Tony Morgan was a prolific writer over the last several decades, especially with his popular blog tonymorganlive.com, which was eventually merged into the articles on theunstuckgroup.com, as well as through his books, like The Unstuck Church.
As we reflect and celebrate his life, we wanted to share a round-up of the top 10 most-read articles he produced on topics of church health, growth, and leadership. His characteristic snark comes through in some of these (he was also really into lists), and so does his overwhelming love for Jesus and for the church.
These ten all have had staying power, and continue to rack up thousands of views each month even years after he published them. See if you remember any of these posts… or discover his wisdom for the first time.
- 12 Reasons Why Your Church Doesn’t Produce Spiritual Growth
- Tony originally wrote this article back in 2012. Over a decade later, so many of these findings still explain why churches are struggling to disciple people in today’s current ministry landscape.
- 11 Questions Church Leaders Should Be Asking
- Leaders are humble enough to know that they don’t have all the answers. Leaders ask questions. Here are 11 questions that church leaders should be asking and some of Tony’s thoughts to go with them.
- 10 Easy Steps to Split Your Church
- Churches are innocently making decisions today that will likely be quite damaging in the long run. In this article, Tony listed 10 crazy things he’d seen churches do in his 25 years of working in ministry.
- 7 Biblical Qualifications of Church Leaders: Where is Your Gap?
- Leaders are held to a higher standard. This brings us to a key question: Who is qualified to lead in our churches?
- Programs, Paths and Healthy Church Growth
- Churches experiencing the most healthy growth tend to have a discipleship approach in the form of a path. By contrast, many of the churches that are in decline have an overwhelming number of programs, but no cohesive path that helps people learn which steps to take and when.
- The 5 Most Common Core Issues Churches Face Today
- When our team works with a church on strategic planning, the church pinpoints several “core issues” they believe are the most important things holding them back from being the church God has called them to be. Here are the top 5 most common core issues we see. And a bonus shout-out to this post for using the words “common core” during a time when that style of math was controversial. I don’t know if Tony meant to do that or not, but it probably helped this post go viral back when it was first published.
- Understanding the 7 Phases of a Church’s Life Cycle
- Most churches start, grow, thrive, decline and eventually end. Tony didn’t believe that was God’s plan for the church.
- How Much Should Churches Spend on Their Church Staff?
- Ministry is all about people reaching people and disciples making disciples. Because of that, it should be no surprise that the largest financial investment most churches make is on people, specifically the church staff. But how much exactly should churches spend on their staff?
- The Ultimate Guide to Church Staffing
- In this guide, Tony unpacked how to evaluate your current church staffing structure and identify the steps needed to build a healthy and high-performing team to fulfill the mission of your church.
- Effective Multisite Ministry: The Ultimate Guide for Multisite Church Strategy
- In this guide, Tony helped you get clarity around these key questions and walk through the necessary steps and best practices related to launching an effective multisite campus.
We’ll miss the way he had with words, but we’re thankful for all of these treasures he left with us. And we believe they will continue to help pastors develop their ability to lead unstuck churches well into the future.
