A question for every church leader 
Every church leader is called to enter into a partnership with God to grow His church. NCD simply asks all leaders: does your contribution to this partnership encourage the healthy, sustainable growth of your church? Always? In the most effective way?
It helps to know, because you want to keep doing those things which are contributing to Kingdom growth, and do them with increasing effectiveness. Likewise, you want to stop doing those things which are not important to growth or, worse still, are contributing to long term decline.
There is nothing more discouraging than putting in heart and soul but seeing little or no fruit for your efforts. And not knowing why. It’s not sustainable for your church, or you for that matter.
It can be equally difficult if you are experiencing the joys of growth but lacking certainty as to exactly why this growth is occurring. Then there is the potential problem that repeating the decisions and activities which have been contributing to current growth may not sustain future growth. In fact, as the church changes, such decisions and activities may, in fact, inhibit future growth.
Would it help to know that you are always focusing on the most important issues for stimulating your church’s ongoing healthy growth?
NCD: offering clarity of picture, principles and process
NCD is not a new revelation of church growth. What it brings is clarity and balance to what all church leaders do naturally to a greater or lesser degree: experience church life, assess what is needed next, do some planning, and take action, all of which brings new experiences, new perceptions and assessments, and so on.
NCD does this in three interconnected ways:
- It gives you a regular, accurate, objective picture of the health of your church – your people, your programs, your priorities, your decisions.
- It offers principles of growth that have been proven internationally to stimulate healthy church growth when applied consistently.
- It takes you through a continuous process which keeps you focused on the most important health issues as they arise in your church.
The power of NCD is that it takes you from where you are. If you have a gathering of God’s people, a heart to provide empowering leadership, a desire to see your people grow, and a yearning to be increasingly fruitful in ministry, NCD will help you.
A challenge to increasing fruitfulness
Experience has taught us over the years that many church leaders face one or more hurdles when contemplating NCD and issues of health and growth.
- They don’t really want to know just how healthy their church is.
- They confuse activity with outcomes.
- They often measure “growth” or even ministry success in terms of congregational attendance (and let’s face it, giving) instead of the spiritual growth of their people.
- They tend to focus on short-term programs rather than a long-term process of stimulating healthy, sustainable growth.
All of these issues relate to fruitfulness. In John 15, Jesus calls on us to contemplate seriously what it means to be fruitful, to bear much fruit, to bear fruit which lasts, and to become increasingly fruitful as time goes by. It is a direct challenge to all who are called to partner with God in leading their church to grow. NCD helps address the challenge to fruitfulness.
The Nightmare Scenario
Imagine standing before your congregation at the beginning of the church year. You have all the familiar faces in front of you. One year later you stand before your congregation and it has grown by 10% but you have very little idea, or perhaps absolutely no idea, whether your people have grown to greater spiritual health. Nor do you know in concrete terms what, if any, of your activity of the past 365 days as a leader had anything to do with the growth. Nor do you know what you need to do in future to sustain this growth, except perhaps keep doing what you’re doing now and hope for the best.
Where to from here?
Your starting point with NCD is to begin doing regular NCD Surveys of your church. Without regularly assessing the changes to your church’s health, you will be making too many decisions based on theory, conjecture or someone else’s idea of what you should be doing. Doing Surveys is not expensive and it doesn’t take long, but there is a little preparation you can do.
- Download Natural Church Development: An Introduction for Churches. This gives further basic insights into NCD and describes the process of doing a survey.
- Read the recommended introductory resources. Go to NCD Resources on the home page.
- Order the NCD Survey materials from us at ncd@growingleadership.com and follow through the process to get your first set of results. There are resources to help you in the process from that point.
- Contact us if you have any questions at 1-800-804-0777 or ncd@growingleadership.com.
Join the growing number of church leaders across denominations and movements worldwide who are experiencing NCD increase their fruitfulness in partnering with God in growing His church.
Ian Campbell
Director, NCD
NCD Canada
August 2007
