The Unstuck Church Podcast

Latest Episodes:

How to Hire & Manage for Your Church Culture - Episode 471 Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

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.

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You Get What You Tolerate - Episode 470 Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Defining Your Church Culture - Episode 469 Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Mistakes Churches Make With Their Physical Space ft. Phil Taylor From PlainJoe Studios - Episode 468 Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

How To Make Structural & Staffing Changes - Episode 467 Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Are the Right People in the Right Seats? - Episode 466 Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Who Owns What? - Episode 465 Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Are we Overstaffed or Understaffed? - Episode 464 Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

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.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

Can We Fund & Deliver Multisite? - Episode 463 Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

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.

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We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

Can We Reproduce What We Do? - Episode 462 Aug 19, 2026

Show notes

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.