Tag Archive - grow

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[Free Webinar] The Unstuck Church: Why Churches Grow, Thrive, Decline & Die

We’re less than a week away from the in-store date for the new book, The Unstuck Church by Tony Morgan. If you haven’t already checked out the pre-order perks, there are just a couple of more days to get those extras.

Most churches start, grow, thrive, decline and eventually end, but we believe God’s plan for our churches is that they grow in maturity towards a peak of sustained health.

Do you know where your church is today in its life cycle?

On Thursday, May 25, Tony Morgan, Amy Anderson and Gabe Kolstad will host a free, live webinar to help you answer questions like:

  • Do all churches hit all phases of the life cycle?
  • Where do growing churches typically get stuck moving toward sustained health?
  • What does sustained health look like?
  • What are the early warning signs a church has entered the maintenance season and started to decline?
  • How can we confirm what phase our church is in today?

Space is limited and filling up! Register now to join us.

Register Now


Posted in Leadership

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Why I’m the Lid to Growth at my Church

One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that it’s usually the Sr. Leadership Team of a church that is the ultimate lid to growth. Many of them don’t see it and most of them wouldn’t agree with what I’m saying, but it’s true. Whether or not the Sr. Leadership Team of a church is willing to let go of authority, ministry decision making, and truly empower and lead through others can make or break a church.

Early in our multisite journey at Sun Valley we hadn’t developed the Campus Pastor role or team yet. So, like in most growing organizations, that meant double duty. I was serving as the Campus Pastor at our original location and serving as the Executive Pastor at the same time. I love leading teams and coaching church staff members, so it was really a fun season. But before long it became apparent that if I didn’t let go of leading the Lead Team on our original campus I would become the lid to growth at Sun Valley. I wouldn’t have the bandwidth to provide the church what it needed. So as much as I loved leading with that team, I had to let go of that team and build a Team of Campus Pastors to lead the campuses through.

Over time as we added more campuses and we expanded our Executive Team another point of tension came along. Again, I had to let go of leading a team that I loved leading with. I had to let someone else lead the Campus Pastors so I could provide leadership to the Executive Team and Central Service Team at the church. I had to give up something I loved, leading with a great team of Campus Pastors, for something else that I loved even more, seeing the whole church continue to take ground and move forward.

I failed to mention that along the way I also had to let go of teaching. For years I was on the Teaching Team at Sun Valley and taught about 20% of the time at our weekend worship services. I’m more of a leader that can communicate than I am a communicator that can lead if that makes any sense and we have some absolutely fantastic communicators on the team. For the church to grow what was needed from me was more strategic leadership and less teaching. And so once again I found myself letting go of something that I love for something else that I love even more.

This same scenario has played its way out in different ways over and over again the past 20 years of ministry. The secret of leadership that no one ever tells you is that the higher you go in leadership the more you lose. There’s no going up without giving up. But if you’re made for it, it’s worth it.

Every time I’ve given up my personal preference for what’s best for the church instead of what’s best for me the church has grown. And every time I’ve been reluctant to do the same, the church has been held back. When I do what I do best, the one thing where I bring the greatest value to the church, the church takes ground and I find fulfillment. When I do what’s best for the church not only does the church win, but I win too. When I don’t, I’m embarrassed to say it, but I hold the church back from everything Jesus has dreamed up for it to be.

And I imagine the same is true of you.


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing, Testimonial

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What to do when you find yourself Doing Everything

Have you ever felt like you were working as hard as you possibly could and still at the end of the day were left with a pile of work that didn’t get done? Ever feel like everyone was coming to you for you to weigh in on every decision that needed to be made? Ever feel like what you thought was just going to be a busy season has turned into a normal way of work?

Pain points like this can be a gift because pain is an indicator that something is wrong and needs to change. The good news is things can change. When you experience this kind of pain it’s time to ask yourself the following questions:

Have I Hit a Capacity Lid?

The first question to ask is, “What am I doing that is contributing to this?” Great leaders always start with themselves, not others. They take personal ownership for where they are and how they got there. Is there a new skill you need to learn or a new approach you need to take? Do you need to increase your capacity and break through that lid?

What Needs to Change?

Do you need to learn to delegate more tasks to others? Do you need to empower others to make decisions and build strategies that get the team to designed outcomes? Are you doing too much as a high level generalist and it’s time to narrow your focus and allow other specialists to do a better job at what you were doing an okay job at? In other words, often times this kind of ongoing experience can be an indicator that it’s time for a growing church to restructure.

What Does the Church Need from Me?

Where do you bring the most value to the church? Where do your gifts, abilities, and experiences advance the vision the most? Are you contributing greatly in that area? The thing that most people don’t realize is that as the church grows the church actually needs something different from its leaders along the way, not all that dissimilar to parenting.

What Do I Want to Do?

Of all the things you find yourself doing right now, what do you want to keep doing? What would you give away to others to do if you could? Is what you’re doing right now moving you closer to the vision or further away? And do you want to go where that vision is leading you?


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Multisite Webinar

A healthy multisite strategy can help you lead more people in your region to Christ. But launching new campuses can quickly turn organizational cracks into significant gaps.

What steps can you take to avoid getting stuck on your multisite journey?

In this free webinar, Tony Morgan will host Gavin Adams, Paul Alexander and Tammy Kelley for a conversation about the four most common mistakes The Unstuck Group has seen churches make when they launch campuses… and practical ways to avoid getting #multistuck yourself.

Wednesday, March 15 at 1pm EST
45 min. webinar +  15 min. live Q&A

Follow this link to register

When you register for the webinar, we’ll give you a free copy of our guide, 10 Multisite Readiness Checkpoints, a resource we share with all of our multisite consulting and coaching clients.

TONY MORGAN
Chief Strategic Officer,
The Unstuck Group

For 14 years, Tony served on the senior leadership teams at West Ridge Church (Dallas, GA), NewSpring Church (Anderson, SC) and Granger Community Church (Granger, IN). He’s written several books and articles that have been featured with the Willow Creek Association, Catalyst and Pastors.com.

 

GAVIN ADAMS
Lead Pastor,
Woodstock City Church

Gavin serves as the Lead Pastor of Woodstock City Church, a campus location of North Point Ministries. He is a Ministry Consultant with The Unstuck Group, and writes to help others make leadership and faith transferable at GavinAdams.com.

 

PAUL ALEXANDER
Executive Pastor,
Sun Valley Community Church

Paul has more than 20 years experience serving in the local church, the last 15 of which have been on the Sr. Leadership Teams of some of the nation’s leading mega-churches. Currently, Paul is serving as the Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, a large multi-site church located in the Phoenix area.

 

TAMMY KELLEY
Creative Arts Pastor,
Christ Community Church

Tammy has over 20 years of ministry experience serving in key leadership roles at Ginghamsburg Church, Willow Creek Community Church, Vanderbloemen Search Group, and in her current role as Creative Arts Pastor at Christ Community Church. Holding an executive MBA and practical church experience, she brings a good blend of business and arts to the team.

Posted in Leadership, Testimonial

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It’s Time to Grow the Multisite Capacity of your Church

Currently there are more than 8,000 multisite churches across America and more than 1,600 mega churches (churches of more than 2,000 people in weekly attendance). While both are growing, the multisite church movement has outpaced the mega church movement in America. What was once seen as only a Band-Aid strategy for space issues at mega churches has become a vehicle for growth in local churches of all kinds and all sizes (the average size a church goes multisite is around 850-1200). “Multi” doesn’t mean “Mega” anymore.

If your church is considering going multisite or stuck somewhere along the way these articles will help you move in the right direction! I’ve been a part of and writing about the Multisite Movement for the past 5 years and I’ve compiled 20 of my most popular articles on Mutisite Church Leadership for you here. Hope it’s helpful!

Why Going Multisite wont’ Fix your Church

I’m excited about churches growing and reaching new people with the Gospel. But one trend I’ve observed about the multisite movement concerns me. 80% of churches in America are stuck or in decline and a growing number of them are looking to multisite as the silver bullet to fix their “stuckness.” Here’s why I’m concerned…

Is your Church Ready to go Multisite?

Many churches are just jumping into the deep end of the pool and figuring this multisite thing out as they go. While you can do that, I’d suggest a better way to ensure a successful launch is to develop your strategy ahead of time. If you church is considering going multisite this next year I’d encourage your Senior Leadership Team work through these 10 multisite readiness checkpoints.

Campus Constants for Multisite Churches

Feel free to learn from this and adapt it for your context. We’ve found that this document along with our leadership distinctives and “playbooks” developed by each Ministry Development Team member for each of their ministry areas has really helped us define, stay on track, and provide clarity to our multisite model.

8 Keys to Defining your Multisite Strategy

Many churches are just jumping into the deep end of the pool and figuring this multisite thing out as they go. While you can do that, I’d suggest that a stronger way to launch and continue launching campuses is to nail down your strategy as much as you can ahead of time. While there a lot of models and variations of models to choose from there are 8 keys to developing an effective multisite strategy that I’d encourage you to wrestle with before you launch your first multisite campus.

5 Big Questions to Answer Before you go Multisite

Your church may be considering going multisite. If so, that’s exciting news and I’d love to hear about it! But before you do here are 5 big questions you need to answer before you take the multisite plunge.

Why 20 Large Churches went…didn’t go…and still might go Multisite

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit in a room full of over 20 Executive Pastors. These incredible men serve at various large churches across America ranging in size from 750 to over 6,000 in weekend attendance. Of the many issues and subjects that were tackled through out the week, one that we ended up drilling down on for considerable time was the Multisite Church movement that’s grown legs over the last decade

5 Differences between a Multisite and a Church Plant

In the past 24 years of existence Sun Valley (the church I get to serve at) has been a part of planting more than 25 churches and in the past 2 years has gone multisite moving from 1 campus to five, with more coming in the future. One of the things we’ve discovered along the way is that there are significant differences between church planting and going multisite. Here’s just a few…

Managing the Tension between Culture and Control in a Multisite Church

When you break it down, there are only two core approaches to multisite alignment. You can either lead through culture or you can lead through control. Which approach is best for your multisite team? Understanding their five differences can help you decide:

6 Keys to Selecting your Next Multisite Campus

The multisite movement isn’t going away anytime soon. A 2014 exhaustive study conducted by Leadership Network found that there were more than 8,000 multisite churches across America and that number has continued to grow. In fact of the 100 largest churches in America only 12 are not multisite churches. If your church is thinking about embracing a multisite strategy here are a few things you should consider when selecting your next location.

If it’s Not on a Screen it’s Not Multisite

Being a part of leading a large multisite church, I’m frequently asked by church leaders about my thoughts on various multisite models and how we do it at the church I’m a part of. In this post I’m going to answer that question (to an extent) for everyone reading this article and here’s a little warning, I’m going to say it in a bit of a straight forward matter of fact manner. Here’s the way I look at it, and I reserve the right to be wrong…“If it’s not on a screen, it’s not a multisite.”

I’d like to invite you to participate in the next Multisite Coaching Network offered by the Unstuck Group.

Learn to more effectively lead a growing, multisite church. This 7-month, collaborative coaching experience includes 3 gatherings in Atlanta, 2 exclusive webinars, and 2 one-on-one coaching calls.

For more information and to get your application in to reserve your spot in the next network follow this link!

CLICK BELOW TO GET THE OTHER 10 MULTISITE CHURCH LEADERSHIP ARTICLES!
Continue Reading…


Posted in Leadership
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