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Natural Church Development
Quality Characteristics
In 2004 the Congregational Council of St. Bartholomew was presented with the
Natural Church Development (NCD) process idea as a way to improve the life
of the congregation as it relates to the church. The NCD is a process
designed around years of study to determine various factors involved in
church life. In the following text you will discover the general description
of the NCD.
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The Natural Church
Development process is a way of measuring the health or quality of a
church. Through extensive studies around the world in thousands of
churches in virtually every religion the Natural Church Development
creators have found that each church has eight Quality Characteristics.
There are no exceptions to this rule. |
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These Quality
Characteristics are universally used
in building healthy churches!
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- Empowering
Leadership
- Gift-oriented
Ministry
- Passionate
Spirituality
- Functional
Structures
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- Inspiring
Worship Services
- Holistic
Small Groups
- Need-oriented
Evangelism
- Loving
Relationship
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The key in each of these
Quality Characteristics is the adjective: empowering,
gift-oriented, passionate, functional, etc. Every church has some type of
leadership or worship or spirituality, but not all churches emphasize the
adjectives at the front of each of these Quality Characteristics.
No Quality Characteristic
Can Be Missing.
Three things can be said with a high degree of certainty:
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These are universally valid
qualities
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They can be transferred to
or used in our own situation and church
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Each of these Quality
Characteristics has a positive relationship to the growth of the church
both in quality and quantity
No one single factor leads
to growth in churches; it is the interplay of the eight elements in
connection with the church members the makes the difference and makes the
church grow.
The Minimum Factor
Early in 2005 and 2006, 30 members of
St. Bartholomew participated in the NCD process by answering a
carefully, scientifically prepared questionnaire aimed at determining the
status or health of each of the eight Quality Characteristics at St. Bart.
The survey results are summarized in a
chart that reveals the ranking of each Quality Characteristic in
relation to each other. Look at the
chart
and you will see the Maximum Factor and Minimum Factor as determined from
the answers to the survey.
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Imagine a
barrel with eight staves, each representing the eight Quality
Characteristics. The staves in the barrel represent the score of the 8
Quality Characteristics. With this analogy, you can only fill the barrel
(Service Attendance) to the level of the lowest stave. So to increase the capacity of the
barrel, we must increase the height of the lowest stave, which is the
Minimum Factor.. |
Now focusing on the Minimum
Factor does not mean that we don't pay attention to the other seven areas.
As stated before, all eight characteristics are vitally important to healthy
growing churches. Focusing on the Minimum Factor helps us to set timely
priorities. Since all eight areas can't be worked on at the same time with
the same amount of energy and concentration, we need to find areas that will
yield the greatest long-range return on our investments. Remember, Minimum
Factors can change quickly -- especially when there is a conscious attempt
to improve on this one area.
The "All-by-Itself
Principle"
The secret of growing
churches does not consist in pushing or pulling the church in human strength
and efforts -- but in releasing and developing the potential God himself
uses to build his church. Then growth occurs all by itself! It is the goal
of the NCD Health Team to help you to provide the opportunities and tools so
that all members can share in the growth of our church both in quantity and
quality. The church is designed by God to grow, so growth happens
automatically if we remove the obstacles that prevent growth. Growing
churches use this growth principle.
This is what the kingdom of
God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he
sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts, and grows; though he does not know how.
All by itself the soil produces grain -- first the stalk, then the
head, and then full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he
puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.
-- Mark 4:26-29
Natural Church Development
Process
There is a
change process which will
help the us address our Minimum Factor. The NCD Process will assist us in
developing relevant goals and a plan to see the health of your church
increase.
Step
1 - Prepare
- Prepare our church to engage in the total NCD Process.
Getting leadership buy-in, mobilizing intercessors and choosing a Church
Health Team are all a part of this step. The Congregational Council chose
this process in 2004 and the Spiritual Health Team was formed in early 2005
and re-formed again in 2006 to carry
out the NCD process within St. Bart.
Step
2 - Diagnose
- Diagnose
the health of our church. This step began when 30 members took the survey in early 2006, followed by an
in-depth analysis of your Minimum Factor, including conducting focus group
meetings (first one held at St. Bart on May 7, 2006) to determine areas of concern and praise within our Minimum
Factor. It concludes with the Health Team identifying 3 - 5 key issues to
address.
Step 3 - Plan *
- The Health Team will address our Minimum Factor. In this step the Church
Health Team will develop a strategic plan to address the 3 - 5 key issues
identified in Step 2.
Step 4 - Implement -
Implement
the strategic plan developed in Step 3. Staying focused on carrying out the
plan and overcoming obstacles along the way will be the task of the Church
Health Team.
Step 5 - Evaluate -
Evaluate
the process we used and the results of our effort, including determining the
increased health in your Minimum Factor. Then plan to re-take the survey to
see if the Minimum Factor increased and other Quality Characteristics did
not drop.
*Currently
we are in the latter part of Step 2 of the NCD Process here at St.
Bart's. We have completed the NCD Survey and, as you can see on the attached
chart, the survey results concluded that our Minimum Factor is
"Passionate Spirituality." With input from the Focus Group comments, the
Health Team has developed 3 Key Issues and currently we are developing a
time line for implementation of some of the items within the Key Issue
areas.
If you have any comments
or suggestions, please
Click Here to send an email to Dick Cooper
or call me at 609-888-35006
or
Click Here to send an email to Pastor Sonja.
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