Natural Church Development

Definition

Natural Church Development

• Is based on an international research project

• Applies "systems" thinking to the church

• Stimulates the leadership of a congregation to identify and discover solutions to their problems, utilizing their own unique personnel, gifts, abilities, resources, goals, values and desires.  

• Utilizes a scientific survey/assessment to measure how well a congregation is doing in eight essential qualities of church life for details

• Is a long-term strategic process to improve the health of a congregation

International Research Project

• Conducted by Christian Schwartz

• In

  • 1,000 congregations

  • 32 countries

  • 18 languages

• On 6 continents

Grows churches naturally

• Views the church as a living system

• Looks for numerical growth and health

• Applies principles of Scripture and Nature to the congregation

• Stimulates healthy growth, but leaves the results up to God

Does not view the church like a machine.  

Natural Church Development doesn't believe:

• The congregational system can be broken down into and worked on as individual, isolated and independent parts

• Fixing one problem area will automatically solve all the problems a congregation is experiencing

• A solution that work in one congregation can easily be replicated and made to work in another

• Inter-relationships and feelings are unimportant

It is not a

• Cure-all guaranteeing growth

• Substitute for spiritual leadership

• Replacement for a unique vision

• Means to unify a divided congregation

• Short-term solution

• Sociological solutions divorced from scripture or theology

• Top-down set of instructions imposed upon the church membership by the leadership or a consultant

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