SOTC Annual Survey 2026: People are coming into Singapore’s churches. But are they staying?

The dashboard of a car can give you numbers, but it does not tell you whether you are headed in the right direction.

A tree may look healthy from the outside, but its roots may tell a different story.

How is it that churches in Singapore seem to be winning more people, but Christianity has declined across all age groups of our population?

If the Church wants to keep its front door open and its back door closed, can it attract and retain the staff needed when salaries are uncompetitive?

At a panel discussing the State of the Church (SOTC) Annual Survey 2026 that was released last Friday (August 14, 2026), church leaders and members of the SOTC Steering Committee raised questions such as these.

An annual collaboration among Biblical Graduate School of Theology, Singapore Bible College, Trinity Theological College and Salt&Light, the 2026 survey saw responses from Senior Pastors or their equivalent from 122 churches in Singapore. Together, these churches report 106,721 regular attendees across various denominations.

This is also the first time that the researchers are embarking on a longitudinal survey of key metrics of church health in Singapore.

Moderated by Pastor Edric Sng, Editor of Salt&Light, the panel featured views from:

• Pastor Johanan Justin, Senior Pastor of Agape Baptist Church
• Pastor Andre Tan, Lead Pastor of The City
• Dr Kwa Kiem-Kiok, Associate Professor, Singapore Bible College
• Rev Ng Zhi-Wen, Strategic Coordinator for Antioch21, and Pastor at Zion Bishan Bible-Presbyterian Church

Here are the highlights from their discussion, which has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What are your reflections on the State of the Church (SOTC) Annual Survey 2026 report?

PS JOHANAN: The biggest thing that I took away from the SOTC was the difference in tone. Reading this in the light of the General Household Survey (GHS) 2025, there was a different kind of feeling. Reading the SOTC felt more like we’re on the right track; it is business as usual.

I’m also mindful that SOTC was a survey of pastoral leaders and church leadership, whereas the GHS was more ground up. Perhaps there’s a need for greater conversation.

How do we bridge this gap between what we’re seeing and what people on the ground are seeing? Who are the people we need to talk to and what are the stories that we need to hear?

PS ANDRE: I was very encouraged because I think we’re looking at the right things. At the same time, these measures are like the indicators on the dashboard of a car. They tell you how fast you’re going, whether your engine is overheating.

But the dashboard doesn’t inform you of whether you’re heading the right direction. So I’ve been thinking about what’s next for my church and for the Church in Singapore. I’m led to ask three questions. One is on discipleship and retention.

We’re seeing salvation and baptisms, and yet we’re seeing an overall decline in the Christian population of Singapore. So do we have a wide open front door but also a wide open back door, and are we effectively raising the next generation of disciples in our church?

The next would be sustainability in ministry. Pastors are not immune to cost-of-living pressures. Do we have structures that make for sustainable ministry? Ministry is a calling, and calling involves sacrifice. But there’s a difference between the cost of discipleship and the cost of unhealthy systems.  

The last is rethinking and redefining what health means to us as a church. I grew up thinking that bigger is always better. Larger church, more programmes, more budget equals better. This report really challenges a lot of those assumptions. Bigger doesn’t always do better or healthier. So what are the right metrics of success or health?

DR KWA: I see this data as a tree. The outside tells us what the tree of the Singapore Church looks like. It looks okay. But I’m concerned about the roots because the roots are what sustain the tree. They tell us in the long term whether the tree will stand, whether it is healthy.

The tree is also planted in Singapore soil. Singaporeans like to count. We’re very good at counting, and we value what we count. But we don’t talk about what we cannot count. Are we intentionally seeking and carrying out activities for maturity – not just to bring people in?

Maturity means we talk about hard issues such as environmental degradation, mental health and treating our helpers and migrant workers with dignity. These matters require biblical depth, and understanding culture, society, economics. We talk about these issues in the seminaries, but so often students tell me that the Church has no appetite to discuss these more difficult issues.

So do we, as a Church, challenge ourselves to do something difficult and not popular? Do we just do activities that bring in the numbers? Do we do activities that take time, effort and sweat, like going out to do beach cleaning (to address creation care)?

There was a significant shift in the proportion of “Young” and “Middle-heavy” churches to more “Balanced” churches compared to the first SOTC study in 2022. But this may still be masking the overall ageing nature of the Church. What are your views on the overall demography?

PS JOHANAN: The report seems to indicate that our churches are ageing faster than the society. What does this ageing nature of the Church mean for us? Is that therefore a bad thing?

We’re getting older and our demographics are skewing in that direction. So what does it look like for us to still impact a society that’s also ageing, and to bring shalom and flourishing into that space as well?

PS ANDRE: Speaking from the perspective of a “young” church, I tend to think that an ageing church, just by way of growing, maturing people, isn’t necessarily an unhealthy church.

As a church, part of our annual rhythm is we take two weeks off at the end of every year, and we tell the congregation to go and visit other churches. Every year I go to Living Sanctuary Brethren Church (LSBC), and I’ll see 70- and 80-year-old uncles standing in worship. These are sights that I don’t see as a “young” church.

So I think there are strong discipleship opportunities when we think of the church ageing and having multiple generations within a single church community. Think about it: In what communities do you have an 18-year-old and 80-year-old existing in the same space?

There are aspects of concern when we think of leadership renewal, but we also do not want to lose sight of the discipleship opportunities that lie within.

DR KWA: Maybe the seniors are better at evangelism and bringing their own friends into the church? That’s why the seniors are growing and the others are not.

The other question is: Are we losing people? Because we’re presuming that they grow up. Do they? Or instead, are there some people who are dropping out in the middle? We need to look at that because it’s an issue of discipleship.

And can evangelism be so simplistic? If we’re reaching out to the younger generation, we need to engage in their world. What they are concerned with? Help them in their unbelief.

Don’t just give them our usual simplistic answers that we’ve been doing for the last 10 years but are not working anymore. Can we make our evangelism much more thoughtful and robust?

English services accounted about 73% of church attendees. However, according to the GHS 2025, only slightly more than 50% said English was the language they spoke most frequently at home. It appears the Singapore Church is far-more English-speaking. Is that a good or bad thing?

PS JOHANAN: There may be a missional necessity for various languages because some people cannot understand English, so we need congregation services that speak those languages to bring the Gospel to them.

I also want to point out that even though they can understand English, English may not be their heart language. There is a beauty to Christ that comes out more richly when the Word is expressed in their heart language. So it also goes beyond just missional necessity to missional effectiveness.

But I will just add this. My Founding Pastor was Indian, I’m also Indian and our church is predominantly Chinese. There’s something beautiful about the English language that allows for that. We have Chinese, Indians, Filipinos and Burmese…  Our population is way more diverse now.

PS EDRIC: I have stronger feelings about this. The Gini coefficient income gap in the Church compared to the non-churched, non-Christian Singapore is quite large. Using education as an example, 56% of Christians hold a university degree compared to about 37% of the national average (GHS 2025).  

I do wonder whether we might exclude certain realms with this over-emphasis on the English Church. That’s where we are right now, but I would hope for the Church to do more, especially for the Chinese-speaking.

For example, on October 10, there are seven dialect evangelistic rallies going on at the same time. I wish the Church would go more intentionally into some of these realms rather than just staying in the same street.

There were more reported salvations and baptisms in 2025 than in 2022, when the first SOTC was conducted. However, GHS 2025 shows that we clearly need to open our front door wider. What do you think the Church can do to bump things up?

DR KWA: Are we attractive? Do people look at us and say, “I want to be like him. I want to be like her because she’s joyful, she’s at peace. She doesn’t have everything together, but there is something in her that’s attractive.” Frankly, maybe for a lot of us, no.

We’re tired, we’re very busy running around, we’re tiger mums and fierce dads. And they look at us and say, “Oh if she’s a Christian, I don’t want to be like her.” So it’s not just SES (socio-economic status), it’s not just language. It’s who we are.

But I was encouraged by what the two of you (Ps Andre and Ps Johanan) said about community. Do they come to church and say, “I like these people.” For example, in LSBC, the 80-year-old and 18-year-old can be together.

Or they look at Johanan’s church and say: “Multicultural, multilingual – I want to be a part of that.”  That, I think, is what is going to attract people who will say: “Ya, I want to be a Christian.”

PS JOHANAN: I come back to formation and discipleship again. The SOTC seems to indicate that the front doors are still open; people are still coming in. The salvation numbers don’t look too bad.

But the GHS shows us that the back door is open and people are walking out. So I feel the question is: What’s happening between the two doors? What are we doing? How are we shaping people?

Fundamentally, there’s something about the Gospel that should shape us and change the way we think, approach life, and view challenges and difficulties that everyone in Singapore is facing, and to have a better posture, a better hope, a better answer to those things.

My role is to provide a model and to inculcate the depth. But more than that, it’s about retention. People don’t just come in and exit the back door, but they come and stay, and the church really grows.

PS ANDRE: We recognise that just by being in a certain income bracket and SES, there are opportunities but also challenges with discipleship.

We tend to be insulated. We see that play out for us when we go out and do block visits, and we see struggles that come with interacting people who are in a different environment. So how do we move beyond these boundary lines and categories? That’s one aspect.

Second, there’s a manner of sophistication that we’ve gotten comfortable with. We think that the more sophisticated we sound as a church, the more mature we are. But does this translate well to someone who’s maybe not as highly educated?

The third is Christians tend to flock to Christians after a while. Once you get Christians entrenched in the Christian community, it’s really hard to pry them out of it. So I think that’s where my church is at. We’re very comfortable and insulated, and we need to recover a missional imagination.

Churches budgeted an average of 14.6% for missions and 7.6% for external giving to causes or organisations. They also reported a total of 355 overseas missionaries. How is the Church doing in terms of missions sending and giving?

PS ANDRE: I was very surprised and encouraged by the expenditure. I think it’s a very healthy percentage. But of course, we need more missionaries.

DR KWA: I think we need to be much more missional. Again, we like what we count. We can count how many people we send out. Can I count whether my church members are being salt and light where they are?

We need to expand our idea of what being a witness is. Are we living out the Lordship of Christ? Are we teaching our members to live out the Lordship of Christ at home, at work and in public spaces?

PS JOHANAN: I think the money reflects that we’re going in the right direction. We’re spending on missions and external organisations. I suppose that also means that there is more collaboration going on as well. Those are good things.

We need to recognise that no one church can reach Singapore and the nations by itself. We need one another. We need para-church organisations. We need everyone, all hands on deck.

But we can grow it, and we can also definitely think harder. I appreciate (Ps Edric’s) heartbeat for the lower income groups and those that we seem to be excluding in our churches. Perhaps that’s also a call for more churches to be planted in Singapore.

Churches had an average number of 91 worshippers per pastoral staff member or 119 worshippers per non-pastoral staff member. In very large churches, the numbers are even higher. Is there a sweet spot for this ratio?

The average starting salary of pastoral staff was also 20% lower than the National Council of Social Service’s recommended starting salary for a social worker (S$3,970). How should a church leader view expenditure, especially on staffing?

DR KWA: It must not be a prohibitive factor. I have known people who love the Lord, who love the Church, who want to come into ministry, but they can’t afford it on the kind of pay that churches give. That’s tough.

If we don’t get people in now, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot because five, 10 years down the road, we will not only be short of staff, but seniors like myself will not have had the opportunity to pass on our experience, our wisdom, to the next generation. Then once we’re gone, we’re gone.

PS ANDRE: Churches have variants, right? You have churches that own a building, churches that set up and tear down, varying sizes of congregations, varying styles of worship. So I don’t think there’s a universal sweet spot, or a perfect ratio (for average number of worshippers per pastoral staff).

But I’m thinking about the philosophy of staff. When we hire staff, do we hire staff to meet a ministry need or do we hire staff to equip the Church for ministry (Ephesians 4:12)?

Because if every time a ministry need appears and our instinct is to employ another professional to solve it, eventually we create a church where members finance the ministry rather than participate in the ministry. So that’s an important distinction.

The other thing is, we can run the risk of spiritualising the consequence of an unhealthy system in the church by how we do remuneration. We have to be really careful with that – where we conflate the cost of discipleship with the cost of the system that was not well thought through.

PS JOHANAN: From a biblical perspective, we don’t want to muzzle the ox, we want to give fair compensation. On one hand, it feels like if we want to be competitive, then we need to spend more on our staff, and we imagine that our budget for staff is growing and growing.

Then on the other hand, we have an ageing church, and we also imagine that tithing is going to go down over time. How do you keep employing new people at a higher, more market rate yet your giving is somewhat going down, especially for churches that have a sizeable ageing population?

I feel like then we come back to what Ps Andre was talking about. Is there a need now for maybe more equipping of the saints and a more lay-driven kind of ministry rather than putting a person in charge, and that person calls the shots and drives it?

How do we encourage younger Christians to pursue full-time ministry amid concerning trends? Is salary parity with secular standards biblically appropriate?

PS JOHANAN: Money is a helpful support to encourage people to come onboard to pastoral ministry. But I think the more fundamental questions are: Do you love the Gospel? Do you love the Church? Do you love the city, the nations? 

I do recognise the money part is a bit tricky because it involves some mindset change. In the past, I remember when older Pastors would talk about how they got started, it was very high in terms of sacrifice.

They would say things like: “I started from cleaning toilets. I did anything, everything, and I was paid a pittance.” So sacrifice is a qualifying factor for a new person coming onboard to pastoral ministry.

There is that element of sacrifice for sure. But it cannot be that there’s not enough for the family, for raising kids, for the future. So what is put at the table in terms of a salary amount should be liveable at the very least, if not encouraging, for them to say: “The Lord will provide, why not you take this step and walk with us?”

PS ANDRE: For young people, I think we can do better in curating a pathway for vocational discernment. There will naturally be sacrifices with being a clergy. But I guess the stronger the conviction, the more durable and the more enduring they are in face of challenges.

When it comes to salaries, we also don’t want to run the other extreme where we dangle these carrots like, “Look at how much the Church will pay.”

So the question is: How do we pay in such a way that it does not position the Pastor, or the clergy, in a space where there are these unnatural stressors, anxieties and burdens that will limit their ministry effectiveness? If they’re constantly thinking about money or they need to take up a second job, it will inherently limit their ministry effectiveness.

Our church went through that very trying exercise of re-imagining our salaries many years ago. We referenced different benchmarks, but it also involved us having very open, honest conversations with our staff and our board members about their beliefs, their perspectives, their comforts, their fears.

So I don’t think we’ll arrive at a perfect structure and framework, but I think it has to start off with the principle of love, and honesty and openness.

Ps Zhi-Wen: There are two aspects – what the work entails and the worthiness of the call, and an intentional effort to identify and journey with these people who are exploring this. But eventually there comes a point when they will hit the real roadblock because many of these people we’re talking about are not fresh out of school.

We’re talking about people who are looking at a mid-career crossover. They have families, houses, financial commitments, and that has been a push factor to keep addressing the question of remuneration (in our church). We’re still working on it.

With this data, hopefully we want to stimulate a lot more conversations, to give you a basis for some constructive conversations with the people you need to talk to. Pastors are not the decision-makers – it’s the HR (human resources) community.

Wrapping up the session with a closing address, Venerable Daniel Wee, Archdeacon of Singapore, Anglican Diocese of Singapore, exhorted church leaders with two simple words: “Let’s go.”

Sharing from 1 Samuel 13-14, Ps Daniel pointed out how Jonathan still chose to fight with whatever he had, even though it seemed like the Israelites were in a losing battle with the Philistines.

“He didn’t have a plan. In fact, he said, ‘It may be that the Lord will be with us…’ He’s not even sure about it, but let’s just go. We’ve got this one sword. We’ve got this life. Let’s just go,” he said.

“This conference, this presentation and this study begins a conversation that is not perpetual. We’re not going to discuss this forever.

“At some point, whether the decline is systemic, natural and tied to demographic reasons, or brought about because of policy reasons, the end goal is the same. You still have to go, right?”

Even as churches reflect on where they may have gone wrong or what they can do better, Ps Daniel urged them to continue with what they have already been doing well. If there are open doors into new areas, enter these too.

“There’s a saying in Chinese: 逆水行舟，不进则退. That means if the boat is in the water, if you don’t move forward, you will just go back,” he explained.

“There’s no middle ground. There’s no holding position. There’s no ‘let’s maintain’. You either move forward or you’re going to get swept backwards.”

Reminding the Church that stagnation is not a choice, he encouraged: “There’s no easy answer, no silver bullet. So I just say, ‘Let’s go.’”

For more insights from SOTC 2026, download the full report.

Interested to reignite a culture of outreach in your church? Come and hear stories of ordinary believers sharing the Gospel in practical and creative ways at Evangelism Festival, which is organised by LoveSingapore in conjunction with One For Jesus. 

Emmanuel Assembly of God
Saturday, August 22
9am–12.30pm
Register at bit.ly/efestinbedok

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The wake-up call our seniors must not sleep through

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