As we begin 2026, our church is adjusting how we financially support missions. Historically, we have given ten percent of our budget to missions. As a general rule, we want to tithe as a church towards mission opportunities from our undesignated offerings. We also receive theWide-opened World (WOW) Offering during our annual missions series (one week of missions giving). There are 3 forces driving our missions funding change:
- The escalating costs of travel - The way(s) that we have funded missions and mission trip costs in the past are not keeping up with the escalating costs of travel. For example, the Puerto Rico trip planned for this coming summer of 2026 has already increased by over $300/person, since we announced the trip six months ago. This represents a $45,000 increase to this single mission trip.
- Accounting and budgeting procedures – In the fall, all of our Lifepoint cross-campus teams establish ministry plans and budget towards their ministry plan for the following year. Our Missions team has a separate budgeting calendar and process. Effectively, we are left running two separate budget cycles each year. As the WOW Offering has grown, it becomes increasingly necessary to effectively manage the accounting and budgeting of all of Lifepoint's operations. This includes missions within its single Annual Operating Budget.
- We need a sustainable plan for the future – To accommodate for the WOW Offering, we are increasing missions giving in our budget from ten percent to twelve percent in 2026. And we plan to support two projects during the WOW series, supported by a one-day offering.
In summary, it feels unwise and unsustainable to continuewith our current model of both budgeting 10% toward missions and taking up a one-week WOW offering (especially when we are asking more and more of our WOW year over year). We believe that designating a larger percentage of our overall budget allows us to give as sustainably and generously as possible. In addition, it follows better accounting practices and allows our missions team to plan effectively for the following year.
What are doing/changing this year?
We are fulfilling our missions commitments from last year’s WOW offering with one significant adjustment. That adjustment is the Puerto Rico (PR) trip mentioned above. We were hoping to take one large trip to PR next summer, but that has become cost prohibitive. So, we have worked with our partners there to break up that large trip into 3 trips, which is saving our Missions budget thousands of dollars.
What will this mean for us as a church into the future
- It will likely mean that we give less in total missions giving in 2027, as our budget will have to grow over time. However, the current budget year (2026) will not experience a decrease, because we will still distribute half of our Wide-opened world funds from 2025.
- We believe this model will ultimately help us give more to missions in the future, because the total missions budget will grow as our church budget grows.
- This model will also allow us greater flexibility to increase our missions giving to some of our partners like Stowe Mission of Central Ohio and the Bible translation project in North Africa.
- In the long run, we believe this will help our church be more effective in what God has called us to do in fulfilling the Great Commission locally, domestically, and globally. As well, it improves accounting and budgeting procedures by ensuring all of Lifepoint's operations are managed within its single Annual Operating Budget.
