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One of my favorite 80's movies is The Karate Kid. It's a story about a kid named Daniel who moves to California, meets a girl and soon after, meets her karate trained ex-boyfriend.  After getting beat up a few times, he meets Mr. Miyagi, a highly skilled Japanese martial artist.  Mr. Miyagi teaches Daniel about life, love, honor, and yes (my favorite part), karate. In short, Mr. Miyagi developed Daniel from ordinary to extraordinary. In the world of church, that’s  the definition of leadership development; helping people discover  and use the extraordinary gifts and talents God has placed inside of them.   Developing leaders is always a hot topic. It comes up at nearly every church The Unstuck Group works with and showed up as a top trend in a recent Leadership Network study. I believe there are several reasons leadership development is always a front burner conversation, so I wanted to take a moment and share three of those reasons to help pastors and ...

Even if you have no idea what Christmas looks like today, it’s not too late to put something on the whiteboard and start brainstorming. Planning can be a struggle for pastors. Especially when it comes to Christmas. Last month, I spoke with several pastors who had not yet had a conversation about Christmas (which is right around the corner). I totally get it. I remember the days as a lead pastor. Every Monday morning, we are reminded that Sunday is coming… again. Unfortunately a lack of planning can result in missed opportunities to impact people with the gospel. Late planning usually means poor planning, which leads to frustration among volunteers that are trying to pull off last minutes ideas (that are under-resourced and unorganized). In the blink of an eye, Thanksgiving will be over, which is when many pastors start thinking about Christmas. If that’s your normal planning rhythm, keep reading. Having early conversations about Christmas can result in gospel impact. It...

For most people, the church has always been a symbol of peace; a safe place for people to gather and worship. That has drastically changed over the last few years. It is heartbreaking to hear stories of violence that destroy the lives of innocent people. When I work with different  pastors,  these stories sometimes come up and security becomes a part of the conversation. Questions like these are usually asked, “What does security look like in a church?, Who qualifies? What are the liabilities? Do we really need a security team?”   A few years ago, I asked my brother to come to our church and speak about the importance of church security. My brother served in the Air Force for four years, followed by several years in the Secret Service under President Bush. After 9/11 happened, he became a Federal Air Marshal and spent the next several years flying around the world. He went through extensive training on how to deal with terroristic violence. One thing that I ...

Recently I had a conversation with a pastor that I have been coaching for over a year. Over the course of the last several months, he and his team created plans, landed a focused vision and made a lot of significant changes. During our last conversation he shared some of the discouragement that he and his team were experiencing. He said, “We’re a little frustrated because, despite the changes we have made, we still haven’t seen numerical growth .” Matter of fact, the average attendance of his church was   exactly what it was one year ago.  Understanding growth principles  can be  helpful, especially when you're gaging the success of planning and execution by the increase of attendance.  When I was a kid,  I remember helping my grandfather plant his garden. Each day I would go there expecting to find fresh  vegetables. It didn't take long to understand that growth has a process and my desire to see it now did not speed it up. The same is true...

I love seeing churches get Unstuck. Not very long ago, I received this email from a pastor after facilitating the Unstuck Strategic Process at their church.  Chad, I can't thank you enough for being willing to work with us on a personal level. You brought a big process, the strategic planning retreat, to [our] church in the middle of Pennsylvania. The result, our people are now motivated to make a difference for Christ with their lives in this area and even beyond. And, our planning team is convinced God is getting ready to do great things through us for His glory! Thanks again for getting us off on the right foot and being willing to walk along side of us for the next 12 months to help with accountability, follow through and focus on the goal we believe God has given to us. Receiving emails like this is my favorite part about working with The Unstuck Group. However, not every email is so positive. Sometimes they are just the opposite . When teams fai...

No one enjoys firing people. If you do, you're on the wrong side of the desk. Firing people is never fun, but sometimes necessary. There will be times we hire the wrong person. Other times an organization outgrows a staff person's skill set and they aren't able to perform at a higher level.  Having the wrong person on staff can be detrimental, because a staff must function as one team. This is especially true in church. It takes a lot of effort and teamwork to create a church that impacts people with the gospel. And yes, there are times that churches, just like secular organizations, have to let people go. The struggle is, most church staff are tied together relationally and formed around Jesus and ministry, which can really make firing feel very icky.  While the primary focus of most pastors is (and should be) vision and teaching, the church has a business side that must be managed and monitored. Part of that business...