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Every hire you make is a culture decision. You're either adding somebody who makes your team more like who you said you want to be or somebody who pulls it a little the other way. When you make your culture-shaping behaviors a normal part of your hiring, onboarding and staff evaluation process, you get better at hiring and managing. You'll see less turnover and more staff embracing and celebrating your culture alongside you. In this episode, we're talking interviews, onboarding and reviews. We'll also share a bit of how Sun Valley does this at their church and what it would take for you to get started. Assessing culture fit in the hiring process "Cultural Crash Course" in onboarding  Culture conversations in staff reviews This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

Defining your culture-shaping behaviors is a quick project. Embedding them into your team is a multi-year commitment—but that's the part that determines whether any of this changes how your team actually operates. What tends to happen is we come out of this meeting and return to the whirlwind of the rest of ministry. We put this list of behaviors on the wall or a desk calendar, and then go back to what we've always done. In this episode, Sean and Paul talk about what it takes to keep your culture alive.  And they'll spend time talking about this idea: you will get what you tolerate. If you tolerate the status quo, you'll keep getting the status quo. Modeling culture-shaping behaviors Evaluating yourself on a regular rhythm What to do when a leader violates a behavior   This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

Culture is difficult to define but easy to feel … and it's hard to overestimate the role culture plays in your team's health and efficiency. A healthy culture can help turbocharge your vision and make progress toward the calling that God has for your church. But an unhealthy team culture will actually erode your vision and derail your strategy. We invited Paul Alexander, the executive pastor at Sun Valley Church in Phoenix, AZ and a consultant on our team, to join us for this new series: Getting Practical on Developing Culture. In this episode, we talk about actually defining your culture—getting those "unspoken rules" written down and implemented into your team—because you either define your culture or it gets defined for you. Values vs. culture-shaping behaviors An exercise to define your culture-shaping behaviors Interviewing, hiring and training for your culture   This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

The next time that you walk into your church lobby, pretend it's your very first time there. What does the room tell you about your church? Because it's telling people something. The question is whether it's the story that you meant to tell. Sean got the chance to sit down with Phil Taylor from PlainJoe Studios. Phil spent 20 years in lead pastor and executive pastor roles before joining PlainJoe, where he helps churches with building, design, branding, and web projects.  In this episode, Phil and Sean talk through what telling your story through design actually means. Why your kids' spaces need numbers instead of animal names How often your main spaces need an update  Phil & Sean's weirdest church lobby stories   This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

People issues, especially people changes, can be incredibly divisive in a church. Suddenly, a staff member people love is no longer on the platform, and nobody's really sure why. Church leaders have had months to process the change, but the congregation and staff have to catch up in one conversation or announcement. And they rarely sit in that gap of information neutrally … they fill it with a story that's not about the decision but about the church itself.  We're wrapping up Too Big to Run on Relationships, our series on getting your structure right as a large church. And we saved the hardest conversation for last—how do you make structural and staffing changes without blowing up your church? The Change Cycle Sequencing communication in the right order  Developing a communication plan and a care plan This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

You've got a structure on paper. You have clean reporting lanes, ownership and a healthy span of care. But the boxes that make up each role are still empty. How do you determine who goes in which seat? How do you know if someone has the leadership capacity a role requires? What happens when a role grows past the person in it? What do you do when the honest answer is that someone isn't in the right seat anymore? In this episode, the conversation shifts from charts to people, as Sean and Jonathan talk about getting the right people in the right seats.  10 years of The Unstuck Church Podcast! Clear is kind Evaluating character, chemistry & competency    This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

Most churches build structure without ever naming what they're structuring around. Pastors want good structure for really good reasons. They want communication to work. They want to catch problems before they become a crisis. They want to know nothing's falling through the cracks. And honestly, most of them want their people cared for; they don't want anybody carrying more than they should. Those are pastoral instincts—great instincts. But here's where it can go wrong. A church feels the organizational pain, and they go straight to adjusting the org chart. They restructure without ever answering the question of what the structure was supposed to serve. In this episode, Sean and Jonathan talk about a key part of structuring your church staff: who owns what? Responsibility vs. accountability Structure to the strategy, not to the history Getting the SLT right   This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

If your church is over 1,000 in attendance, you're just too big to run on relationships. At some point, the way you've always led stops scaling—not because relationships don't matter (they do) but because the ministry is now carrying more complexity than your current structure can support. This is where many churches get stuck—they don't make that transition. And if you don't get intentional about systems, roles and decision-making, you'll keep feeling the same pain: confusion, bottlenecks, burnout and frustration. Your staff is working hard, but it still feels chaotic. In this series, we're going to get really practical about how to structure around systems and strategies. "Are we overstaffed or understaffed?" That's the question we're starting with in this episode because sometimes we get the data wrong and we end up hurting the team. More people vs the right people Equipping volunteers to do ministry  Get your math right: how much staff do you actually need?   This Episode is Sponsored by Tyndale House:  If Jesus walked into your church right now, would people recognize him? We've created a personalized Savior who exists primarily to meet our needs, bless our lives, and guarantee our spots in heaven. But here's the problem. That Jesus would be unrecognizable. In the book The Missing Messiah, bestselling authors Kyle Idleman and Mark More will help your church rediscover the Jesus based on Scripture, not on culture. Plus, check out the six-session companion study guide with free access to streaming videos. Learn more at missingmessiah.com.   Join the Conversation on Social Media Follow us on X and on Instagram. Tag us at @theunstuckgroup or use #unstuckchurch.

As a church getting ready to go multisite, you might know who you are, have the right people and have a clear, documented model.  But at some point, going multisite really comes down to this: Can you fund it, and can you deliver it?  Can you actually pay for a new location so that it's sustainable for years to come? Can you re-create the main thing people show up for—the weekend experience? In the final episode of this series, Sean and Jesse break down the last two Multisite Readiness Checkpoints: Financial Strength and a Replicable Weekend Experience.  Funding a new campus for the years to come—not just at launch Replicable weekend experience: defining the "wins" Live teaching vs. video teaching   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios:  Adding a new campus to your multisite plan? If you don't have a strategy for coordinating your placemaking and wayfinding signage, maybe it's time to update across every campus. The creative and talented team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, are experts at creating placemaking signs and wayfinding markers that will tell your church's unique story and point your people in the right direction – from the moment they arrive at your campus. Learn more at plainjoe.net.   Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

A multisite model that's too complex can't be multiplied ... and a model that is only captured in your head can't be handed off. To go multisite, you need something clear enough to repeat and captured well enough to share. It's one thing to know who you are, but it's another to simplify and document it so well that someone else can actually run the same ministries and systems without the need for your constant input. In this episode, Sean and Jesse talk about what you do as a multisite church and how you do it—your Ministry Model and your Defined Systems and Strategies. Plus, Sean checks in with Amy Anderson to hear about her recovery. Pruning & prioritizing You can only replicate what's recorded  Documenting decision rights A word from Amy Anderson   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios:  Adding a new campus to your multisite plan? If you don't have a strategy for coordinating your placemaking and wayfinding signage, maybe it's time to update across every campus. The creative and talented team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, are experts at creating placemaking signs and wayfinding markers that will tell your church's unique story and point your people in the right direction – from the moment they arrive at your campus. Learn more at plainjoe.net.   Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

Multisite doesn't just stretch your building. It stretches your bench. You can have clear DNA, full buy-in and real growth and still not be ready because you don't have the leaders to pull it off. Before you launch a new location, you need to assess whether you have enough of the right leaders, healthy leaders and a deep enough volunteer bench. In this episode, we're looking at three checkpoints that focus on your team: staff leadership capacity, staff health and volunteer strength. Replicating the right leaders Building a team that trusts Raising up volunteer leaders   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios:  Adding a new campus to your multisite plan? If you don't have a strategy for coordinating your placemaking and wayfinding signage, maybe it's time to update across every campus. The creative and talented team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, are experts at creating placemaking signs and wayfinding markers that will tell your church's unique story and point your people in the right direction – from the moment they arrive at your campus. Learn more at plainjoe.net.   Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

Here's a pattern we keep seeing: more and more churches are rushing into multisite. Churches are launching campuses without doing their due diligence. And they're skipping the learning from the churches that have already gone before them—the mistakes they've made and the things worth repeating. A move of God is not a substitute for doing your homework. Because here's what we've learned over the years: The number one reason campus launches fail is that churches start too fast and too small. That's why we're beginning this new series called "What Ready-For-Multisite Looks Like." And we're kicking it off with this question: Should you even be having a multisite conversation yet?  Getting clear on DNA Organizational buy-in Evaluating your current growth   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios:  Adding a new campus to your multisite plan? If you don't have a strategy for coordinating your placemaking and wayfinding signage, maybe it's time to update across every campus. The creative and talented team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, are experts at creating placemaking signs and wayfinding markers that will tell your church's unique story and point your people in the right direction – from the moment they arrive at your campus. Learn more at plainjoe.net.   Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

We're back with another "Ask Anything" episode! How do you break through the 500 barrier? How do you decide which programs to prune? How in the world do you free up room in your middle service?! Sean and Ron Baum, a long-time consultant at The Unstuck Group and ministry leader who has served in the local church for over 30 years, answer these pressing questions and more in this episode. If you have a question for the next "Ask Anything" episode, call our voicemail line at (615) 398-9171 or send us a message on social media.    This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.    Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

The senior pastor owns vision. The ministry staff own execution. But who owns the space in between? The gap between vision and execution—the strategy, the alignment, the ability to pull things together—is where churches get stuck. And the executive pastor is the person who can close that gap. You may call this role something different in your church, but the best way to think about this role is as the integrator. Some people think the XP role is the "associate" or "the person who does the stuff the lead pastor doesn't want to do." It is so much more than that. A great executive pastor might be the rarest, most valuable person on your team. So in this episode, Sean and Jimmy dive into what only the executive pastor can do.  Heart for theology, head for organizational leadership  3 roles an XP can't delegate Leading a high-impact team   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.    Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

The job of the senior pastor is enormous.  Prepare and deliver sermons. Ensure the spiritual health of the church. Model biblical priorities. And, roughly, 400 other items. Whether it's in the written job description or not, senior pastors have too much to do. And when everything is on your plate, everything feels equally urgent. But there's a handful of things that only the lead pastor can do. And the gap between that and everything else on the to-do list is where lead pastors get stuck.  In this episode, Sean and Jimmy break down the unique role of the senior pastor—what only they can do and how to delegate everything else.  Roles the senior pastor can't delegate What the senior pastor should delegate Protecting your calendar and what only you can do   This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.    Join the Conversation on Social Media We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.