The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast CNLP 140: Tony Morgan on Discovering What Stage Your Church Is At In Its Lifecycle
May 16, 2017
Tony Morgan, leadership consultant and founder of The Unstuck Group, helps churches get healthier and grow. He walks through a seven-stage church lifecycle model. He contrasts launch, momentum, strategic growth, maintenance, preservation, and life support. He explains why churches plateau, how systems beat lone-hero leadership, and where to look to relaunch and regain health.
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Seven Phase Church Lifecycle Model
- Church lifecycles usually follow seven phases from launch to life support and explain why churches get stuck at different points.
- Tony Morgan derived this from working with 200 churches and synthesizing models from Aubrey Malphurs, Les McKeown, and Tom Patterson.
Make Growth Repeatable With Systems
- Move from momentum growth to strategic growth by building repeatable strategies, systems, and a leadership team rather than relying on personality or gut.
- This shift requires leaders to empower others and document processes so success can be replicated beyond the founder.
Keep Vision Above Systems
- Prioritize vision and mission over systems to avoid sliding from strategic growth into maintenance and bureaucracy.
- Keep taking calculated risks even at sustained health so the church stays outward-focused and adaptive.
