The Natural Church Development Cycle

Putting NCD to work in your church

Natural Church Development is not a survey. The survey is just one tool. Natural Church Development is a long-term process for strengthening the health and effectiveness of your church. The survey is a powerful diagnostic tool that identifies strengths and weaknesses, but a diagnosis is of little use unless it leads to action that improves health.

The NCD process can be viewed as a cycle:

  1. Get Ready:

    • Would it be valuable for your church to enter into the Natural Church Development process?
    • If so, when is the best time to begin?
    • Should you try to do it by yourselves, or would your church receive greater benefit from asking an experienced NCD coach to guide you through the process?

    These are all decisions you need to consider before committing to the NCD process. How do you get the information you need for making these decisions?

    Read.

    • Natural Church Development. This is the basic introduction to the Natural Church Development process and tools. It is an excellent book, but it is not an easy read.
      Who should read this? Pastors and non-staff leaders who will be key to the NCD process.
    • Color Your World with Natural Church Development. This book is written more for members of the congregation. It is easier to read with more stories.
      Who should read this? Those who will be making the decision about the NCD process, staff, board and committee members.
    • The ABCs of Natural Church Development. This a small, inexpensive booklet to be used as a free handout that can be read in 20 minutes to introduce members. of the congregation to the basic concepts of NCD.
      Who should read this?The 30 members of the congregation who will take the NCD survey. Any board or committee members involved in the process who do not read one of the above books. Some churches use this as a handout for the entire congregation when they launch the process.

    Talk to an NCD coach.

    You can email or call Living Stones to set up a free 45-minute telephone consultation with one of our certified NCD coaches. You can describe to the coach the needs you are hoping to address with the NCD process, and the coach can answer your questions about the tools, the process, and options for next steps.

  2. Evaluate:

    3. If you decide to engage the process, and your people have read the information about Natural Church Development, you are ready to take the NCD survey. The survey is filled out by 30 members who are:

    • active in ministry
    • regularly participating in some kind of small group, and
    • considered by the senior pastor to be at the center of congregational life

    The survey is about 80 questions and takes about 30 minutes to complete. You will want to bring all 30 participants together and have them fill out the survey and leave it with you. Since the survey is anonymous, if you send them out or let people take them home, it is almost impossible to round up all the surveys.

    The senior pastor also fills out a separate survey.

    Within two weeks of sending in your completed survey forms, you will receive basic scores for the eight Quality Characteristics identifying your strengths and weaknesses. If you take your survey through Living Stones, you will also receive a detailed analysis which breaks down your scores within each Quality Characteristic to a greater level of detail. (If you order your survey elsewhere, the detailed analysis is optional. We have found this to be so valuable that we always include it.)

    You can order the survey as part of either:

    • The NCD Starter Package, which includes a telephone consultation to review your results, or
    • An NCD Launch Consultation which includes a 24-hour site visit by an NCD coach.

  3. Analyze

    4. If you ordered your NCD survey as part of the NCD Starter Package, you will receive your results in the form an of Excel file. You will then arrange a time with your coach for a telephone coaching session to review your results together. This coaching session can be with the senior pastor, multiple staff members, or a group, such as your governing board. Your coach will ask some probing questions to try to assess what lies behind scores that seem to indicate a significant strength or concern. You can ask your coach questions that are raised by your survey results.

    If you ordered your NCD survey as part of the NCD Launch Consultation, your coach will spend about 24 hours at your church. Your coach will meet with your pastor and other leaders to ask questions that shed light on your scores. Your coach will them meet with a group of your key leaders (from 15 to 75 people) to present and interpret your NCD scores, provide training on ways to address your Minimum Factor, and outline options for next steps in developing a strategic plan guided by your survey results.

    In many cases it is also useful to conduct focus groups to involve the congregation in discerning the underlying issues that contribute to the church's Minimum Factor. Your coach can outline for you various options for how to do this and how to choose the best option for your situation.

  4. Plan.

    5. Once the issues that contribute to your Minimum Factor have been identified, the next step is to develop a strategic plan to strengthen your Minimum Factor.

    This consists of 3 to 6 Action Steps to be completed within the coming year. The group responsible for developing this plan (as well as conducting the focus groups in Step 3) is called your Church Health Team. Your coach will guide you in knowing how to select the members of your Church Health team.

    If you wish, your coach can also meet with your Church Health Team to orient them to their work, help them draft a team charter, provide additional training in the area of your Minimum Factor, and guide the team in developing a strategic plan.

    You can decide whether to do this planning phase on your own or whether to invite a coach to work with you. Churches that do this on their own and follow through with their plans experience significant improvement in church.

    Churches that go through this process with a coach experience even greater improvements in church health. You will need to decide whether to invest in a coaching relationship to maximize the benefit to church health.

  5. Implement.

    6. For each of the 3 to 6 items in the Action Plan, the Church Health Team will determine what needs to be done, by whom, milestones for completing the task, and who will monitor progress and how. For action items that require approval by the board or staff, the Church Health Team will make the recommendations to the appropriate decision-makers.

  6. Repeat the cycle.

    7. About once a year, you will take the NCD survey again to measure your progress and monitor the effectiveness of the steps you have taken. Your new NCD score may indicate a new Minimum Factor. On the basis of your new NCD scores, you will refocus your Church Health Team around your new Minimum Factor, probably bringing on new Church Health Team members. You will repeat the process of training the Church Health Team in the area of your new Minimum Factor, and will repeat the process of analysis, planning, and implementation.
    Churches that go through the cycle at least five times receive maximum benefit from this process.

What is Natural Church Development (NCD)?
The NCD Survey: What does it measure?
Interpreting Your NCD scores
The Natural Church Development Cycle: Using NCD in Your church
How to Schedule an NCD Survey
Natural Church Development tools
Our NCD coaches
Submit a question to an NCD Coach
Contact us