Coach Support

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Recent NCD Coach Webinar

NCD Coaching: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

29 March 2023

Four different NCD Coaches share their experiences of working with NCD in churches. We asked the practitioners to give us their unique insights about the joyful moments and the more challenging aspects of NCD Coaching—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Gary Diehl (USA):
was first introduced to what a healthy local church looks like through the Natural Church Development survey in 1998. As a lay leader, Gary served as site coordinator for a consultation process at his home church. Three years later he joined the Living Stones Associates team and began consulting with churches out of a growing conviction that many congregations need comprehensive, biblically grounded guidance to become healthy and effective in our rapidly changing world. He was trained and certified with NCD in 2002 and has been recertified by NCD America and NCD International since then. During his 35+ year career in the business world, Gary sharpened his skills in problem solving, leadership dynamics, team development, project management, and strategic planning. He now uses those experiences to coach, guide and equip a broad spectrum of churches and leaders. Gary serves pastors, leaders, teams, local congregations, non-profit boards and multiple denominations across North America from his home in Ohio. He also serves as a lead consultant and an NCD specialist with the Living Stones Associates LLC consulting team (www.living-stones.com ). He can be reached at [email protected].

Kjetil Sigerseth (Norway):
has been the national leder of NCD Norway since 2015 (NaMu Norge, https://namunorge.no). He is 50 years old and lives together with his wife Liv-Kari in the small town of Molde on the west coast of Norway. Together they have three children on their way out of the nest. Kjetil has university degrees in economics, management and pedagogy (Cand.ed.), the subject of his main thesis was The Learning Congregation. He has worked in the church context all his working life, longest connected to The Church of Norway. Since 2020 Kjetil also has been involved with Fresh Expressions of Church in Norway (Church in new ways) connected to The Christian Council of Norway (https://norgeskristnerad.no/english). The last years he has also been engaged in building up Teleios Life Norway (connected to Equipping Ministries, https://www.equippingministries.org).

Gillian Knight (Australia):
My background is in Human Resources and have worked in that area for almost 20 years. In 2008 I was given the role of NCD Administrator for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North New South Wales Australia. Over the past 5 years my experience has extended to other SDA churches in Australia (South New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia) as well as assisting SDA churches in Fiji. I am very passionate about my role with NCD and love working with the pastors and leadership to build healthy, growing churches across Australia and Fiji.

Andy Stevens (USA):
has been in full time ministry since 1995, currently serving as the Senior Pastor at the Milford Church of God in Milford DE since 2007. He began unofficially serving as a leadership coach in 1999 and in 2017 officially created "Andy Is My Coach" LLC to serve churches, pastors and business leaders. Andy has been a certified NCD Coach since 2017 and has served around a dozen churches of various sizes, ethnicities, and demographics via the NCD process. In March, Andy gained coaching and speaking certification with the John Maxwell Team. Andy loves to introduce himself as “An Ambassador of Hope.”

Download Kjetil's presentation in PowerPoint format.

See all previous webinars

Maximising the fruit of your coaching ministry

For many years, NCD National Partnerships and coaching ministries have been established and developed in countries around the world. Much has been learnt through this hard work about what it takes to have a growing, sustainable and fruitful NCD ministry. Out of all of this experience comes the three NCD Ministry Health pillars. Before coming to those, there are some general overall points you should address in the interest of maximising the fruitfulness of your coaching ministry.

You will note that some of these points are also requirements (*) of your ongoing accreditation with NCD International. However, we would hope that you will embrace them simply because it makes sense to do so if your goal is to empower those you work with to the greatest extent.

Participate in NCD International Coach Webinars *

Regularly participate in NCD Coach Master Mind groups *

Develop your own Empowering Leadership

Develop your understanding of the Growth Forces using the NCD Effective Stewardship Test

Share the stories of NCD

Learn from your most successful coaches or customers

Talk to your NCD National Partner

The Three NCD Ministry Health pillars

Expansion, Progress, and Consistency

While there are many tasks involved in supporting the NCD process, there are three main pillars that make up a healthy overall NCD ministry: Expansion, Progress, and Consistency. These pillars will ensure that the ministry grows, is sustainable and has a transforming influence on the churches and denominations it serves. Here with a brief summary of each pillar:

Expansion: At the basic level, this is about getting more churches engaged in the process. At a more powerful level, it has always involved (as a best practice) empowerment of others to also serve as Coaches within your network who will engage with churches that you do not have either the time or opportunity to reach.

Progress: Having churches take their first NCD Survey is a great start, but it is important that the results for those churches are improving over time.

Consistency: With churches joining the NCD process (Expansion) and those churches improving their results (Progress), there is much to celebrate. However, it is vital that their progress is sustained. The repeating of NCD Surveys is a strong measurable indicator of this consistency.

The following are some suggestions for improving the Expansion, Progress, and Consistency of your NCD coaching ministry:

Expansion

Educate your churches

Present the principles and process of NCD

Make the various NCD books available

Improve accessibility

Promote online and paper options for completing the survey

Expand your network

Explore the contacts and influence of your existing customers

Train additional coaches within your network

Address financial concerns

Address the topic of NCD as a sound financial investment

Address misconceptions

Present NCD results as both a basis for celebration and challenge

Reduce the preconditions for starting the process

Engage with Church Planters

Progress

Provide consistent support

Keep in regular contact

Network your churches for mutual learning

Help key influencers and church members embrace the results

Present NCD results as both a basis for celebration and challenge

Engage elders in the process

Make use of numberless profiles

Make use of NCD Perspectives

Offer advanced diagnostics

Ensure every survey is debriefed

Make use of advanced profiles

Make use of analysis and action planning worksheets

Provide specific diagnostic articles and tips

Get more people involved in implementation

Work with Cycle Starters

Encourage the use of the 3 Color Tools

Consistency

Establish NCD as a process

Encourage churches to plan ahead for their next survey