Christian Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, 3rd Edition. Church Smart Resources, 2006.
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Natural Church Development (NCD) is one of the more widely used approaches to church development, perhaps second only to Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Church. NCD is used by over 40,000 churches across the globe, with church leaders from over 70 countries having started their own NCD networks. The founder and president of NCD, Christian Schwarz, oversees a large community of adherents, and provides a plethora of resources on a related website.
Natural Church Development is based on what at the time was the most extensive study of healthy churches (1,000 churches, 32 countries, 6 continents). In the study, Christian Schwarz discovered what he believes are eight “growth automatisms,” i.e. elements that if present in a congregation allow God’s kingdom to grow “all by itself.” (Mark 4:26-29) Schwarz calls this the “biotic paradigm,” which points to natural life and development. He contrasts this to the “technocratic paradigm,” or church growth techniques that are aimed almost exclusively to numerical increases and that may involved human engineering that is forced-fitted to the church. He also challenges the opposite extreme of the “spiritualistic paradigm” that frowns on any kind of intentional organizational principles and claims complete reliance on the Holy Spirit.
NCD is not a tool to simply increase numerical or quantitative growth. Instead, it is a series of principles aimed at qualitative growth. As Schwarz says, “Quality is the root and quantity is the fruit.” These qualitative principles include factors such as interdependence, multiplication, energy transformation, sustainability, symbiosis, and fruitfulness. Each of these principles share several characteristics. One, they are universally valid apart from tradition, context, country, location, style, etc. NCD has observed their principles at work in numerous highly diverse contexts. Two, principles must be proven from research. NCD is validated on a worldwide scale through standard procedures of qualitative research. Three, principles address essentials that are necessary for all church organisms. Four, principles are general enough that they can be individualized to each new context. One common denominator, however, is that each principle is targeted at releasing “all-by-itself-growth” or “biotic growth” by removing human obstacles that get in the way of God’s natural work. These obstacles are experienced as churches “push” and “pull” people into efforts that seem quite unnatural – like trying to push/pull a loaded cart that has square wheels. To the contrary, Schwarz contends that everything we need to see the church grow has already been given by God, and the key is for the church to avail itself of these resources.
How does a church get started? Schwarz suggests a three-fold pattern of information, application, and transformation. Regarding information, Schwarz research explains the eight quality characteristics (i.e. “growth automatisms”) shared by all healthy churches:
- Empowering Leadership
- Gift-oriented ministry
- Passionate spirituality
- Functional structures
- Inspiring worship services
- Holistic small groups
- Need-oriented evangelism
- Loving relationships
As part of application, Schwarz suggests ten action steps, with the caveat that a generic step-by-step plan does not exist.
- Build Spiritual Momentum – Focus on prayer and devoted relationship with Christ.
- Determine Minimum Factors – Discover the least and most developed of the eight quality characteristics through a survey and feedback procedure. These are covered on an elementary level in the book, but the process as a whole requires a qualified NCD consultant on board.
- Set qualitative goals – Lay out precise, time-bound, verifiable, measurable goals to increase the quality of congregational life.
- Identify obstacles.
- Apply biotic principles – Activate the universal principles of interdependence, multiplication, energy transformation, multi-usage, symbiosis, and functionality.
- Exercise your strengths – These include a church’s maximum factors, spiritual culture, contextual factors, and spiritual gifts.
- Utilize biotic tools – Integrate members into the process without using technical jargon.
- Monitor effectiveness.
- Address your new minimum factors.
- Multiply your church through church planting.
The goal, of course is transformation. NCD pays careful attention statistically to its effectiveness among all the churches that use the approach. Among the many benefits, they have discovered that churches that have conducted more than three series of the NCD process have experienced a 51% growth rate over a 31-month period.
Like most diagnostic/prescriptive approaches to congregational development, NCD has both supporters and critics. Critics levee the same concerns about NCD as they do other church development material – lacking theology, being overly formulaic and numbers oriented, lacking an emphasis on compassion ministries and social justice, etc. On the other hand, churches of many different “stripes” have used NCD and witnessed significant kingdom growth. Like most literature of this genre, the value depends on the theology that informs it and the passion that guides it, which will vary with each individual and church.
One potential advantage of NCD is the growing list of materials published by Church Smart Resources that are designed to help congregations use the model. They are too numerous to list here.
From the Publisher
Critics of the church growth movement have often emphasized the need for quality congregations. We should not focus on numerical growth, but rather, we should concentrate on qualitative growth.
Christian Schwarz has done extensive research world-wide and found that healthy, growing churches seem to share eight quality characteristics. These characteristics are:
- Empowering leadership
- Gift-oriented ministry
- Passionate spirituality
- Functional structures
- Inspiring worship service
- Holistic small groups
- Need-oriented evangelism
- Loving relationships
Schwarz uses the illustration of a barrel with eight staves to symbolize the eight quality characteristics. The barrel can only hold water to the height of the lowest stave. So too, Schwarz argues, a church can only grow as far as their ‘Minimum factor,’ which is the lowest of the eight quality characteristics in their church. He challenges churches to resist the temptation to work on improving areas in which they already excel, for by doing this they do not increase their minimum factor or their church quality.
This revised version of Natural Church Development now includes Schwarz’s “3 Colors” teaching.
About the Author
Christian A. Schwarz is the founder and president of the INstitute for Natural CHurch Development (NCD International). His books on theology and practical church development have been published in more than 40 languages.
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