and that the wide range of possible tasks necessitates flexibility in training. Some suggested experience on the mission field itself would be the best training.
By far the minority of lay respondents (18%) and pastors (15%) said LTCMs needed no training, “just a calling.” However, the pastors’ survey allowed the selection of additional training options along with “just a calling.” Each pastor who indicated “just a calling” also chose training options, with 93% of them selecting 3 or more additional training options. One hypothesis is that pastors assert a calling is the only necessity for LTC missionaries as an expression of confidence that God’s equipping for ministry will accompany his calling.
Duration
Nearly two in five evangelical lay respondents (39%) said that LTCMs typically last 5 years or less, compared to just under one-fifth of pastors (18%).
Frequent service attenders and those in lay leadership roles were more likely to say LTCM were 6 years or longer, and less likely to say they did not know the length of a typical LTCM.
Report 3: Canadian Evangelicals and Mission Priorities
Download the complete report as a PDF document
Executive Summary
This report is based on ground-breaking, comprehensive, national research on how Canadian Evangelicals engage with “mission” or “missions,” as part of the Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study series. With over 3,400 Canadians polled and qualitative interviews with 56 Evangelicals, this series of reports provides a snapshot of how and why Canadian Evangelicals engage with missions, and forms a baseline for future study.
Third in the series, Canadian Evangelicals and Mission Priorities looks at local church priorities in mission activities and mission support, as demonstrated in church budgets and spending. This report also examines the influences and factors in making decisions about supporting missions.
One key trend throughout the report is that lay people who attend religious services and read the Bible frequently were more aware and engaged with long-term career missions (LTCM). Involvement in the life of a local church was associated with greater knowledge and investment in missions.
Missions Budgets
Pastors reported their congregations spent 13.5% of their church budgets on missions, on average, disregarding “don’t know” responses.
The majority of church missions budgets include long-term, career (LTC) missionaries (80%) and at least one domestic activity (75%). Churches that spend on missions almost always spend on both domestic missions and LTC missionaries.
Frequent church attenders and lay people who are in a leadership position in their church are more aware of missions.
Only 16% of those in a local church leadership position could not provide an estimate of the number of LTC missionaries supported by their local church compared to 35% of those without a leadership position.
Twenty-four percent of lay people who attended religious services weekly did not know how many LTC missionaries their local church supported compared to 60% of those who attended less often than monthly.
A significant percentage of lay people (41%) personally support LTC missionaries with their finances. Older Evangelicals are more likely to personally support LTC missionaries, with half (52%) of Silent generation lay respondents saying they personally financially support LTC missionaries compared to 32% of those in Gen-Y.
Personal financial support for LTC missionaries increases with frequency of service attendance and frequency of Bible reading.
Half (49%) of weekly service attenders personally financially support LTC missionaries, compared to 38% of those who attended just 2-3 times a month, 22% of those who attended once a month or so, and 18% of those who attended once a month or a few times a year.
More than half (53%) of lay respondents who read the Bible at least a few times a week said they financially support LTC missionaries, compared to just 19% of those who read seldom and 6% of those who never read.
How Decisions Are Made
The majority of both pastors and lay people thought that deliberative bodies (missions committees, church boards, or congregations at annual meetings) were the most influential for missions funding decisions in their local congregation.
Nearly three-fifths of pastors (58%) said their congregation prefers to support LTC missionaries through their denominational agencies.
Just under half (45%) of pastors agreed “Our local church only supports missionaries and mission projects that further our local church’s vision and mission.”
The majority of pastors (66%) said their congregation would not support a mission project unless its leadership saw significant interest and initiative from its own people.
The majority (67%) of lay people needed to be convinced administration fees related to ministry effectiveness before they personally financially supported missionaries, and 62% of pastors said the same for their church and its support for missionaries.
Small churches were more likely than very large churches to prefer time-limited mission commitments over ongoing ones.
Local Church Priorities
According to pastors, churches’ top three missions priorities, selected from a list of options, were missions to the “unreached,” poverty relief and working with national churches. The lowest three priorities, beginning with the lowest, were environmental concerns, interreligious dialogue and Bible translation.
Although the top priority was missions to the “unreached,” evangelizing the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist world was a low priority.
Despite the emphasis on the Bible and on Bible translation as a defining mark of Evangelicalism, pastors said that Bible translation was, on average, a low priority for their congregations.
Three-fifths of pastors (59%) said their congregations intentionally had ministries to those in their local communities who were ethnically, culturally or religiously different than their congregation. Just over half (54%) of pastors from small congregations reported local cross-cultural ministries compared to 93% of very large congregations.
About half of lay respondents (49%) agreed “If finances were tight, I would support our local church reducing our missions budget so we can pay our pastors.” Frequent service attenders and Bible readers were less likely to support a missions budget cut if finances were tight.
Report 4: Canadian Evangelicals and Missions Promotion in the Local Church
Download the complete report as a PDF document
Executive Summary
Fourth in the series, Canadian Evangelicals and Missions Promotion in the Local Church examines how local churches connect and communicate with missions and missionaries. It looks at who promotes missions within local churches, as well as when, where and how missions content is communicated and relationships developed.
This report is based on ground-breaking, comprehensive, national research on how Canadian Evangelicals engage with “mission” or “missions,” as part of the Canadian Evangelical Missions Engagement Study series. With over 3,400 Canadians polled and qualitative interviews with 56 Evangelicals, this series of reports provides a snapshot of how and why Canadian Evangelicals engage with missions, and forms a baseline for future study.
Promotion
Pastors (59%) and lay people (51%) said it is usually a pastor who is the most prominent missions mobilizer in the local church. About half (47%) of pastors and 30% of lay people identified the senior or lead pastor in that role. Less frequent service attenders were more likely to identify a pastor as the main mobilizer.
Time in worship services or “platform time” is scarce and guarded, and this means that intentionally or unintentionally church leadership signals what is important to the congregation by what is included. The worship service acts as a filtering mechanism.
The cancellation of Sunday evening services has increased competition for Sunday morning worship service time and means missionaries have significantly fewer opportunities to connect with congregations.
More than half (58%) of pastors say their church promotes missions from the pulpit at least monthly.
Two-fifths of lay people (41%) and three-fifths of pastors (30%) indicated they do not pray for long-term career missionaries unless prompted.
Connection
Most pastors (89%) and lay people (86%) said they personally connected with their local church’s long-term, career missionaries in the last 12 months through one type of communication or another.
Most pastors connected with missionaries through email (78%) whereas lay people were almost equally likely to say they connected through mailed letters (41%) or email (39%).
Congregations start relationships with missionaries or mission projects because of a trusted relationship or an in-person contact rather than a technologically mediated connection or advertising.
Pastors expected to hear from missionaries through social media monthly (45%) compared to just 23% of lay people. The majority of pastors (60%) and lay people (57%) expect missionaries to stay in touch by social media at least quarterly if they are able.
Informants indicated formal written communications should include goals set, goals met, and stories of transformed lives in a length of two pages.
Education
Three-quarters (74%) of pastors agreed their local churches actively foster conversations about the biblical basis for their missions engagement
About one-quarter of pastors (24%) and lay people (29%) said their local church either held or helped organize a mission conference in the last 12 months
Pastors were more likely to agree (55%) that their local church’s missions program included an ongoing mission component focused on ministry outside of Canada than lay people (40%)
One-third (34%) of lay people said they did not know if their church had a children’s program with an ongoing missions component compared to just 6% of pastors.
Evangelicals know that missions are supposed to be important for them, but they don’t have the “energy to be connected to all these things,” as one interview informant said. Attention in contemporary society is fragmented. As a consequence, many Evangelicals tend to use heuristics, or short-cuts, to allow them to evaluate and connect with missions and missionaries without having to go to the work of engaging deeply with particular missions. These heuristics often take the form of trusted recommendations. The relationships themselves validate the mission and allow Evangelicals to support missions and missionaries with confidence.
