Natural Church DevelopmentTraining and Coaching for Churches

Why Is This Important?

Church research in America shows that 85% of our churches are on a plateau or declining and that Protestant denominations have declined by nearly 10% in the past 10 years. But the more important reason has to do with the health of our churches.Natural Church Development helps a church focus on its health as a congregation, not on the numbers of increase or decline. It assumes that healthy churches will be growing churches, but a church will not always experience an increase in numbers.The questions Natural Church Development asks have to do with congregational health and transformation. For instance:

• Does the church empower its leadership to do ministry?
• Does the congregation have a passion about its sense of spirituality?
• Do people leave worship knowing they have been in God’s presence?
• Do the relationships of the people show the signs of God’s love?

What Can Be Done?

Teach leaders and members of our churches what a healthy church is like, and coach them in a process of becoming healthier communities.

What are healthy churches like?

Eight Quality Characteristics

• Empowering leadership
• Gift-oriented ministry
• Passionate spirituality
• Functional structures
• Inspiring worship
• Holistic small groups
• Need-oriented evangelism
• Loving relationships

What Process Will Help?

Churches are organizations, and they are organisms. As with any organism [any living thing] God has designed natural processes for health and growth. Natural Church Development teaches churches to follow these six life-giving principles to enhance their health and increase their growth:

• Interdependence: everything is connected
• Multiplication: living things normally reproduce themselves
• Energy transformation: both negative and positive energy harnessed for good purposes
• Multi-usage: increasing the capacity for ongoing growth and development
• Symbiosis: cultivating cooperative relationships for mutual benefit
• Functionality: an organism’s functions produce discernible results according to its purpose

What is Natural Church Development?

The Institute for Natural Church Development is an international, interdenominational organization based in Germany committed to helping congregations become healthy, growing churches. NCD resources are being used in the U.S. by many denominations, including Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian.

Christian A. Schwarz is head of NCD and the author of Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches and several supporting books and resources. In the 1990s they surveyed over 1,000 churches in 32 countries – churches of different denominations and with different theologies, both growing and declining churches. On the basis of that initial research, they identified the Eight Quality Characteristics which define healthy churches. NCD has now surveyed 33,000 churches in 60 countries, including 20,000 churches in the U.S. Their research continues to support their initial findings and conclusions. They have discovered that every church surveyed which showed a certain level of health in all eight areas is, without exception, also a numerically growing church.

How Can We Help You?

Jimmy Reader works as a consultant for small churches in small communities for the American Baptist Churches of the Rochester/Genesee Region. He is a coach, trained in Natural Church Development, who can guide congregations through the process of becoming healthier churches by focusing on the Eight Quality Characteristics and using the Six Biotic (life-giving) Principles of NCD.

Rev. Jimmy Reader (D.Min., Princeton) is an ordained American Baptist minister, with 35 years of pastoral experience, including five years of intentional interim work with the Presbytery of Genesee Valley. He and his wife, Rev. Joy Bergfalk, co-direct a nonprofit organization called Life Listening Resources through which they help people listen to life. Recently, Rev. Deborah Hughes has joined their team to expand their consulting work with churches.

How Can The Denomination Help The Churches?

Jimmy Reader’s work as a consultant with the American Baptist Churches is funded through a grant from National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches/USA and a grant from a local church which tithed on a generous gift to their congregation. Individual congregations which participate will pay only the minimal costs of the survey and whatever books or teaching resources they choose to purchase, since all of them by requirement of the grant funding are small congregations.

Grants made or received at the level of the region, district, presbytery, diocese, or conference can help fund the work of a consultant and coach. The churches which choose to participate can then be asked to fund a smaller portion of the costs, according to their financial abilities.

What Will The Churches Be Asked To Do?

Send a pastor and key leaders to an informational night where they will learn how Natural Church Development can help them be healthier, growing churches

Recruit a leadership team – called a Church Health Team – which we will train in how to oversee the process

Have 30 active members and the pastor complete a survey which we will process and report on to the congregation

Engage in a process to discern their next steps, on the basis of the survey report, to move toward health and growth as a congregation

Begin that process, and work on it for a year.

The time and energy required for the process is the most important contribution they will make. The extent of their financial contribution will be the decision of the denominational body sponsoring the Natural Church Development program in this area.

What Will The Coach Do?

The standard coaching contract, which can be negotiated, includes:

• A total of five days of contact time per church during the first year
• An orientation for the leadership team, including the pastor(s)
• A training session for Church Health Team members
• Monthly coaching through the year (by phone or email, or in person)
• A final review of the process with the Church Health Team

What Will The Cost Be?

Consulting costs will vary depending on factors such as the number of churches participating in the same area, how many training sessions are needed, and whether the expected contact time per church varies. A group of several churches in close proximity to each other, attending joint orientation and training sessions, would reduce the cost per church.

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