The Unstuck Church Podcast

How do you plan for the future of your church when the future is so uncertain? After surviving the incredible disruption of 2020, all of us are looking for a clear path forward. The good news is you don't need to wait for certainty to get clear on your church's mission, vision, and strategic plan.   In this week's episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Tony Morgan and Amy Anderson dig into 5 key q...

What should churches invest in financially? 6 out of 10 churches are doing better than before and giving is up. But 4 out of 10 churches have, understandably, experienced a financial decline in the last year.   In this week's episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Tony Morgan and Amy Anderson unpack 3 key investment strategies for churches in the new reality.  For the full episode transcript, link...

How do you structure your team for a hybrid church model? Many churches are wondering what roles they need on their team, what to measure, and how to align their staff around a hybrid church model with both online and in-person ministry strategies.  In this week's episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Tony Morgan and Amy Anderson unpack the 3 new keys to staffing and structure for a hybrid church...

You did it. You survived one of the most disruptive, unpredictable years we've ever seen.  And your church survived too. But the stop-gap strategies that helped churches stay afloat through the last year are not the strategies that will set them up for long-term health and growth.  In this week's episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Tony Morgan and Amy Anderson unpack the foundational principles...

2020 was a year of unprecedented change and unwanted tensions and an unknown future. As we welcome 2021 and look back at the year behind us, Tony Morgan shares some insight into what he's grateful for at The Unstuck Group and a challenge for churches moving forward. 

What strategic shifts do churches need to make due to the coronavirus?  This week, we take a look back at our most popular conversation from 2020 and dig into the practical ways that churches need to change their ministry strategies to continue not just survive but thrive in the new normal and continue making disciples. 

How do you structure your team for a hybrid church model? How do you staff for a digital-first ministry strategy? Many churches are struggling to optimize and align their staff team around a hybrid church model and make the mental shift from being a church with online options to being an online organization with in-person options.  In this week's episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, Tony Morgan...

One of the biggest questions we've been asked since the pandemic hit is: What should we be measuring now? So this week we're going to walk through what to measure and what matters in the world of online disciple making. There are a lot of easy-to-see metrics clamoring for your attention. But at the end of the day, there is a simple principle that will help you navigate what to measure regardless o...

How do you make disciples online? If you want your church to thrive in 2021, you need to figure out how to both reach new people and engage with your current congregation digitally. At this point, 10 months into the pandemic, many churches are seeing less and less engagement online. In order to create a strong, successful digital ministry strategy, you need to understand the spiritual journey and...

What does it take to create an effective church board? Over the last 11 years of working with churches, we've found that church governance is a key difference between healthy, growing churches and churches that are stuck or in decline.   In this week's episode, Tony Morgan and Sean Bublitz dig into the best practices for selecting board members and structuring your church board to be healthy and e...

What makes an effective church board? What roles should they take on and what's the responsibility of the staff team?  After working with close to 500 churches over the last 11 years, here's what we've learned are common mistakes church board's make and the 5 key roles they need to own.  For the full episode transcript, links mentioned during the show, and to download the Leader Conversation Guide...

The demands and expectations for leading ministry seem to be surging .   We're all changing how we do ministry, serve people in our communities, and care for the sick.  The workload has grown exponentially, and none of us can do it all. You, and the people on your team, are only human. In last week's episode, we talked about how pastors can stay emotionally healthy as they are under greater pressu...

You're under greater pressure than ever… and being criticized more than ever… how do pastors stay emotionally healthy right now? Pastors are telling us they feel like they just can't make a right call. It doesn't matter which decision they're making—they've got people criticizing them from every angle.  It's been an exhausting year, and it's likely you're running on reserves. We hope this episode...

What if we had to rethink the importance of getting new people to a building or a program... for the long haul? As part of a recent Unstuck Masterclass, Tony had the opportunity to interview Nona Jones and Jeff Brodie on the shift that's happening from engaging new people with in-person services to engaging them online. Nona serves as the head of Facebook's faith-based partnerships, and Jeff is th...

Approximately 1 staff person for every 18 people showing up for in-person church attendance... Approximately 1 staff person in dedicated roles responsible for digital ministry strategy for every 1,273 online viewers... We found some interesting—and some alarming—data points in our most recent survey on the state of digital ministry strategy. In collaboration with Blackbaud , we completed another s...

  We need to acknowledge it: A n in-person Christmas experience may not be a draw this year. Most people who are not connected with a church will probably not want to go to an in-person experience, wearing masks, socially distanced in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by an unfamiliar crowd of people.   The opportunity we have this year is to equip our attendees to bring church to their families ins...

"Are there any examples we can follow??" That's the question we keep getting from pastors. You're realizing you need a digital strategy. You're getting lots of inspiration. But you'd really like to see what this looks like in practice. So in this episode, Tony and Amy share best practices and stories from real churches around the country who are implementing a digital engagement strategy effective...

Having a digital strategy isn't the win. Helping become disciples of Jesus—and then disciple makers—is the win. But the need for a digital strategy to help you do that isn't going away anytime soon. The good news is that if you do the hard work of clarifying the big and small next steps for each part of the faith journey continuum, it gets easier to design strategies that work and monitor ministry...

What is the FRONT DOOR of the church now? The COVID-19 pandemic moved churches online—but that shift wasn't really our choice. And what has been revealed through all of this is a huge gap that churches have around their ministry strategies to reach people who are outside the faith and outside the church. While some churches are already returning to pre-pandemic attendance levels, most mid-size and...

We're hearing uncertainty on the lips of church leaders at organizations of all sizes. They're asking this question: "Am I the right leader for our church going forward?" In most cases, yes, you are. God gave you the role you have for a time like this. But that questioning you feel might be a sign you need someone walking beside you. Every good player has a coach. Even the best of the best have a...

It's the catchphrase of stuck organizations... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But healthy, thriving churches and organizations tend to initiate changes before they need to. And the leaders in those organizations are willing to step out in front and lead significant shifts other people may not be feeling the need to make. Almost every organization has had to pivot in some way in recent months....

The last stop before it ends. If you wait until this phase to lead changes, the changes feel huge . You almost have to become a completely different church if you hope to ever return to sustained health as a ministry. From our research with 15,000+ churches, more than 85% self-identified as being on the declining side of the typical church life cycle before this crisis began. And more discouraging...

Keep people from leaving. That's the priority focus of churches in the Preservation phase of the typical church lifecycle. Churches in this phase put very little focus on reaching new people for Jesus, and there's a strong desire to "return to the good old days."  Decision-making gets bogged down in multiple committees and divisive church boards, making it almost impossible to implement ministry c...

Google "Covid Accelerating Change." It's happening everywhere—it's rapidly changing the workplace, our habits, digitization, how we connect and much more. Over the past few years, the Church has experienced a significant amount of change. And, like the rest of the world, the pandemic is accelerating these changes —falling in-person attendance, the use of online, fewer new people connecting, and mo...

Following the leader. A merger is always more successful when each church is clear on who leads and who follows. But for the church in the following role, deciding to merge with another ministry raises difficult questions related to governance, what happens to staff leaders and specific ministries, who has decision rights, and more. In this episode, Tony wraps up a two-part series by interviewing...