The Unstuck Church Podcast

We're back with another "Ask Anything" episode!

How do you break through the 500 barrier? How do you decide which programs to prune? How in the world do you free up room in your middle service?!

Sean and Ron Baum, a long-time consultant at The Unstuck Group and ministry leader who has served in the local church for over 30 years, answer these pressing questions and more in this episode.

If you have a question for the next "Ask Anything" episode, call our voicemail line at (615) 398-9171 or send us a message on social media.

This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios

Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

The senior pastor owns vision. The ministry staff own execution. But who owns the space in between?

The gap between vision and execution—the strategy, the alignment, the ability to pull things together—is where churches get stuck. And the executive pastor is the person who can close that gap.

You may call this role something different in your church, but the best way to think about this role is as the integrator. Some people think the XP role is the "associate" or "the person who does the stuff the lead pastor doesn't want to do." It is so much more than that.

A great executive pastor might be the rarest, most valuable person on your team. So in this episode, Sean and Jimmy dive into what only the executive pastor can do.

• Heart for theology, head for organizational leadership
• 3 roles an XP can't delegate
• Leading a high-impact team

This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios

Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

The job of the senior pastor is enormous.

Prepare and deliver sermons. Ensure the spiritual health of the church. Model biblical priorities. And, roughly, 400 other items.

Whether it's in the written job description or not, senior pastors have too much to do. And when everything is on your plate, everything feels equally urgent.

But there's a handful of things that only the lead pastor can do. And the gap between that and everything else on the to-do list is where lead pastors get stuck.

In this episode, Sean and Jimmy break down the unique role of the senior pastor—what only they can do and how to delegate everything else.

• Roles the senior pastor can't delegate
• What the senior pastor should delegate
• Protecting your calendar and what only you can do

This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios

Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

Of all the relationships in your church, there's one relationship that determines whether everything else runs smoothly or grinds to a halt—the relationship between the senior pastor and the executive pastor.

When it's healthy, the whole organization feels it. And when it's not…the whole organization feels that too. And if this relationship isn't healthy, your staff is talking about it too.

We invited Jimmy McLoud, lead pastor at First Christian Church in Canton, Ohio, and a consultant on our team, to speak into this topic. Jimmy has served in both the executive pastor role and the senior pastor role, so it's safe to say he's experienced when it comes to the relationship between these two roles.

In this new series, Sean and Jimmy are going to dig into how to clarify these two roles and strengthen the partnership between them. And in this episode, they're starting at the foundation: why is this relationship so hard to get right?

• People-focused roles vs. task-focused roles
• Understanding each other's wiring
• Doing the work only you can do

This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios

Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

Fast-growing churches don't necessarily impress us. More often than not, growth reveals the areas where churches are actually stuck. But every once in a while, we run into a church that is both growing and healthy.

City Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has seen 51% year-over-year growth. But they've experienced more than a bump in attendance. They're seeing growth in groups, serve teams, discipleship, baptisms—you name it. And if you're leading a fast-growing church, you know how rare that is.

In this episode, I sat down with Pastor Chris Freeman to talk about the remarkable growth story of City Church and how they managed to stay healthy through intentional decisions, leadership and strategic planning.

• The challenging reality of rapid growth
• Reaching the lost & discipling new believers
• The value of having leaders of leaders on your staff

This Episode is Sponsored by PlainJoe Studios

Unlock the power of story in your worship space. The creative, passionate team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, works with churches to create beautiful, engaging spaces that connect with your community. They're a team of architectural, design, and branding experts who transform worship spaces into attractive, engaging hubs for the community. Reach out to their team at PlainJoe.net and dream up the bright future of your church.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

The Q2 2026 Unstuck Church Report is here!

For this report, we are focusing on staffing trends in churches of various sizes.

In this year's survey, we asked pastors and church leaders to tell us about the biggest staffing and structure challenges their churches are facing. And it's clear that there are some big hurdles churches are working to navigate. These hurdles are real, but as many churches have shown, there's also a clear path through them. And this year, it's visible in the data.

In this episode, Sean breaks down the staffing data and trends we're seeing in churches this quarter:

• The biggest staffing challenges
• The hardest role to fill right now
• The strategy for a lean but healthy staff
• Exclusive interview with Todd Rhoades from Chemistry Staffing

This Episode is Sponsored by Chemistry Staffing

Chemistry Staffing is a church search firm helping churches across the country hire healthy pastors and ministry staff who stay. Led by experienced pastors and church leaders, we match every role across the five areas that predict long-term fit: theology, culture, personality, skills, and chemistry.

From senior pastors to worship and operations roles, plus coaching, compensation, and succession support, we make your next hire easier.

Learn more at chemistrystaffing.com.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

"Where do we find great staff leaders? We need them, and we need them now."

If your only approach to finding staff leaders is to hire fully formed, fully capable leaders from the outside whenever you need them, you will always be reactive.

So far in this series, we've talked about the importance of developing your volunteers and volunteer leaders. But all of that volunteer development work, as important as it is, only pays off long-term if you know how to develop your staff leaders well, too.

In this episode, Sean and Jonathan talk about developing and equipping your staff leaders to do the work God has called them to do.

• Identifying the leadership capacity of every person on your team
• Intentional development toward the highest level they're wired for
• Building a staff culture where leadership development isn't just a one-time event

This Episode is Sponsored by The Church Lawyers

Every church needs trusted legal counsel, but finding attorneys who truly understand ministry can be challenging.

The Church Lawyers specialize in church and nonprofit law, serving thousands of organizations nationwide. From by-laws and governance, to IRS compliance and employment matters, The Church Lawyers provide the expertise you need with sound legal advice giving you peace of mind.

Discover practical free resources and affordable membership options at TheChurchLawyers.com.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

You probably have people serving with more leadership capacity than you know, and you may have volunteers who have taken on more leadership than they actually have capacity for.

Often, churches hand leadership responsibility to volunteers who don't have the capacity for it. Or they fail to develop the people who do have leadership capacity because they're spreading attention evenly across everyone instead of investing deeply in a few.

The problem isn't a lack of leaders. It's a lack of a system to develop them.

In this episode, Sean and Jonathan break down what it actually looks like to intentionally develop volunteer leaders through a pipeline:

• The evidences of leadership capacity
• The three levels of volunteer leadership to have in your pipeline
• Auditing your volunteers and putting your framework into practice

This Episode is Sponsored by The Church Lawyers

Every church needs trusted legal counsel, but finding attorneys who truly understand ministry can be challenging.

The Church Lawyers specialize in church and nonprofit law, serving thousands of organizations nationwide. From by-laws and governance, to IRS compliance and employment matters, The Church Lawyers provide the expertise you need with sound legal advice giving you peace of mind.

Discover practical free resources and affordable membership options at TheChurchLawyers.com.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

You need great volunteers if you want to hire internally. But to develop volunteers, you need more great staff…

It can feel like an endless cycle. But it doesn't have to be.

Trying to find leaders as quickly as possible leads to high turnover and hard conversations. But when you develop leaders with a sustainable volunteer leadership pipeline, leaders are identified earlier and developed more intentionally, which ultimately results in a healthier, higher performing church team.

In this new series, we'll share a practical, repeatable pathway for increasing leadership capacity. We'll talk through clear levels of leadership: strengthening your volunteer bench, developing volunteer leaders and equipping staff leaders.

Today, we're starting at the foundation—the volunteer bench itself—because you have to know how to fill the bench and how to identify leadership capacity before you can develop great volunteer leaders.

This Episode is Sponsored by The Church Lawyers

Every church needs trusted legal counsel, but finding attorneys who truly understand ministry can be challenging.

The Church Lawyers specialize in church and nonprofit law, serving thousands of organizations nationwide. From by-laws and governance, to IRS compliance and employment matters, The Church Lawyers provide the expertise you need with sound legal advice giving you peace of mind.

Discover practical free resources and affordable membership options at TheChurchLawyers.com.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.

We're back with another "Ask Anything" episode!

Sean invited Ron Baum, a long-time consultant at The Unstuck Group and ministry leader who has served in the local church for over 30 years, to answer some questions that YOU, our listeners, have sent in.

We have some fun questions to address today—a few about space and adding service times and several about strategic planning and getting traction.

If you've got a question for the next "Ask Anything" episode, call our voicemail line at (615) 398-9171 or send us a message on social media.

This Episode is Sponsored by Planning Center:

Planning Center is software designed to help churches help people. With multiple tools in one connected platform, you can stay organized, communicate with your team and create meaningful ways to connect with your congregation. Start for free at planningcenter.com—pay only for what you need, and cancel anytime.

Join the Conversation on Social Media

• We use hashtag #unstuckchurch on X and on Instagram.