Tag Archive - consulting

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Celebrating Wins from 2016

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Every year at this time it’s common to look back and review the wins from the previous year. This is particularly timely as the leadership team for The Unstuck Group gathers in the coming days to refresh our vision and action plan for 2017 and beyond.

Here’s what we discovered in looking back at 2016. There’s a lot to celebrate and thank God for here:

  • We had the opportunity to serve over 75 churches by helping them through a health assessment, development of an action plan and reviewing their staffing and structure.
  • We added Blake Stanley, Lee Button, Gabe Kolstad and Jacinta Livingston to our team. That now helps position us to serve churches in the United Kingdom and the Northwest here in the United States.
  • We traveled to 30 states, Canada and the Costa Rica to help churches get unstuck.
  • The churches we served ranged in size from 65 to over 8,500 in attendance. In case you’re curious, the average size church we serve is 1,082 people.
  • We worked in 18 different denominations. That included extending our initiative supporting denominations that want to resource their healthiest churches.
  • We engaged 64 leaders in coaching networks to help them take their next steps in their leadership.
  • We rolled out a new multisite service to help churches that are “MultiStuck.” The service is designed to help these churches clarify their ministry model and their multisite strategy to effectively lead one church in multiple locations.
  • We launched The Leadership Unstuck Podcast where we share relatable stories to inspire hope and give practical steps to get your church unstuck.
  • We released a new edition of Vital Signs: Why Church Health Matters and 14 Ways to Measure It. This resource now includes benchmarks from the analysis of over 200 churches.

You are allowed to cheer along with the Unstuck team as we celebrate these wins. In addition to that, though, we would appreciate your prayers as we continue our mission to help churches experience health and growth. We continue to strive to help more churches get unstuck.

I encourage you to take some time yourself to thank God and celebrate the wins of the last year before you dive headfirst into everything ahead.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Inviting You to Take the Unstuck Challenge

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

While most pastors are preparing for Christmas Eve services, wise pastors know there’s another big day right around the corner:

January 1, 2017.

The start of a new year in which to make new changes, build new ministries, and ultimately reach new people.

I’d venture to bet there’s a list of changes you’ve wanted to make at your church for a while.

Perhaps you’ve known your worship services need to be updated. Maybe your discipleship “pathway” really feels more like a ministry maze. It could be that you’re looking to add another service — or eliminate one. To engage more leaders — or develop the ones on your team.

If you’re like most pastors, you knew these changes were needed a while back.

Maybe you’ve known this entire year but couldn’t quite get the ball rolling. Thankfully, a new year comes with a new opportunity…

2017 could be the year when everything…starting with the right thing…changes.

The difference will be in how you start.

This January, we’re inviting pastors from around the world to join us for The Unstuck Change Challenge.

It’s a 15-day journey to kickstart the ministry year you’ve been dreaming about. We’ll help you clarify what you need to change and why, get the right people around the table, and develop a real plan for communication and action. Oh, and it’s completely free.

By taking the challenge, you’ll receive daily emails full of the following:

  • Inspirational videos on the 5 aspects of leading change
  • Planning frameworks to help you make better and faster decisions
  • Frequent reminders that it’s time to take action — because we all need an occasional kick in the pants!

“So, you’re really not going to charge me for this?”

I’ve seen new year kick-off programs cost anywhere from $30 to $300. But here’s my opinion: The real cost of change is the time you put into creating it. If you’re willing to invest your time, I don’t want anything else to get in the way.

But first, I should warn you…

This challenge is not for the complacent or comfortable. I’m not willing to sit idle while churches maintain status quo. My aim is to challenge and inspire you toward real action that makes real impact. There’s too much at stake in your community to not start the year right.

If you’re a church leader who has been thinking about making real change — the kind of change that helps more people meet Jesus — sign up below and high-five the closest person nearby. Because 2017 just became the year when everything…starting with the right thing…changes.

So follow this link to get start 2017 off right with the Unstuck Challenge!

Posted in Leadership

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A Church’s Health Cannot Be Determined By Its Size

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

It is easy to become obsessed with church growth. Attendance is a number we can quickly see, measure, and compare. But we should never mistake attendance for more than what it is: a measure of the number of people attending, not the overall health of the church.

A church’s health cannot be determined by its size alone.

The health of your church should be more fully understood through things like:

  • The level of participation in biblical community
  • The degree to which people are using their gifts to serve
  • The generosity of your congregation
  • Whether or not you are reaching unchurched people
  • How well you’re connecting with young families in your community

And those are things you can actually track. I think we get hung up on attendance because we all want to be about leading more people to Jesus. But determining how to measure spiritual next steps and real life-change is a deeper conversation.

On Wednesday, November 2, Tony Morgan and The Unstuck Group will share a better way to measure church health in the free webinar, Vital Signs: How Healthy Churches Think Beyond Attendance Alone.

The team will share The Unstuck Group’s most recent research on church health built around 14 metrics that together give a fuller picture than attendance alone. And, they’ll talk about how to use these metrics make better decisions.

Click Here to Register for the Vital Signs Webinar

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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The 4 Phase Planning Process for Church Leaders

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Few churches have a great planning process. Most don’t even have a good planning process, if they have a process at all.

I’m not sure why this isn’t a bigger priority. Planning is certainly biblical. I don’t find many pastors who would really take aim at that fact. You’d have to throw out a lot of Proverbs, if you decided to.

Everyone likes to talk about stewardship and the stewardship of Kingdom resources, which involves a lot of wisdom and planning. So, if I have to put it in this context, learning a great planning process is good stewardship of Kingdom resources.

At the Unstuck Group we’ve been helping churches with strategic planning for quite a few years now, and we’ve seen a lot of what works and what doesn’t. We believe in the process the team at The Unstuck Group uses. We believe it’s a great planning process because it incorporates four key elements.

The 4 Phase Planning Process

4 Phase Process

Wise planning should always include:

1) Assessment – Understanding where you are now.

You should start with a good understanding of where you are now. We believe an outside perspective is always going to give you the best result. (We even bring in an outside facilitator when we do strategic planning for The Unstuck Group.) It’s also important to look at key metrics and not just rely on your opinions about the health of your church. Your opinions are heavily influenced by tradition and emotion, whether you want to believe it or not.

2) Planning – Defining where you are going and how you will get there.

Your plans should clarify and focus your vision, blending together the strategic, operational and financial aspects of your ministry. Involving ministry leaders from all of your departments brings alignment and will help you prevent ministry silos. Everyone will get on the same page about what you’re trying to accomplish, and what the wins are.

3) Structure – Determining the right form for your organization.

With a clear vision in place and core strategies outlined, you can easily see gaps in your staff team. For your plans to be realized, you will need to have the right people in the right roles. You will need a structure that creates accountability and supports the development of your staff.

4) Action  – Monitoring how you are doing and identifying what needs to change.

Plans that never see action are worthless. Your planning process needs to incorporate timelines, deadlines and evaluation. It needs to be a living, breathing thing that gets refreshed regularly as God leads your church into the future.

With a great planning process, you should be making wise decisions based on honest evaluations. You should be building the right team based on your plan. You should be making budget decisions based on your plan. You should be providing accountability for the execution of your plan. You should be routinely identifying what’s working and what isn’t.

And you shouldn’t feel stuck.

The Unstuck Group’s process walks churches through all four of these phases. And we continually receive stories from pastors who have learned this process and are seeing breakthrough. We’d love to share more about how it works with you. Follow this link to learn more about how it works.

This post was originally published on Tony Morgan’s blog. Tony serves as the Chief Strategic Officer at the Unstuck Group.  You can keep up with Tony at his blog by following this link.

Posted in Leadership

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New Multisite Coaching Network Opens this Spring

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

What do you want to know about Multisite Leadership? This spring, we’re launching a brand new coaching network just for leaders at churches planning to launch or expand their multisite strategy.

Here are some of the topics we will cover:

  • Refining You Multisite Model
  • Clarifying How You Staff, Structure and Operate
  • Campus Constants
  • Best Practices for Launching a New Campus
  • Managing the Tension Between Central Services and Campus Leadership

You can find all of the details at theunstuckgroup.com/coaching, but here are 3 things you should know now:

  1. This experience will be designed with lead pastors, executive pastors, campus pastors and multisite directors in mind.

  2. We’re inviting you to participate in teams of two, as we believe these principles will have the most impact in your church if they are fully embraced by the senior leaders.

  3. Space is limited to 6 churches, so you’ll want to apply asap.

Posted in Leadership
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