When receiving your NCD Survey results, it is important you are clear on who and what you have measured. If your church has multiple congregations, then it is fine to select your survey participants from across the whole church, if those congregations are largely the same in terms of demographics and style. If however, you have quite distinct congregations, we suggest you choose one of the following options so that you can be more certain as to what your results are telling you.

1. Survey each congregation separately. This will help you to understand, for example, which leaders, worship service, small groups, ministries, etc. are being reflected in each set of results. Having separate survey results for each congregation also provides an excellent learning opportunity across the church as each congregation is able to look and learn from the relative strengths of the others.

2. Initially survey just one “pilot” congregation. If the timing or cost of surveying multiple congregations at once is going to pose a problem, selecting one congregation to start off the process can be a good idea for building confidence in the process. This will ensure the results for that congregation are precise and can be more easily acted upon. Once the value of the process has been established, you can then choose to move on to surveying additional congregations.

Either way, it is best not to survey a mixed sample from across diverse congregations as much important information about the health dynamics of the church may be masked in the process.