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LEADERSHIP
Healthy Churches – Naturally!

David Wiebe

Would anyone consciously want to have an unhealthy church? Obviously not. But what does a healthy church look like?

A catch phrase around the Canadian MB Conference has been “Natural Church Development”. At our convention in 2000, Christian Schwarz, the author of this ministry, was our main speaker. Reactions positive and cautionary have been expressed. Many churches have used the Natural Church Development assessment tools to test their corporate health. Others may be cautious about jumping on a bandwagon.

Is Natural Church Development any different from the myriad of other tools, seminars and speakers in the church improvement circuit? We think it is. Here’s why we, the Canadian MB Conference leadership, offer NCD to our churches.

A better tool

How do we measure “health”? Perhaps 15 years ago, many of us used the tools of the Church Growth Movement. Conference leaders endorsed them widely. At that time, they were arguably the best tools we had available to us. Used with a good dose of discernment, they helped many of our churches understand key growth issues. Eventually, however, questions were asked about the Church Growth Movement. Do numbers tell the whole story? Do numbers imply health? Are we sacrificing quality to gain quantity? Christian Schwarz was one of these questioners.

Natural Church Development is Schwarz’s attempt to improve on the Church Growth approach. Its research base is wide. The underlying philosophy is an attempt to look behind numbers to the causes for growth or decline. This is a refreshing approach, a tool taken to a new level of helpfulness. Moreover, the assessment attempts to go beyond the basic experience level so frequently characteristic of spiritual gift surveys.

In addition, an extensive coaching system is developing. Our Conference commitment to this means NCD is the platform for deeper dialogue between conference ministers and churches.

The Natural Movement

NCD is like an annual physical checkup. It’s a back-to-basics approach aided by advances in research assessment technology. Churches generally try to do their best in worship, small groups, nurture and evangelism. What hasn’t been equally considered is how leadership, structures and congregational dynamics affect success in these areas. NCD takes all these into consideration and provides a more sophisticated tool to assess them.

The idea underlying NCD is supported elsewhere. George Barna recently published Seven Habits of Highly Successful Churches (Regal, 1999). It outlines seven factors in healthy churches, essentially the same as Schwarz’s. A new book from Stephen Macchia points in the same direction: Becoming a Healthy Church: 10 Characteristics (Baker). It is based on his ministry in New England, where he attempted to determine what a church needed in order to be ready for effective evangelism. Macchia’s 10 characteristics are very similar to Schwarz’s.

We can find a similar development in one of our own churches: West Portal MB in Saskatoon. Pastor Dwayne Barkman has been working for the past decade on six “pillars” that underpin the entire church operation. They include fundamentally the same concepts as Schwarz, Macchia and Barna. In fact, Barkman noted recently that reading Barna’s book was extremely helpful for him because it matched so closely with his pillars. The results for West Portal have been tangible: increasing growth through conversions, almost 1000 people who call West Portal their home church, regular attendance of well over 500, the birthing of a daughter church and a healthy score on a recent NCD profile.

A limited number

Barkman once commented that six pillars are easier to remember than eight or 10. An informal survey of the New Testament reveals over 600 behaviours, beliefs and attitudes that a Christian disciple should have. Yet the Canadian MB Conference Christian Education Ministries board developed six categories to describe a disciple. They are major directions for individuals, implying much more when considered carefully and followed through. Natural Church Development is much like that. Eight characteristics, when considered more deeply, represent the key areas in which a church must get results to be effective.

Beyond health

As a Conference leader, I am concerned about the health of our churches. This is a crucial focus as we are entering the new millennium. Beyond that, I have a much greater concern, echoed by Dwayne Barkman and George Barna. If a church’s work isn’t bringing about life change, let’s not bother. Assessment tools and church health must have a direct impact on people. The poor need to be fed; unwed moms need care and direction; glue-sniffing teens need attention; neighbours floundering with a broken relationship or spiritual confusion need a friend. Each church must create an environment where people are free to minister and impact their world for Christ.

Strictly speaking, NCD won’t force any church to be effective or guarantee health. But it may reveal, for instance, that a church is lacking in “need oriented evangelism”, and the church leaders may respond by starting a new outreach.

In addition, NCD plays a role in church planting. A church with an average score of more than 50 should consider whether God is leading it toward daughtering a new church to reach new groups of people.

Is NCD the best tool ever? No. But it is a trusted tool for now. As a Conference, we hope churches will use this tool with confidence, not just in the assessment itself, but in the dialogue and strategic planning that follow.

David Wiebe is Executive Director of the Canadian Conference Of Mennonite Brethren Churches.

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Last modified July 10, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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