Is there a more helpless feeling than being stuck? You’ve been there. Your car is stuck in snow or mud. No budging. No moving. On a deserted road. What do you do? Twenty years ago, you got out and walked to the nearest phone booth, house or business. Today, you just pull your phone out of your pocket and call a tow truck. Problem solved. Makes you wonder how we ever survived before cell phones.

Church statistics are tricky. Depending on who’s measuring the results and running the numbers, it’s not unusual for us to hear different research companies give us varying, even contrasting, views of church. Both views will even be presented as fact. But one statistic has remained remarkably consistent, regardless of what organization does the researching: 80 percent of churches are plateaued or in decline. They’re stuck. And for pastors, there’s no more helpless feeling than knowing your church is stuck.

In his newest release, When Your Church Feels Stuck: 7 Unavoidable Questions Every Leader Must Answer, Chris Sonksen throws a lifeline to every pastor who doesn’t know what to do to move the church off high center. Sonksen, founding pastor of South Hills Church and Church BOOM, literally takes his church coaching process and puts it in a book. As if he were in the room with your staff team, Sonksen walks you through the exercises you can use to determine where you need to go and how to get there.

His seven-step process includes identifying your mission, strategy, values, metrics, team alignment, culture and services. If you’ll read the book, and better yet, get one for your whole team, you’ll grow together and immediately have tools to get unstuck. If you’re stuck and don’t know what to do next, ask for help by getting this book, and let Chris Sonksen show you what’s possible.

Book Reviewed:

Chris Sonksen, When Your Church Feels Stuck: 7 Unavoidable Questions Every Leader Must Answer (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2017).

For more on this topic, listen to the Influence podcast featuring Chris Sonksen.