Book review: The Unstuck Church

May 27, 2018

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As a new pastor, I was given a set of cassette tapes which told me exactly what I wanted to hear.  It was music to my ears to hear from a superstar pastor that if I study the Bible all week and pause a few times to teach it, my church would flourish.

It worked for the pastor who produced the tapes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. 

“…I’ve seen many dead and declining churches led by pastors with great wisdom who were very capable preachers. But they couldn’t lead. In each of these instances, what was missing was leadership. One of the common characteristics of declining churches is that they lack strong leadership” (p.18).

The gaping hole in my ministry, I eventually discovered, was leadership. Churches need it desperately. If pastors don’t supply it, someone else will and the results are usually disappointing.

Churches need leadership at every stage in the organizational life cycle.  

Tony Morgan gives us a tremendous leadership tool in Unstuck Church: Equipping Churches to Experience Sustained Health.This is not primarily for churches on the downside of the life cycle. The experienced church consultant shows church leaders whose congregations are at any point in their histories, how they can help their churches become more effective at making disciples. 

Morgan’s seven stages are similar to what you may have heard before:

A Launch Stage (the beginning of the life cycle)

A Momentum Growth Stage (on the way up the life cycle)

A Strategic Growth Stage (further up the life cycle)

Sustained Health (the pinnacle of the life cycle)

Maintenance (the beginning of the descent)

Preservation (further down the slope)

Life Support (ready to close its doors)

Here are a few more takeaways from Unstuck Church to whet your appetite for this book: 

• Move Bible studies and Sunday School classes to some time other than Sunday morning. “Growing churches maximize the use of their space and volunteers for reaching new people on Sunday morning. After all, that’s when new people are most likely to attend a service” (p.46) 

• Even healthy systems, methods and structures need to change over time.“If you’re not careful…following the rules…can become the focus over accomplishing the mission and vision of the church” (p.76)

• The size of the church has nothing to do with where it might be on the life cycle.  “There are some very large churches in the maintenance phase. Some know it and some do not” (p.119)

• There is danger in the otherwise healthy practice of hiring from within.“Without fresh perspectives from the outside, staff teams tend to do the same thing they’ve always done and hope for different results”  (p.121)

This is practical material that leaders can put to use right away, by themselves, with their leadership teams, church boards or in their pastor cluster groups. I envision pastors reading the book, telling the group at which stage their church seems to be “stuck” and sharing with the group what they’re going to do to get it “unstuck.” Discussion, prayer and accountability would round out the process.  

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