Both Holistic Small Groups and Loving Relationships have a strong relational dimension. You can gain some helpful insights by considering where each of those areas rank in your NCD results. Consider your church's NCD profile as you read the following.

Loving Relationships is more about the breadth of relationships in your church. Think of it like a fishing net across your church (to pick up on the biblical fishing metaphor). When Loving Relationships is high, the knots of that net are all bound together with strong and resilient cords. This not only strengthens the fellowship of the church, but also means that newcomers, who would like to be part of your fellowship, almost can't help but be caught in the net as they 'swim' into your church community. Put another way, they, too, feel wrapped up in arms of love that stretch out across the church. The net is strong because conflict, envy, family strongholds etc. have not been allowed to tear any holes in it, or holes that emerge are readily and deliberately repaired.

Holistic Small Groups is more about the depth of relationships in your church. Such groups are a place where people are committed to authentic community. Pride, and other community destroying vices, are addressed in constructive ways as the members of such groups live out life with each other, without pretence. Despite the sometimes genteel appearance of Holistic Small Group life (and why some hard-nosed "practical" people prefer to keep busy and avoid it), it is actually an environment where true bravery and risk-taking is the norm. In this way, the culture that strong Holistic Small Groups create lays the foundation for transformation in people's lives. Interestingly, in the initial international research of NCD, pastors were asked whether they would prefer their people to attend a small group or the worship service if they, for some reason, could only make it to one. The result of that research showed a clear connection between those pastors who chose small groups as the option, and the long-term healthy growth of their churches.

When Loving Relationships is high and Holistic Small Groups is low, this tends to represent a place where people are prepared to have a lot of good friendships (breadth), but are not as keen about being like family to each other (lack of depth). Of course, by definition, those who continue to be a part of such a church can cope in such a place. If they couldn't, they would have left. To some extent, they may feel that going deeper with other people is not that necessary—at least for them. However, the reality is that there are many people who are currently not part of such a church because depth of relationships is precisely what they most need, right now. And of course, despite being able to 'get by' without it, those who are already part of the church would have their lives significantly enriched if they, too, were prepared to pause occasionally, and get real with each other in more intimate community. Apart from this, such a church will remain a somewhat spiritual social club.

When Holistic Small Groups is high and Loving Relationships is low, this tends to represent a place where there are intimate, family like relationships in the church (depth), however those relationships exist in pockets that are somewhat disconnected from each other (lack of breadth). In this situation, there must be some concern about the likelihood of 'cliquishness' in the church. If there are only a few points difference between the Holistic Small Groups and Loving Relationships results, there may not be much to worry about. However, if that difference is getting towards 15 points or beyond, such an issue must be seriously addressed. Taken to its logical conclusion, if Loving Relationships is much lower than Holistic Small Groups, it would be reasonable to question whether in fact it is all the same church, or actually a collection of mini-churches that just happen to have a loose connection with each other. You could allow those mini-churches to be legitimised as local churches in their own right, or work towards reconnecting them with each other as part of your current church. Either way, the relationships between those groups should still be restored and grown, particularly when they come to understand what they can offer each other, and look to the kind of mutually beneficial relationships they could have.

When Loving Relationships is high and Holistic Small Groups is also high, you have the pleasure of enjoying a wonderful breadth of interconnected relationships where going deeper with each other and dealing with the real issues of life is only natural—where each group sees clearly its strengths and weaknesses as part of the body. Your church is then a house of healing for all.