Which churches today send the most missionaries?

Jehovah's Witnesses are very focused on preaching and teaching the good news of the kingdom, including missionary work. (Matthew 24:14, 1 Timothy 2:4, Acts 10:34, 35)

Here are the worldwide statistics for the preaching and teaching activity of Jehovah's Witnesses in the past servivce year according the 2014 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the service year is from September - August, so these stats are for September 2012 - August 2013):

• Lands 239
• Publishers 7,965,954 (number of people actively preaching and teaching)
• Total hours spent in the field ministry during the past service year 1,841,180,235
• Bible studies during the past service year 9,254,963.

That same yearbook shows this information for the website jw.org which contains lots of Bible based learning resources:

• 316 Languages in which the Web site is available
• 220,000+ Number of Web pages on the site
• 600 Languages in which downloadable publications are available
• 130 Requests for Bible studies per day from over 230 countries
• 5 million+ Videos viewed per month
• 1.5 million Downloads per day
• 900,000+ Visits per day from over 230 countries

Here are some statistics found in the April 2014 Watchtower magazine for the printing of each issue:

• 45,944,000
• 213 Languages

All of Jehovah's Witnesses are expected to have a regular, active share in preaching and teaching.

As far as missionary work goes, according to the lesson "What Is Missionary Service?" from the brochure "Who Are Doing Jehovah’s Will Today?" since 1943, more than 8,000 Gilead-trained missionaries have been sent out to witness in some 200 lands. Unlike most people who claim to do "missionary" work, these missionaries primarily focus on preaching and teaching the Bible. That number of more than 8,000 only includes those sent out after training at Gilead. There are many more who make sacrifices to preach where there is a greater need than where they come from.

Jehovah's Witnesses imitate the greatest missionary, Jesus Christ. He was willing to leave his home and life in the heavens to live as a human for a time. (John 6:38; Philippians 2:7) According to Jesus own words the main purpose of this was to "declare the good news of the kingdom". (Luke 4:43)

For more information please see the lesson "How Can You Recognize True Worship?" from that same brochure.

Denominational Missions

The Pentecostal Assemblies of God (2800 cross cultural workers) and the Baptist International Missions Board (5200 cross cultural workers) are among the larger denominational missions movements. In denominational missions work missionaries generally function more as project managers, overseeing broader missions teams and budgets, and therefore smaller numbers reflect larger scale works.

Interdenominational Missions

Parachurch, interdenominational (primarily evangelical), missions organizations also represent significant percentage of Christian missions.

Larger parachurch missions organizations include Youth With A Mission (20,000 staff) and Campus Crusade For Christ (25,000 staff).

Note about JW and LDS Missions

The statistics offered here about the LDS and JW groups are a bit misleading because they are including work that is not cross cultural or pioneering in nature, which is the historical definition of missions. They are including all of their evangelistic and charitable work. Most churches wouldn't consider those activities as missions work, rather a function of the local church. This is an issue of poor semantics.

It also needs to be noted that JW and LDS missions efforts are centralized with a controlled hierarchical structure, while denominational and interdenominational missions are decentralized into, literally, tens of thousands of locally or independently governed missions organizations representing an estimated 400,000 missionaries.

Sources:

• The Surprising Countries Most Missionaries Are Sent From and Go To - ChrisitianityToday.com

• General Statistics - The Traveling Team

Currently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has over 82,000 full time proselytizing missionaries and another 10,000 service or humanitarian missionaries. All serve on a volunteer basis and are required to pay most of their expenses. Financial assistance is also available for those who have limited resource. See here for more info Aside from full time missionary service, all members are taught to be missionary minded in their everyday lives and always look for opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.