How to Schedule Your NCD Survey

Before scheduling a Natural Church Development survey for your church, your leaders should become familiar with NCD by reading the recommended resources. Once your church has committed to the NCD process, there are several ways to go about scheduling an NCD survey.

Option 1: NCD Starter Package

Our Starter Package includes the following components:

Fee: $525 US

You can order this starter package by phone (316-440-3681) or at our bookstore.


Option 2: NCD Launch Consultation

This consulting package includes the following:

This consultation is designed to launch the NCD process in your church. During the site visit, your NCD coach will meet with your pastor and other staff and leaders to learn as much as possible about the culture of your church–its strengths and weaknesses, your vision and challenges–to help you better understand what your NCD scores mean for you. The site visit will culminate in a 2- to 3-hour meeting with your church’s Leadership Team in which the consultant will present your scores, interpret them in the context of conversations with your pastor and other leaders, and explain the next steps in the NCD process for developing and implementing an Action Plan.

Fee: $1950 US plus travel for one consultant or $2950 plus travel for a team of two. (If you have already taken an NCD survey less than six months before the NCD launch visit, provide your consultant with your Detailed Analysis file, and you will receive a credit of $325.)

Note: This consultation is diagnostic in nature. It’s purpose is to help your leaders assess your church’s strengths and weaknesses. It is not practical, within the scope of a 2-day consultation, to develop a strategic plan to strengthen your Minimum Factor.

Following the launch consultation, your church has two options:

1. You can try to implement the NCD process on your own.

2. You can invite your coach to continue to work with you as you develop and implement your Action Plan. This includes guidance in selecting the members of your Church Health Team; training the Church Health Team for their work; providing ongoing coaching to your pastor, Church Health Team chair, and other key leaders; and conducting on-site training or strategic planning events related to your Minimum Factor as requested.

What difference does a coach make?

NCD International reports that churches that do not work with a coach have a 50% success rate. (Success is defined as completing the NCD cycle and showing a measurable improvement in church health.) Churches that work with a coach have a 90% success rate.

Other options

You can also schedule a survey without any coaching, not even telephone coaching. To do this, contact your national NCD partner. In the US, this is ChurchSmart (www.churchsmart.com). The cost of the basic survey is $195 + $5 US shipping & handling. The Detailed Analysis is an additional $70.

Living Stones does not offer the survey without coaching. If the survey is used only as a snapshot assessment of where the church is rather than as an entry point to the NCD process, we believe the survey is of little value, and we do not encourage its use in this way.


After the Launch Consultation

Based on what your consultant learns about your church through your NCD survey results and the launch consultation site visit, your consultant will, upon request, recommend a consulting track customized to your church’s needs and resources. Options include the following:

The level of coaching, including the number of coaching site visits for training and strategic planning, can vary, depending on the desires and budget of your church.


NCD is a big commitment

While an NCD Launch Visit is a low-risk way to stick your toe in the water to consider the NCD process, it is important to understand that committing to the NCD process is a major commitment. It is a commitment to follow a strategic cyclical process for identifying your Minimum Factor, forming a Church Health Team to shape and facilitate the response, develop an Action Plan, implement an Action Plan, monitor the effectiveness of action steps taken, then to repeat the process. The NCD process is a framework for strategic planning that affects almost every aspect of the church’s life. It is not simply a curious self-test that leaders take from time to time for the fun of it.

The NCD Launch Visit is designed to introduce your leaders to the NCD process, to help them understand what would be involved in committing to the process, and to help them count the cost of making a serious commitment to using Natural Church Development to guide the church’s strategic planning process.

If you have questions about whether your church is a good candidate for NCD, we invite you to call (316-440-3681) or email: consult@living-stones.com. One of our NCD coaches will be glad to help you.

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