What is Natural Church Development (NCD)?
NCD is both a process and a tool that has been employed in over 70,000 congregations in 84 countries since 1996. With encouragement from our Regional Minister for Congregations, the Rev. Dr. John-Peter Smit, Session has chosen NCD to help prepare for Glenview’s future. Session believes we need to clarify and update our vision and mission before we decide how best to fill ministry staff positions.
NCD begins with a survey of a focus group of members and adherents of the congregation who regularly attend worship and serve Glenview in other ways. Only these people, who represent a cross-section of the active congregation, will be surveyed at this time. If you’re not asked to participate, don’t worry. There will be opportunities for you to share the experience.
NCD isn’t a general, fact-finding survey. It’s not a process of identifying deficiencies and problems. It will draw our attention to the strengths of our congregation as we perceive them. The results will also suggest areas for improvement in our ministries. Survey input is becomes part of the NCD database (anonymously) and the results for our congregation are compared with others. Session will then receive a report, which will be added to information we already have on record from earlier visioning work.
Sharing with, and listening to everyone in the congregation who wishes to contribute and participate will be important in our effective use of NCD. John-Peter Smit will continue to work with Session. He will also visit Glenview and preach on Sunday, March 24.
A basic assumption of NCD is that quality precedes quantity. Every congregation wants to grow. NCD identifies qualities of growing congregations.
“The eight quality characteristics summarize the net finding of the NCD research, by highlighting the principles that are, on average, stronger developed in growing than in non-growing churches:
· Empowering leadership
· Gift-based ministry
· Passionate spirituality
· Effective structures
· Inspiring worship
· Holistic small groups
· Need-oriented evangelism
· Loving relationships
While the way in which churches in different cultures or denominations put these principles into practice may differ considerably, NCD claims that the underlying principles are the same worldwide.” (From About Natural Church Development)
You can learn more about NCD through these links:
https://ncd-canada.com/about-ncd/
http://www.ncd-international.org/public/natural_church_development.html
If you have questions, please speak to Laurence DeWolfe. If you receive an invitation to complete the survey you can do so online or on paper.