NCD Church Survey

NCD health and financial giving

The following chart indicates the relationship between levels of NCD health and the percentage of ministering, small group and worship service attending church members who give 10% or more of their gross income in tithes and offerings for church support, missions, etc. As with all correlative data, it is important not to suppose a cause effect relationship here between health and giving. All we can say is that there is very strong evidence that if you are concerned about church finances, you would be wise to seriously address church health.

A Personal Testimony

Skrivet av Henrik Andersen tors 12 maj 2011 - 5:12fm

Since this site is about Natural Church Development in The Salvation Army a personal testimony must be in place:

I will never forget the feeling I had after reading my very first book about NCD. I was a corps officer and we had seen some growth in the corps, but it was hard work.

Then, suddenly, it was like a heavy weight fell from my shoulders as I realised, it was not my, but God’s job to grow the church. Not only that, but God had already placed the potential for growth in the church – all we had to do was to release it –get out of the way.

Releasing our potential (Holistic Small Groups)

Skrivet av Liam Glover sön 1 maj 2011 - 8:41fm

This is the second of a series of articles about NCD in The Salvation Army. Read the first article in the series.

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It has been suggested that we should start something with the end in mind. You may recall the previous article identifying and celebrating something that is characteristic of The Salvation Army: Need-oriented Evangelism - The ability to acutely identify the needs of suffering humanity and respond accordingly. What a blessing!

Building on our strength (Need-oriented Evangelism)

Skrivet av Neil Adams mån 25 apr 2011 - 8:06fm

What if, rather than just sharing personal opinions, we could hear from more than 15 000 Salvationists in over 20 countries about the health of local corps ministry? What if we could then test those perspectives against a global Christianity database covering more than 70 countries and over 100 diverse denominations? Would that be valuable information?

Well, this is the first of a series of articles presenting some of the findings of exactly that kind of research. For more than a decade, the Natural Church Development process has been operating in corps around the world.

Analysing Your Minimum Factor: Inspiring Worship Service

Skrivet av Ian Campbell tis 12 apr 2011 - 11:54fm

The purpose of this series is to offer some basic “entry points” for beginning to explore your Minimum Factor graph.

This post is for those whose Minimum Factor is Inspiring Worship Service.

Two initial points need to be made.

First, all the questions relate to the degree to which the worship service is inspiring. The higher a question’s result, the greater its contribution to the service being inspiring.

Male Clergy - A Medical Allegory

Skrivet av Ian Campbell mån 11 apr 2011 - 3:51em

I am convinced that a fair percentage of male clergy treat the health of their church the same way as they treat their own health. The NCD process has made this link very apparent. I wrote the following allegory for an NCD National Conference back in 2004. Not surprisingly things haven’t much changed. Nor, as experience has taught me, have the issues been much different in places outside Australia. It goes like this. (The Australian male is known colloquially as the “Aussie bloke”.)

Lessons from Legoland

Skrivet av Adam Johnstone ons 30 mar 2011 - 1:32em

As a child I spent hundreds of hours playing with Lego. Out of my large suitcase of mixed blocks and colours came houses, tractors, people and various unidentifiable but lovingly crafted clumps of creativity.

NCD health and financial giving

The following chart indicates the relationship between levels of NCD health and the percentage of ministering, small group and worship service attending church members who give 10% or more of their gross income in tithes and offerings for church support, missions, etc. As with all correlative data, it is important not to suppose a cause effect relationship here between health and giving. All we can say is that there is very strong evidence that if you are concerned about church finances, you would be wise to seriously address church health.

NCD health and child attendance

The blue line on the following chart indicates the relationship between levels of NCD health and the proportion of children in a congregation. While the aim of Corps growth is clearly not to replace adults with children, the natural ageing process does need to be counteracted by the incoming of more youth. This chart clearly indicates that there is a natural renewing that comes with higher levels of church health. However, this renewing effect goes much further. The red line indicates the growth rate of churches at each level of health.

Temporary Suspension of Gravity!!

Skrivet av Liam Glover ons 23 mar 2011 - 2:13em

Temporary Suspension of Gravity!

Such news would be plastered across headlines of newspapers world wide. Regular broadcasting would be interrupted to capture the effect of such amazing news. The very principle of gravity, thought to be always and continuously applying, suddenly and inexplicably suspended. A story just waiting to be understood, relayed and interpreted by all and sundry.

A question about NCD helping with the Appointment of Corps Officers in The Salvation Army

Skrivet av Neil Adams tis 22 mar 2011 - 4:45em

My son is doing an assignment about the appointment process and changes of officers. He was wondering if I could offer him thoughts on how NCD and Corps profiles could help TSA find new leaders for a corps when Officers are moved on?

I offered the following suggestions:

NCD could help in the appointment process in several ways (and probably more ways than I am aware of):

Whose survey results are they?

Skrivet av Adam Johnstone lör 28 aug 2010 - 10:57em
Since it is called an NCD Church Survey, the answer to the question "whose survey results are they?” would seem obvious. "They are the results for our church!” In a sense this is true, but clarity about the specific human face of the results will have a dramatic impact on how well you use your time and energy in making plans and taking action as well as accelerating your rate of progress.

Why are you thinking about using NCD?

Skrivet av Adam Johnstone lör 21 aug 2010 - 10:52em
What are your personal expectations as you approach the NCD Survey in your church? What "signs of success" will you be looking for and how long are you prepared to work at it? How do you expect NCD will change your church? How do you expect it will change you?

Perhaps some of the following paraphrases expressed by pastors approaching NCD may resonate with you:

"I haven't thought about my expectations. NCD has some good ideas in it and I'm going to give it a go."