Natural Church Development

We did this at Crossroads in 2006 and again this year. Both times 'Functional Structures' or 'Efficient Structures' was exceptionally high. This time 'Empowering Leadership' was next. Last time it was 'Need Oriented Evangelism'

Our lowest last time was 'Holistic Small Groups' (we didn't have any small groups at that stage) and second lowest last time was 'Passionate Spirituality'. This time our two lowest were 'Inspiring Worship Service' and 'Passionate Spirituality'.

Has anyone else done this in their church? What did you think?

Some of it's pretty funny... like they've predicted that if we up all our 8 areas to 65+ we will be a church of 699 people in ten years :-)  It'd be pretty yucky if you built your whole church planning around NCD, I reckon.

I reckon our 'scores' for 'Worship' and 'Spirituality' were also majorly skewed by vocab, theology and culture. People in our church would react pretty badly to 'experience God' and 'worship God' sort of terminology for theological reasons. We would respond badly to 'inspirational' sort of language for cultural reasons.

I wonder what the high-scoring NCD churches in Australia actually look like? I wonder if they'd be churches I'd actually want to join? I wonder what kind of culture they would have?

Love to hear your thoughts and insights and experiences.