The Unstuck Church Podcast

It's always important to get a clear picture of where we are now before we can make a plan to move forward. This week, Tony and Amy are breaking down some of the biggest trends in church and non-profit giving, and offering some tips for how churches can connect with new givers and encourage generosity. FREE WEBINAR: Join Tony Morgan and the team at MortarStone on November 18 for a free webinar on...

For the last three weeks, we've been discussing the transition into a new leadership role—but this week,  we wanted to provide a little bit of a different perspective. You don't need a new job to get a fresh start. Instead, Tony and Amy are exploring how you can start fresh with a renewed passion and vision for exactly where God has you now. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during...

When entering a new role, it's easy to be reactive to the opportunities and challenges that come with it. But if you want to experience success, you need to be proactive and intentional about developing a strategy . In this week's episode, Tony is joined by Chris Surratt of Harvest Church (Riverside, CA) to explore how leaders can define their wins and find success in new leadership roles. For the...

This week, we're diving into the unique challenges of moving from an executive role to becoming the Senior Pastor. Listen in on a conversation between Tony and Jeff Brodie, Lead Pastor of Connexus Church, around making the transition to senior leadership, scaling your team, and delegating what you used to own. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during the show, and to download the Le...

We're seeing it in the marketplace and in the church: people are leaving their jobs and making big career shifts. If you've experienced a role change or restructuring, how can you lead well into this next season of ministry? This week, Tony and Amy are exploring how to lead with a fresh sense of vision when taking on a new role.   As uncertainty increases, so does the desire for a clear sense of d...

Most churches are still focused on getting people to return back to their services. And it's easy to understand why. But are you feeling the call to put your focus forward again? Last week, Tony Morgan, Amy Anderson, and Sean Bublitz hosted a live webinar on "Finding Church Health Again." Listen in on their conversation as they discuss assessing ministry health, strategic planning for the future,...

When it comes to staffing and structure, most teams think about their people, then their structure, then their strategy. But we believe that the opposite should be true. This week, Tony and Amy are explaining their strategy-first approach for developing an effective staffing structure for churches. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during the show, and to download the Leader Convers...

There are no shortcuts to becoming a healthy, growing, thriving church. Instead, what we see in the churches experiencing the most success is a consistent determined commitment to ministry planning over an extended period of time. This week, Tony and Amy are making the case for strategic planning and "consistent strategic obedience" as the key to long-term health and growth. For the full episode t...

Many pastors want to jump right in to planning and implementing change. But before we can make any progress in moving forward, we need to get a grasp on where we are today.  In Part 1 of our new "Strategic Planning for the Future" series, Tony and Amy are explaining the four key elements to assessing the health of your ministry today. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during the sho...

Given what our world has experienced over the last year and a half, we sensed now might be a good time to check in and see how teams are doing. So we surveyed over 1,100 church staff members from churches across the US, Canada, and even the United Kingdom. This week, Tony and Amy discuss their key findings from the data released in this quarter's special edition of The Unstuck Church Report. You c...

A healthy culture can help turbocharge your vision and make progress toward the calling that God has for your church. On the other hand, an unhealthy team culture will actually erode your vision and derail your strategy. This week, listen in on a conversation between Tony Morgan and Lance Witt on building a healthy organizational culture, taken from our recent "Healthy & High-Performing Teams" mas...

The best teams are balanced teams. They aren't strong in one area and weak in another. They have an appropriate focus on both health and high-performance. This week, Tony and Amy explain an imbalance many teams experience related to their natural strengths, why it matters, and how to fix it. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during the show, and to download the Leader Conversation G...

"On a scale of 0-10, how likely is it that you would recommend a friend or colleague to work on your church team?" You might be surprised by how the people on your staff team would answer that question. This week, Tony and Amy are diving into what a Net Promoter Score is and how you can use it to improve the health and performance of your team. For the full episode transcript, links mentioned duri...

A lot of stuck churches have stuck teams. But healthy churches need leadership teams that are both healthy and high-performing. In this new podcast series, we'll be working through three of the signs that your team is stuck. This week, Tony and Amy are breaking down a recurring theme in team assessment results called the Fundamental Attribution Error, and explaining the effect it has on team healt...

We recently hosted a virtual roundtable event called RE-ENGAGE: Carrying the Mission Forward in the New Normal where pastors from across North America got together to share the successes and challenges their churches are experiencing as they begin to reopen and re-engage.  In this episode, you'll hear the replay of that roundtable conversation and gain insights in the areas of attendance, giving,...

Oftentimes in the busyness of our roles, our days get filled with the things that are urgent. We spend a lot of our time trying to do all the work of ministry by ourselves. But in the end, this only serves to stunt the potential growth and impact of our church. This week, Tony and Amy were joined by Andrea Lathrop, Executive Pastor of Leadership Development at Oaks Church , to discuss the core shi...

Most churches start with the same mission: reach new people for Jesus. But over time, this mission shifts from reaching the people on the outside to appeasing the people on the inside. Once this shift occurs, the church is headed toward decline. This week, Tony sat down with Michael Moore, the Executive Pastor at Faith Chapel and consultant at The Unstuck Group, to discuss the ways his church has...

Out of the 15,000+ churches that have taken our Unstuck Church Assessment, about 85% self-assessed as being on the declining side of the lifecycle. So if you find yourself in one of these phases, you're not alone. This week, in the final part of our Ask This, Not That series, Tony and Amy are discussing the declining side of the lifecycle: maintenance, preservation, and life support. We'll break d...

Today, we're celebrating, because our podcast is officially 200 episodes old. They grow up so fast! To celebrate this special occasion, Amy and I decided to take a quick pause from our current series and "pull back the curtain" of the podcast. You'll get to meet the full team of Unstuck rockstars that help us record, edit, publish, and share this podcast every single week. We'll also share our ins...

If we're winning, why would we change? Churches in sustained health are often wondering how they can preserve what's working, when they should be asking what they need to change. In this week's episode, Tony and Amy discuss why healthy churches still need to embrace change, explain the three multiplication strategies every healthy church needs, and offer a reflection exercise for your team. For th...

Most organizations start, grow, thrive, lose momentum, decline… and eventually end. The same is true for most churches. In our new series, "Ask This, Not That," we're exploring the seven phases of the church lifecycle: launch, momentum growth, strategic growth, sustained health, maintenance, preservation, and life support. This week, we'll unpack the first three phases and discuss the questions ma...

When it comes to giving and stewardship, you need to remind people what you want for them rather than what you want from them. In the final part of our re-engagement series, Tony sat down with Bronson Crawford, the Stewardship Director at Athens Church in Athens, Georgia. Even before Covid, they were thinking intentionally and getting creative when it comes to engaging their congregation with the...

The days of us turning on the "We're open" light and waiting for people to show up for church are behind us. Reopening and re-engaging your congregation has likely already been more challenging than expected. We need to engage our mission field and compel them to come (see Luke 14:23) . There are no real experts in this season, but churches in some parts of the country are a month or two ahead of...

On the other side... You've been waiting for this day for months. Instead of talking about how ministry strategy needs to shift because of the pandemic, you're starting to talk about what ministry will look like on the other side of it. But if you're like most of the pastors we're talking to, reopening and re-engaging your congregation has already been more challenging than expected.  There are no...

Giving and attendance —If you were used to measuring church health only by tracking giving and attendance, then the last year has been very confusing . It's not an overstatement to say most pastors have been struggling to get a pulse on the health of their ministries. But truth be told, even before the pandemic most churches didn't know what to track beyond giving and attendance. With the Vital Si...