Future-Ready Staff Teams for 2026: Culture & Clarity for the Next Season with Paul Alexander

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Future-Ready Staff Teams for 2026: Culture & Clarity for the Next Season

Podcast: unSeminary Podcast
Host: Rich Birch
Guest: Paul Alexander, Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Church
Release Date: January 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into how church leaders can build staff teams that are both healthy and high-performing heading into 2026. Drawing heavily on the results of a recent national executive pastor survey, Rich Birch and guest Paul Alexander explore practical strategies for navigating staff challenges—specifically around staff health, organizational structure, morale, and leadership development. Paul brings candid insights both from Sun Valley, one of America’s fastest-growing multisite churches, and his years consulting with The Unstuck Group.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Sun Valley’s Growth & Multisite Approach

• Context Setting: Sun Valley Church has grown from a single campus to six physical locations (plus prison and online campuses).
  • Paul: “We originally went multi site because we had to go multisite. … If we’re going to obey Jesus, we don’t have an option.” [03:29]

Major Staff Tensions Emerging for 2026

• National Survey Results:
  • Nearly 1 in 3 executive pastors cite staff-related issues as a primary pressure point for 2026.
    • Staff health, morale, succession, leadership, and development pipelines are top concerns. [04:23]
• Culture as the “Lid” on Progress: Churches may have clear vision and strategies, but poor staff culture and unhealthy team structures are the limits on real progress.
  • Paul: “The lid is the culture of the team and the team culture and the team structure. What’s holding them back from going where Jesus wants them to go.” [01:17, 05:49]

The Pendulum: High Performance vs. Health

• Most churches oscillate between seasons of high performance (project-driven, end-oriented) or high health (relational, nurturing)—rarely achieving both.
  • Paul: "Most churches have a tendency to run on a pendulum ... we want staff teams to be both very healthy and very high performing." [05:49]

Leadership: Modeling Health from the Top

• Health Can’t Be Legislated: No policy can enforce health; it must be modeled by leaders.
  • Paul: “You can’t legislate health. … You also can’t lead a healthy organization unless you yourself are healthy.” [09:34]
• Moral Authority: Leaders set expectations through their behavior (e.g., not emailing staff late at night). Staff watch and replicate these rhythms.
  • “Culture’s a lot like that. It’s way more caught than taught.” [12:00]

Practical Rhythms & Structures for a Healthy Team

• Taking Time Off: Mandatory days off and enforcing rest to prevent burnout.
  • Memorable Quote: “If you don’t take every day off between now and the end of the year, don’t bother coming in in January.” [13:09]
• Establishing a ‘Finish Line’: Define when each workday ends to avoid ministry encroaching endlessly on personal life. [14:39]
• Marriage Retreats: Regular retreats and counseling for staff couples bolster team and family health. [16:00]
• Staff Sabbaticals:
  • Every seven years: director-level staff receive extended paid time off with development allowances; all full-time staff also get a month off (with some differences in allowance).
    • “What’s that really cost us? Nothing. And so yeah, there’s some real tactical things that you can do to invest in your team.” [16:00-17:47]

Doers vs. Leaders: Creating a Leadership-Development Culture

• Ephesians 4 Mandate: Staff should equip others for ministry, not just do the ministry.
  • At Sun Valley, new hires are told: “You’re no longer going to be evaluated on how awesome you are. … What’s going to keep you in the room is your ability to make everybody else just as incredible as you.” [19:12]
• Volunteers as Heroes: The church’s real ‘heroes’ are volunteers, not staff.

Accountability & Cadence for Performance

• Annual Strategic Planning: Goals are set and cascaded from senior staff to campus levels.
• Metrics for Everyone: Every staff member has measurable goals.
  • Paul: “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t actually do it right. … All of them.” [26:24]
• Relational Check-Ins: Monthly one-on-ones include questions about work, life, marriage, and spiritual growth, not just performance. [23:43]
• Results & Fruit: Staff fit is assessed by fruitfulness and alignment with gifts; strive less for title/role, focus on faithfulness.

Diagnosing Staff Culture Issues

• Trust Your Instincts: Don’t ignore “something doesn’t smell right” in the team; often an early sign of misalignment or dysfunction. [28:34]
• Structure vs. Culture:
  • If structure is the lid, check benchmarks (e.g., staff-to-attendee ratios, budget percentage to staffing).
  • If culture is broken, clarify, communicate, and reinforce it in every facet of staff experience.

Anticipating the Challenges of Growth

• Engagement is Lagging Growth: Sun Valley’s rapid growth brings risk of outpacing leader development and member engagement in service, giving, and discipleship.
• Constriction Grows Leaders: Stretch and challenge foster leadership development more than resource abundance.
  • Paul: “You accelerate leadership not by giving resources, but by constricting resources, because leaders always figure it out and grow through constriction moments.” [35:06]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Culture as the Limiting Factor:
  • Paul: “The lid is the culture of the team and the team structure.” [01:17, 05:49]
• On Modeling Health as Leaders:
  • Paul: “Culture’s a lot like that. It’s way more caught than taught.” [12:00]
• On Results & Accountability:
  • Paul: “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t actually do it right.” [26:37]
• On Doers vs. Leaders:
  • Paul: “You’re no longer going to be evaluated on how awesome you are. … What’s going to keep you in the room is your ability to make everybody else just as incredible as you.” [19:12]
• On Staff Structure Benchmarks:
  • Paul: “If you’re spending more than 50 cents on the dollar on your staffing, you should ask yourself why.” [29:30]
• On Growth Pressure:
  • Paul: “Growth sometimes can grow faster than our ability to grow leaders.” [35:03]
• On Promoting Rest and Longevity:
  • Paul: “If you don’t take every day off between now and the end of the year, don’t bother coming in in January.” [13:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Survey Insights & The Staff Pressure Point: [04:23–05:49]
• Pendulum Problem: Health vs. High Performance: [05:49–08:38]
• The Importance of Modeling Health: [09:34–13:09]
• Practical Health Rhythms (Time Off, Retreats, Sabbaticals): [14:39–18:44]
• Doers vs. Leaders, Equipping Culture: [19:12–21:54]
• Accountability, Metrics, and Regular Reviews: [22:21–27:53]
• Diagnosing Staff Culture—First Steps for Leaders: [28:34–32:36]
• Sun Valley’s Growth & The Challenge of Leadership Pipeline: [33:47–36:01]

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is candid, pragmatic, and sometimes blunt—reflecting real lessons from frontline church ministry. Paul and Rich are direct about the high expectations and sacred responsibilities of church leadership, blending spiritual wisdom and practical management advice. Throughout, there’s insistence that health and high performance are not mutually exclusive but must be blended for a church to sustain its mission in a complex, fast-changing era.

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Connect with the Guests

• Paul Alexander: Email at [e-mail]
• The Unstuck Group: unstuckgroup.com
• Sun Valley Church: sunvalleycc.com

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This episode provides a practical, actionable roadmap for church leaders aiming to build staff teams that are healthy, high-performing, and ready for the complexities of 2026 and beyond.

Transcript

[Rich]

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[Paul Alexander]

For 20% off it's not uncommon to do a health assessment, strategic planning with a church and you walk out of the room and they have great clarity on vision, on where they're going next. They have great clarity on strategy, like how they're actually going to pull this off and do it. And yet you walk out of the room and the lid to move towards that vision, actually obey Jesus and do what Jesus has commissioned and commanded them to do. The lid is the culture of the team and the team culture and the team structure. What's holding them back from going where Jesus wants them to go.

[Narrator]

Growth pressure, staffing questions, facility decisions and the emotional weight of leading teams. That's the world executive pastors are navigating right now. Today on the Unseminary Podcast, we're sitting down with an executive pastor from a prevailing church to unpack what leaders like you shared in the national executive pastor survey so you can lead forward with clarity.

[Rich]

Hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. Really glad that you've decided to tune in a special series here this month.

Where we're looking at the results of.

A national survey that we did of executive pastors across the country. And we've pulled in some leading XPs from prevailing churches to help us think through these issues. Like we're sitting across the table. If you talked about this problem, they want to help you with that. And today it's our honor Our privilege really to have Paul Alexander with us. He is the executive pastor at Sun Valley church for over 10 years. He has 25 years of experience. He's a senior consultant with Unstuck, I think, for 13 years. And he's worked with all kinds of churches on health assessment, strategic planning. Sun Valley. If you don't know this church, you're living under a rock. It's a fantastic church in Arizona. Six physical locations, if I'm counting correctly, plus in prison, plus online. It's repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Paul, welcome to the show. So glad you're here.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, Rich, glad to be with you. Hopefully the conversation can help your listeners.

[Rich]

Man, I really appreciate that. Why don't you fill in the picture about Sun Valley. I know we've had you on in the past. You should go back and listen, friends, but kind of give us the Sun Valley picture. Kind of tell us a little bit about that to set some context today.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, yeah, man. Been here now for almost 15 years. It's wild to think back when I first joined the team, it was one location, 10 acres, one exit, one entrance. And you know, there's a lid to what you can do with that. And so we originally went multi site because we had to go multi site. You know, the mission that Jesus gave the church to help more people meet him and grow up in their friendship with him. We had to live that with the space we were in. And so we had to go multisite. It wasn't cool, it wasn't cute, it wasn't fun. It wasn't an experiment. It was like, if we're going to obey Jesus, we don't have an option. And so over the years, we've had the opportunity to add new locations and yeah, six physical locations, one in a prison. Our next prison Campus opens up Q1. We Grand Open our Chandler location in March and we break ground on San Tan in May. So yeah, man, fun times. Lots of people.

[Rich]

So multi site's not dead at Sun Valley, man.

[Paul Alexander]

Multi site's not dead in America.

[Rich]

I know, and it's true, right? It's one of those, like, people are like, oh, I don't know, that's an old idea. I'm like, that's not what I'm seeing. I'm like, gosh, there's so many prevailing truths like Sun Valley that are just doubling down. That's, that's fantastic. Well, looking forward to today's conversation. So, friends, you've joined us actually for within when we asked two questions that were about fears for next year and for this year, 2026. You caught me. We recorded this late in 2025 and we're talking today about the biggest fear. 24.8% of all respondents. Respondents identified staff health, organizational structure, morale, succession, leadership, this, the people issues as a primary fear heading into in fact. And then a separate question, we asked about data and insight. Where are you lacking some of that? Almost 9% of respondents answered that they're looking for better data on staff pipeline and org chart and leadership development, these sort of things. When you combine them together, what does that mean? Nearly 3 in 10 surface staff related tension as a defining pressure point for 2026. And when I was thinking about this issue, I thought of no one better than Paul to pull on and to have this conversation with. So Paul, when you look at the churches across the country, you interact with a lot of churches, both just because you're a great person and through Unstuck and you're. And Sun Valley is a leading church and people will ask you questions all the time. Where do you think staff health breaks down the most and why is that? Why is this such a tension for us as we lead from our seats?

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, well, to your point, Rich, it comes up repeatedly with my work with Unstuck. With churches, it's not uncommon to do a health assessment, strategic planning with the church and you walk out of the room and they have great clarity on vision on where they're going next. They have great clarity on strategy, like how they're actually going to pull this off and do it. And yet you walk out of the room and the lid to move towards that vision, actually obey Jesus and do what Jesus has commissioned and commanded them to do. The lid is the culture of the team and the team culture and the team structure. What's holding them back from going where Jesus wants them to go, which we shouldn't be surprised by this, frankly. That's, that's the organizational side of how that shows up. This shows up in our own life personality. So on a micro scale, what's preventing you and I from actually following Jesus and what he's calling us to do in 2026? Well, it's not Jesus's problem. The problem is not with him usually with us. Yes. The problem is with how we structure our life, our family, our time, maybe something in our own heart and the culture of our own heart and our families. And so on a macro scale in the church, it's not a surprise that this shows up. Most, most churches have a tendency to run on A pendulum rich of either being a really high performing team or a very, very healthy team. And at Unstuck, we want staff teams to be both very healthy and very high performing. The problem is most churches, their staff swing through that pendulum from one side to the other. And so, and you've seen this repeatedly where it's take ground and just do the next thing. And they're very project oriented and destination oriented and they have a tendency to not really care about the soul of the, the health of the team. And they're caring much more about the destination they're chasing or they're sitting around looking at each other, praying for one another, kumbaya ing together and they're neglecting the actual call that God's put on their life is not just a personal holiness, but to invite others, people, other people to know Jesus as well. And while that's an over exaggeration, fundamentally that's very true what happens with staff teams. And so yeah, walking away from a strategic planning with the church, you're thinking, oh, they've got everything they need, right. They just don't have the culture to pull it off. Their staff culture is going to prevent them from going where God wants them to go. Or they've hired a lot of doers on the team and they don't actually have leaders, so they've hired people to do ministry instead of lead ministry. Or they don't really have a development pipeline. You know, they don't have a plan to coach up and build up people that the Lord's already entrusted to them right underneath their nose to invite them into leadership in the church. And so, yeah, there's some overarching things that are common.

[Rich]

Yeah, I, so when I saw this came out, I wasn't surprised by this result. We've some similar results in past years. But whenever I look at this fear that leaders have, I'm reminded what our mutual friend Jenny Catron says. She talks about senior leaders are. We think our staff culture is better.

Than it actually is.

Like from our perspective as an executive pastor, lead pastor, we look around and we're like, man, this is a great place to work. But that's not necessarily the case with our people sticking with this idea of like high performing and healthy. When you think about Sun Valley or the churches you coach, what are some practical rhythms or structures that you've put in place or seen put in place that really help try to do both of those things? Because I think that's, I think that's ultimately what honors the Lord is like we do want to be high performing. We, the mission's massive. Like, gosh, we got to get out and reach some people. But we don't want to drive over our people to get there. Help us understand what is that practical.

[Paul Alexander]

Those practical rhythms look like. Well, I don't think a lot of people are going to like what I'm about to say. Oh, but you cannot legislate, legislate health. You can't, you can't build enough guidelines, you can't build enough policies. You can't make people be healthy. You also can't lead a healthy organization unless you yourself are healthy. Healthy. It's, that's just, it's just a fact. You can't take your family somewhere you haven't been. You disciple people, to use a Bible word for a second. You can't disciple your own children and your own family and people close to you by intention or neglect. We do that all the time unless you have something to actually give them. And so this is why even in the Old Testament, you know, God gives the law and we realize we can't live up to the law. And so it actually only shows our own imperfection. Right. And so God, you know, Jesus says, well, hold on a second. The Sabbath was made for man, man wasn't made for the Sabbath. And so what does that mean? It means, I think as executive staff, senior staff in a church, you actually have to lead with some moral authority in this area. And so people are going to watch if they get an email from you at 11 o' clock at night that tells them what's expected of them without you ever even saying it, you're telling them what's expected. If you're texting them after work hours, so to speak, and it's not an emergency, it actually, you know, it could probably wait till tomorrow, but you're having it right now because it's important to you and you don't have the personal self control to be able to not have that conversation with that staff member at that time. You're telling them how they're supposed to behave. They're watching you just again, leadership so much like parenting, and I don't want to minimize this, but children watch their parents and they naturally adhere to and take on the behaviors of their parents and the family unit that they grow up in. And culture's a lot like that. It's way more caught than taught. And so the leaders of the executive staff and senior staff, they've got to lead with moral authority, not, not moral perfection. We're not going to see that this side is seeing Jesus. Right? Not moral superiority. We're not better than anybody. But just to be able to say, hey, man, if everybody at my church and on my staff, if they manage their time the way I manage my time, if they manage their finances the way I manage my finances, if they used alcohol the way I use alcohol, or if they use the Internet or social media the way I do, if they traded their would, would my church be more of what Jesus wants it to be or less? That's good. And so there's a moral authority component to this. They got to model this. Okay, now practically Rich, because, you know, okay, what does it actually mean? Take your time off. Like, that sounds so silly. But, I mean, I remember as a young guy in ministry, my wife was working Monday through Friday. Friday was supposed to be my day off. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to sit around and, like, watch Oprah on Friday or, like, you know, just snack and binge, watch Netflix or something like that. That's not how God wired me up. And so I would just go into the office and I'm like, my wife's working well, we don't have kids. I'm gonna go get some stuff done. I'm gonna move the ball forward. And I remember the XP I was working with on a senior staff at the time came in to get something out of the office, and he saw me and he's like, paul, what are you doing? And so I do the whole, my wife's working and I'm not gonna sit around and watch Netflix, blah, blah, blah. He gave me a gift. He said, paul, if you don't take every day off between now and the end of the year, don't bother coming in in January.

[Rich]

Oh, my goodness. Wow.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah. And looking back, that high challenge was a tremendous gift to begin to teach a young man in ministry that had a propensity to drive hard, to learn how to actually slow down and enjoy my life and receive from the Lord. And so, yeah, take your day off. It sounds so silly. I get a report on my desk once a year. Rich. All of our staff, even multiple campuses, all that. Who's taking their time off and who hasn't taken their time off? And it's not uncommon for me to have a conversation in January to say, hey, dude, if you don't take all your time off this year, we're going to have a problem because you're no good burning out. The Lord needs you in the game for the long run. And I need you in the game for the long run. Sun Valley needs you in the game for the long run. Your family needs that and you can't self destruct. So.

[Rich]

Yeah, so good. I had a similar interaction early on in ministry where I had a senior leader say to me it with a similar kind of tone, don't forget, take your day off is on the same list as don't kill someone. Like, you know, which always stuck with me where I was like, you know, okay. And he said it in a funny kind of like. But the message was. Was clear. Right. Same kind of thing. Hey, we. And I don't know that I've always lived by that. Are there other behaviors that you, you know, in a similar way would lean in? I think the fact that you're pushing on. Okay. As us, as senior leaders, are we setting the pace with the health of our organizations? Lean a little bit more in on that.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, sure. So a couple practical things that any leader can actually make their decision to start doing today. Establish a finish line in some regards. You know, when is ministry ever really done? Well, when 7.5 billion people on the planet know, Jesus, we're done, right? So it's one of those, the poor will have you with you. You'll have with you always. There's never going to be a done moment. So you got to choose each day when you're done. And if you don't choose it, someone else will choose it for you. And so talk with your family, figure it out. And they may be a moving target from day to day and what the rhythm of your family is and the rhythm of your ministry as the Lord's entrusted to you. But you have to personally establish when's the finish line. I'm going to turn my phone off, I'm going to turn my email off. I'm going to mute this or whatever, and unless something's burning down, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna jump in. Simple things. Marriage retreats. We started experimenting some time ago with marriage retreats for our staff at Sun Valley. And so, like, everybody would say it's a good thing for people's marriages to get better. And sometimes we'll do that for our people in our churches. And we just thought, well, gosh, what if we did that for our staff? You know, if the marriages of our staff got better, would the ministries that the Lord's entrusted to them get better? Of course they would. Of course they would. So we just started doing a marriage retreat a couple times a year for our staff. We invite 10 to 15 couples. We have a professional counselor that we pay for, that runs the thing. And we just do that as a gift to our staff. Because we think of our staff. Marriages get better. The ministry that Lord's entrusted to them will get better. We do sabbaticals every seven years for our full time director level staffing up. And there's a period of time that they get and a financial allowance they get and they think about it in three different buckets like professional development, personal development and just family. And ultimately we want them to rest so they can minister from a, from a full cup, you know. And some time ago we actually made a decision. It didn't cost us anything, Rich, that even our full time staff, no matter what their level in the organization was. So for example, full time administrative assistant, if they're full time, every seven years they get a sabbatical. We give them. Wow, yeah, you're a full time admin at Sun Valley. You get. Now the scale of it's a little different. We just give them a month off with no financial allowance, but we give them a month off every seven years to take up one lump sum to get out and refresh their soul and enjoy their life a little bit. What's that really cost us? Nothing. Nothing. And so yeah, there's some real tactical things that you can do to invest in your team. Again, you can't make them be healthy people, but you can kind of roll the carpet out and pave the way for them to be healthy people. Love that.

[Rich]

That's some real practical examples. I love what you've, you've outlined there and been, you know, super practical. That's. Yeah, that's fantastic. I get the sabbatical question actually quite a bit. I think churches wrestle with that and they, you know, they, they think, oh, you know, how should we do that? So you do kind of like a. What we would typically think of as a sabbatical at director and above, but then everyone else does the kind of. This one, one month off.

[Paul Alexander]

That's great.

[Rich]

And they do. They have to submit a plan for the sabbatical ahead of time. Some churches will do that where they have to kind of define, hey, this is how we're going to do. Just give us a little more detail on that.

[Paul Alexander]

We're not uber religious about it, Rich. There is a plan and their supervisor talks through their plan with them because there's a financial allowance that follows that. So yeah, they have the conversation ahead of time. As a representative of the board, I actually sign off on all those sabbaticals just to make sure they're thinking about it and thinking intelligently about how they want to spend their time. But functionally, to be honest, like, you and your wife just went on vacation, right?

[Rich]

Yep.

[Paul Alexander]

If our staff went on vacation for like an entire sabbatical and sat on a beach for a month or two, and they came back a little bit more rested and they had read a couple of books and spent time with the Lord and they walked and prayed and fasted and enjoyed their life a little bit, they'd probably come back a little healthier. Right? So, yeah, that's great. I don't have strong feelings about it, man. Rest, enjoy your life.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's so good. I love that. I want to loop back on one thing you talked about earlier. You talked about hiring or the way our staff position themselves as doers versus leaders. I think this is a critical Ephesians 4, how we're supposed to be equipping our people. But I see way too many of our team members. I see us fall into this all the time, where we just slip into doing. Coach us around that. What difference does that make around cultures in our organizations?

[Paul Alexander]

Well, yeah. Wow. Now you're starting to talk about where accountability comes into play in culture. Right. And where culture gets violated. So it's not uncommon. So I still, at the size we are director leveling up, I still at least have a phone conversation, interview with every single director level higher and up about our culture as they're joining the team here. And if they do join the team, we go through new staff orientation, you know, once a quarter. Chad, the lead pastor, myself, spend a half a day with all of our new staff and talk through our culture and our philosophy of ministry and our strategy and all that stuff. And frankly, it's just a time to hang out, have a meal together and create some relational accessibility. Because most of these people I'm not going to work with day to day, but I want them to know that we care about them, love them, and they're part of the family now. And so we don't hire people that aren't absolutely fantastic, incredibly gifted people. And it's easy to compliment everybody in the room. Hey, man, glad you're on the team. Whether I hired you or somebody else hired you, I know you're awesome. We don't hire people that aren't awesome. And you were gifted. You're gifted. Someone saw something in you. We invited you to the team. But here's the deal. You're no longer going to Be evaluated on how awesome you are. Now that you're on the team, Congratulations. You're going to be evaluated how awesome you can make everybody else. And so your job and how great you are and gifted you are, skilled you are. That's what got you in the room. What's going to keep you in the room is your ability to make everybody else just as incredible as you. And so we just say that from the very beginning. And, you know, a lot of churches, their ministry staff kind of think, okay, I have to get all these volunteers in place to help them accomplish my ministry. Ministry at Sun Valley, we flip that upside down. And the hero of the ministry at Sun Valley is to volunteer. We're helping that church actually be the church. The staff's role is to be a servant to help people find their gifting, their place, their calling. And real leaders who are getting paid real money that attend your churches. They want to solve big problems. They don't want to just push a broom. Now, occasionally you run into the CEO or the general or whatever who's like, I just want to push a broom. And to help me remain humble, great. We can. We have a lot of brooms you can put. But most people are competent, skilled, gifted, educated people, and they want to be called into something that's big and where they feel like they're making a real difference. And so, yeah, our job as a staff is to call them into that, tee them up for that, support them in that, and let them run now. Let them run within the boundaries of our strategy and our culture and our vision, but let them run. So. But we've got to paint the Riverbanks form.

[Rich]

Yeah, that's really good. I love that. You know, kind of a related issue is how. How is Sun Valley ensuring that you've got the right people in the right seats? What does that look like in your system? Like, how are you. Like, what's the. What's the cadence of, you know, regular reporting and, like, goal setting and, you know, how are you holding people accountable? What does that. What does that look like? I realize that could be, like, a whole episode in of itself, but give us kind of a thumbnail version of that.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, thumbnail. I mean, at the end of the day, I'll give you the how it happens, but besides the hiring process and recruiting process, that stuff matters a lot. Right? So you're inviting people to something that they're actually gifted and called to, but at the end of the day, it's really results. Rich. The Bible way to say that is fruit okay, so for all of our listeners who are high on the theology side of things, I can sympathize with you. I went to Bible school too. Really, it's fruit. And when you are in a place, when your staff are in a place where they're playing to their strengths and their gifting and they're in a place where they're not overreaching and trying to attain a different role and they're not talking about career path, they're just content to be the person and play the part in the body of the Lord's gifted and called them to play. They're going to have more fun and they're going to produce more fruit. It's just a fact. And so when you see all this striving and you know, this ambition to like, I want more, I want more, I want more. It's a very American Western idea. Right. And the biblical way of doing that would be, hey, why don't you be faithful with what the Lord's entrusted with you today? And when he sees fit to entrust more to you, guess what?

[Rich]

He.

[Paul Alexander]

He probably will. There's probably going to be some stray arrow out of the battle that was never even intended to hit that guy, that's going to find just the right place in the chink in the armor and you're going to ascend to the throne at the right time when the Lord wants you to. So, you know, relax, do what the Lord's called you to do today, be faithful in that and he'll entrust more to you when he's ready. So that's a big deal. It may sound like a contrite, a little bit Bible answer to that, but when your staff are personally in a place where they're doing what God's called them to do and they're very sober minded about that, they're going to have more fun. That's really important. They're going to have more fun in ministry. It's going to be more fulfilling and they're going to produce more fruit. Now how does that work its way out with what you're talking about? We have an annual run of strategic planning that we do, both senior staff and then at the campus level and we refresh that every single year. Out of that come real clear objectives where the Lord's calling us to go. Then goals, professional goals are set around that at the campus level and then that kind of trickles down. That all gets into review systems. There's monthly one on ones where they're talking about the performance side of Things, but it's really normal, Rich, where if you and I were working with one another and I was reporting to you, you'd say, hey, Paul, what's going on with you and Lisa? And you'd be asking about my daughters and you'd be asking about my sons, and we'd be talking about life and marriage and family and, and what's the Lord doing in your life? What's he saying to you this these days? You know? And, you know, where's he challenging you? Where's he encouraging you? So they're very natural, normal, that part of things there. You'd probably pray for me, actually, in that meeting, one on one. And then we talk about, okay, how are we doing with our goals? What are the measurables? What are the setbacks? Because there's always setbacks. And what are the things that went faster than you thought they would go, and you're finding real, real traction. And then my, your job as a supervisor would be, how do you get roadblocks out of the way for me to be successful? How do you fuel things that I need fueled so I can be successful and reach my goals? So that's good. Yeah. Does that make sense?

[Rich]

That makes total sense. So I, you know, in other contexts I've said results matter because the work that you do matters so much. Like it. And, and we, and we, we want to think about results. We want to think about fruit. What percentage of, you know, in a round sense of. The team at Sun Valley has like a number or a metric or a, like they can measure. It's not like qualitative, like, oh, things are better. It's like, no, no, we know, I know. Whether this is working or not, what percentage of your people you think have a metric like that that they think about on a regular basis?

[Paul Alexander]

All of them love it.

[Rich]

Tell us about that. I think this is going to be mind blowing for leaders of churches who do not think about these things. And I know, you know, there's people out there who, they haven't wrestled with this idea. Unpack that a little bit more.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah. So, I mean, okay, so if I say I want my marriage to get better this year, we'll go real personal for a second. I want to get my marriage. That's wonderful. Who doesn't want their marriage to get better? How are you going to do that? Right. That just doesn't magically happen. You don't drift towards relational intimacy with your spouse. What you do is you drift apart. That's what happens. Right. Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes it wander. And so you've got to figure out, okay, how many date nights am I going to do? How much am I going to budget towards this? Are we going to do an annual retreat as a husband and a spouse together, maybe a marriage retreat? Are we going to go on vacation? What are the conversations we feel like we need to lean into? Do we need some. Do we need some coaching? Rich, if you're a professional counselor, do I need to go to you and get some. Some input and some professional coaching? Because, goodness gracious, you can see some things that I don't see because I'm in the fray of it day in and day out. So, yeah, we'll get real tactical and say, what book are you going to read? How many of those books are you going to read? What podcast are you going to listen to? The unseminary? You know, what are you going to do to. To grow in your marriage this year or as a leader? And so, yeah, if you can't measure it, then you can't actually do it right. And then it gets down to opinions, and, you know, everybody's got one of those. So, yeah, all right.

[Rich]

I imagine. Imagine I'm an executive pastor. You meet at a conference or you're somewhere in your marriage in the airport lounge and their church of a thousand people, fifteen hundred people. They've got ten staff, and they're sensing that, man, there's some misalignment, but it's. It's at the level of like, I think there might be a problem here. I'm not entirely sure. I feel like there's cracks starting to happen in the staff culture, but it's not like a giant fizzer. It's just like things just don't feel right. What would be some of the first steps that you would suggest a leader take to try to get clarity on actually where things are at with their staff team, you know, in the next 90 days kind of thing?

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so first of all, I'd say, and this may sound. I mean, play Captain Obvious for a second. Don't ignore that inclination.

[Rich]

That's good.

[Paul Alexander]

So if the Holy Spirit is. Is. Is impressing upon you something doesn't smell right, then it probably doesn't smell right. Don't bury that. Don't avoid that. Avoiding something you know you have to solve is never going to make that situation better. And so don't avoid it. Go with that feeling. Lean into it a little bit and begin. Why? Why do I Feel this way. What is, what am I sensing that needs to be solved? Because my hunch is they're anticipating something. If they are a good intuitive leader, they're probably anticipating something before it's going to happen. And so structure is always a lid to growth in a church. Churches always need to restructure. This is really important. So once you get a structure, it's not like, oh, we're going to be with this structure for the next 15 years. And if it's a growing church, you're always going to need to restructure. And that's just normal. Get used to it. It's part of what it is. Yes. And so I think you got to decipher, is it a structure issue or is it a culture issue that's, you know, what am I sensing that needs to be, actually needs to be solved? If it's a culture issue, well, where is there a violation of your culture taking place? And how do you help it get better? Maybe you haven't defined what your culture is. Maybe you can't actually articulate it. Maybe you haven't written it down, trained it. Maybe you have not filmed 5 to 10 minute videos for every new staff member to onboarding to actually understand your cultural distinctives. Maybe you've not embedded that into your annual reviews. And actually, you know, at review time, you're actually reviewing me on how we're doing with, how I'm doing with our staff culture. So maybe that's something you need to just kind of look in the mirror and say, you know what, as a leader, I, I have the power to change that and I'm going to get that better this next year. We're going to get really clear about what our staff culture is and then we're going to embed that and train it. It. If it's a structural thing, is it truly a structural thing, or do you have one or two players that just aren't playing their part? You know, you've got this wonderful body the Lord's put together. He talks about the church being the body of Christ, this wonderful body, but where we're limping because our ankle, we got a bum ankle. And the reality is we either need to rest it, you know, so we can get it healed up, we need to maybe get some repair done to it, or we need to like reconstruct that thing and we need a new ankle. All of those are financers. And I think just being honest about the team that we have and everybody playing in the right place and then structurally, you start getting to Spanacare and do we have the right number of staff? Those are real answers you can really get. When we do staffing and structure with churches at the NSTOT group, there are real healthy benchmarks, There are real healthy financial numbers that are good benchmarks. You know, if you're spending more than 50 cents on the dollar on your staffing, you should ask yourself why. You know, if you have more than your, your staffing, you're at, you know, beyond 1 to 75 and you're creeping into an area that's really unhealthy. You know, I've seen churches that are staffed at like one full time staff member for every 30 attenders at the church. And you're just like, it's sad, frankly, because the Lord's called us to so much more. And so those are like the basic science side of things that need to be changed. You know, if you're not clear about who your senior staff is, if you got, if your senior staff, like your executive staff are making decisions about like the color of the carpet and they're making decisions that, that are low level decisions, then you gotta, gotta look in the mirror and say, boy, are we training our staff that all big decisions have to come to us. Are we pushing decisions down and actually teaching people how to lead and make decisions? So myriad of things.

[Rich]

That's so good. One of, in last year's kind of rundown of, you know, most listened to podcasts. Amy from the Unstuck group, Hers, I think was our second most listened to podcast. And she, she dove in deep on exactly what we were just talking about. Their friends. You should go back in the archives, find that episode. It will, it'll, you know, all that structure stuff. I would say on that, particularly on structure and some of those benchmarks. I think too many of us think our church is like this precious. It's so different than every other church out there. And, and, and that's true. It is a unique body. There's a, there's one way that that is true, but in this way there are actually a lot of commonalities you can learn from other churches and gain wisdom from folks like Paul who have done this before and talked with lots of churches. So don't, don't be in isolation about this. Paul. This has been an incredibly helpful. I've got a page of notes and other questions I wanted to ask as we were going through. Oh, I want to talk about that. Oh, I want to talk about that. But I know you've got other things to do. Than be on our podcast. But as you're thinking about the 20, 26, the year coming up here, what's a question or two that you're wrestling with, that you're thinking through? It doesn't have to be on what we just talked about there, but just as you think about the future of Sun Valley, what are some things that you're thinking about going into this year?

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we press, we deal with pressure points just like every church does. Right. Frankly, the pressure points we're dealing with, we're going through a season of a couple of years of pretty significant growth. A lot of people meeting Jesus last. This is the first time in back to back years we baptized more than 1500 people in back to back years. And so there's a huge responsibility that our growth, our front end growth, is beginning to outpace our engagement. Things like people engaging in groups and building meaningful friendships around God's word or engaging in volunteering and being in the church, not just coming to church. Right. And giving, learning to be generous. Generous and steward what the Lord's entrusted to them. Kind of these markers that we see of people who are actually beginning to look like Jesus, they're not just, you know, you know, attending church and trying to figure Jesus out a little bit. And so in a lot of ways, we need a bigger boat. We've got multiple canvases that are doing two services on Saturday and three services on Sunday. And we've got to get some bigger rooms. And, you know, the other side of it is growth sometimes can grow faster than our ability to grow leaders. I mean, you think about your own personal leadership, Rich. I mean, how long has it taken you to become the leader you are today? Right.

[Rich]

Not overnight.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah. Your whole life.

[Rich]

18 months. Yes.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah. The answer is your whole life. And so there's definitely been crucible moments that my hunch is, if we unpack your leadership journey, there's been crucible moments where the Lord has stretched and grown you in unique ways and unique seasons because of pressure points that you went through. And so we're figuring out how do we accelerate leadership in our. In our staff. And you accelerate leadership not by. By giving resources, but by constricting resources, because leaders always figure it out and grow through constriction moments.

[Rich]

That's good.

[Paul Alexander]

And so giving stretch assignments, all those kind of fun things. So, yeah, we deal with pressure points just like everybody else does. I mean, everybody's like, oh, I'd love to have that problem. I. You would? It's a wonderful problem to have. It's still a problem because we don't want to become a lid to more people meeting Jesus in 2026, you know, by us not solving something that's in our control to solve.

[Rich]

Yeah. In other contexts I've talked about platinum problems. Those are. Are great problems, but there's still problems with things we have to wrestle with and, and friends, if you're not tracking with Sun Valley, you should be or Paul or the Unstuck Group. These are all organizations you should be be getting a chance to kind of follow along with. If people want to kind of connect with the church, get a better sense, follow along with your story. Where do we want to send them online? Tell us about that. And then also Unstuck Group, I want to make sure we. We send people there too.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah. Unstuck Group is super easy to find. Unstuckgroup.com the listeners can email me at Paul the unstuckgroup.com that's the easiest way to get me, frankly, the easiest, cleanest way to get me. If someone has a question or wants to follow up on something. Personally, I'm happy to do that, ma'. Am.

[Rich]

Thanks so much, Paul. I appreciate you being here today and, and really looking forward to seeing what happens in 2026 at Sun Valley. Take care, man.

[Paul Alexander]

Yeah, glad to, man. Thanks for the invitation. Hope the conversation's helpful.