Natural Church Development

How healthy is your church?  Every good church leader wants the church they serve to be healthy, but how do you define that concept?  Is it merely attendance numbers or offering totals or a relative lack of complaints?  Or is it something more?

For over a decade, the Natural Church Development (NCD) survey has helped churches measure how healthy they are and guide them on a path toward greater effectiveness in their ministry.  The survey, developed by Christian Schwarz through a comprehensive study of over 1000 churches in 32 countries (followed by surveys of now over 40,000 churches) identifies eight essential elements of church health.  The measurement of these eight key areas paints a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of a church’s ministry.

The Eight Key Areas include:

• Empowering Leadership - The ability to coach, delegate and lead the congregation through change.

• Gift-Based Ministry - Understanding gifts, and being able to match gift, person, passion and task.

• Passionate Spirituality - Having personal and corporate spiritual disciplines in place.

• Effective Structures - Structures that work, and accomplish their goals.

• Inspiring Worship - Worship that encourages people to encounter God, not just good music.

• Holistic Small Groups - Groups of authenticity and transparency that foster growth.

• Need-Oriented Evangelism - Evangelism that scratches where it itches.

• Loving Relationships - Relationships that are interdependent and understand how to resolve conflict. 

NCD researchers have found that a church’s capacity for effectiveness is only as great as its lowest health characteristic.  In other words, the quantity of a ministry can only rise to the level of the lowest quality area.  This is the “minimum factor” which can be illustrated by the shortest stave in a bucket above which the water level cannot rise.  As a church identifies and strategically improves its minimum factor, it gains a greater capacity for growth.

The results speak for themselves.  Churches, on average, that have used the NCD survey three or more times over a course of 31 months have seen measurable increases in their quality, more conversion growth (versus transfer growth), less work load for volunteers and leaders and a 51% increase in their growth rate. 

CSW is committed to helping our churches use this effective tool.  We have certified consultants who will guide you in the process, discounted NCD materials to use with your leadership team and scholarship funds available.  Please contact the CSW office to see how you can use NCD in your church.

For more information, visit the NCD International web-site.