Episode Details

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Shayla McCormick, Executive Pastor at Coastal Community Church, a thriving multisite church in South Florida known for its authentic culture and rapid growth.

How do you build and protect a thriving staff culture as your church grows? Tune in as Shayla offers practical, actionable insight on shaping culture, defining staff values, and creating systems to keep your team aligned as your ministry expands.

• Creating a culture that feels like home. // Shayla and her husband planted Coastal Community Church from scratch, starting with no connections in the area. Recognizing South Florida’s often disconnected and transient culture, they prioritized building a church that feels welcoming, relational, and like home. From day one, they wanted people to feel seen and valued. Their authenticity—sharing personal struggles, not just victories—has helped foster a genuine sense of belonging for both staff and attendees.
• The critical role of values. // As Coastal grew, Shayla saw the need to ensure staff alignment around organizational values. Many churches struggle with dysfunction not due to poor strategy, but because values are aspirational rather than actualized. To combat this, Shayla developed a practical process to define the values Coastal wants to see consistently lived out in staff. Instead of starting with abstract concepts, she asked herself what characteristics were present in people she loved working with—and used those real-life examples to shape their core values.
• From wall to hall. // Coastal has seven staff values: We Believe the Best, We Own It, We Think People, We Live From the Inside Out, We Make It Better, We Have Risk Taking Faith and We Set the Tone. Values only work if they’re acted upon, not just printed on posters. Coastal implemented a quarterly staff values evaluation tool where staff self-assess how well they’re living out each value using a plus, plus-minus, minus system. Supervisors do the same, and both compare notes to spark meaningful conversations. This regular rhythm has become more impactful than annual performance reviews and has helped create a culture of continuous growth.
• Quarterly check-ins drive accountability. // These evaluations include three key questions—Do I get it? Do I want it? Do I have the capacity to do it?—which help surface deeper issues of calling and alignment. The result is clearer communication, fewer cultural blind spots, and, when necessary, healthy offboarding of staff who aren’t aligned. Shayla notes that conversations are now regularly centered around values, and team members frequently reference them when making decisions or reflecting on behavior.
• Modeling values from the top down. // Values must be modeled by senior leaders. As Coastal grows and adds campuses, Shayla is continually asking how to transfer the heart and vision of top-tier leaders down through the layers of the organization. Her team is currently developing onboarding materials that communicate each value directly from senior leaders like herself and her husband, ensuring clarity and consistency from the start.

To learn more about Coastal Community Church visit

Listen Now