When churches feel stuck—struggling with momentum, clarity or effectiveness—it’s easy to assume the issue lies in outdated programs, staffing challenges or financial limitations. However, as Beau Johnson of The Table Group shared in an episode of The Unstuck Church Podcast, the real issue often goes deeper: a lack of organizational health.
What Is Organizational Health?
At its core, organizational health means your team is functioning at its best: trusting each other, communicating clearly and working in unity. It’s different from being “smart” as an organization. Most churches are quite smart—they’ve got solid theology, strong tech teams, tuned guitars and well-crafted sermons.
But health? That’s different.
Healthy organizations are marked by:
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- High morale and low turnover
- Low internal politics
- Resiliency through conflict—not conflict avoidance
- Team members who use their full range of gifts
As Johnson notes, you can’t regulate or discipline your way to being healthy. More rules don’t create trust. Organizational health is built through vulnerability, mutual accountability and alignment—not control.
And as followers of Jesus, shouldn’t the local church be the healthiest organization in any community?
How Unhealthy Leadership Teams Create “Stuck” Churches
Church leadership teams often do a great job casting vision and articulating mission. But they struggle when it comes to two key areas:
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- Conflict
- Accountability
Rather than having hard conversations, many church teams fall into “artificial harmony.” It looks peaceful on the outside but masks disconnection and dysfunction underneath. And when leaders avoid conflict, they unintentionally push those problems down the line to staff, volunteers and the congregation.
If a leadership team won’t deal with the tension, someone else eventually will.
This lack of health creates an invisible ceiling. The church remains stuck—not because the Spirit isn’t moving, but because the team isn’t functioning in a way that allows all the gifts of the body to be expressed and trusted.
The Working Genius: A Tool to Build Trust & Get Unstuck
One powerful way to start addressing these issues is through The Working Genius assessment—a tool developed by The Table Group. It helps individuals and teams identify which types of work energize them and which types drain them.
For churches, this is a game-changer.
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- It builds vulnerability-based trust, the foundation for all healthy teams.
- It reveals gaps in how your team processes work—from generating ideas (Wonder, Invention) to execution (Enablement, Tenacity).
- It helps explain why certain kinds of work feel exhausting—not because you’re lazy, but because they don’t align with your natural genius.
- It gives you a framework to “borrow a genius”—bringing in support from other layers of your church when your team is missing a critical capability.
Most importantly, it offers language and clarity to move beyond stuck patterns and begin leading with strength and humility.
Leadership Health Starts at the Top
Remember: the lead pastor leads the leadership team, and the leadership team leads the church.
A healthy leadership team:
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- Draws from the full spectrum of gifts
- Embraces mutual submission under the lead pastor’s guidance
- Thinks as one body, not isolated departments or ministries
Imagine if every leadership team member came to meetings not to defend their silo, but to steward the church as a unified whole. That’s a compelling picture—not just for your congregation, but for your wider community.
Ready to Explore Working Genius for Your Team?
Jesus promised He would build His church—our job is to follow Him. That includes how we lead together.
If your church feels stuck or your leadership team needs a fresh foundation of trust, clarity and collaboration, Working Genius can help.
Schedule an appointment today with Laurie Langley, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and trusted guide with Langley Leadership Group. Laurie will meet with you to do some initial diagnosis, listen to the unique context of your church or organization, and explore how Working Genius can become a practical and spiritual tool for health and renewal.
Let’s build healthier churches, together.
