Saint Andrew’s Net | May 2005 | Vol. XX No. 4 | Page 1

A couple of months ago I had told you, in the Net, that we were going to be entering a diocesan program called “Natural Church Development.” The time has now come. You are probably wondering what, exactly, is Natural Church Development? What NCD is about is releasing the potential that God has already implanted in our lives—it is about looking at who we are, and what are our strengths and weaknesses.

There are four points that NCD seeks to achieve. The first is that NCD focuses on increasing the quality of a church, rather than on quantifying numerical growth goals. This emphasis on church health has proven to be the key to ongoing growth and multiplication. NCD’s second goal is to help churches learn that the center of this “Natural Church Development” is something known as the “all-by-itself” principle, which can be observed in healthy churches around the globe. All NCD principles are answers to the question: “How can this God-given growth potential be released?” Thirdly, on all levels of church life, NCD encourages creativity, authenticity, and pluriformity. Rather than selling a specific church model, NCD helps Christians and churches to discover and develop their individuality. The fourth point is that NCD assists believers in rediscovering central Biblical concepts and relating them to their everyday lives.

So how does this NCD program work? It begins with a survey. I remember within a month of when I first came to Saint Andrew’s, someone said to me, “Whatever you do, do not do a survey.” While I respect that advice, there’s no getting around it. There is a survey, but here’s the kicker—not everybody is going to take it. In fact, only 30 of you will be taking the survey. In the near future, Donna Catalano—our NCD leader—and I will be sitting down and selecting a group of people who will hopefully help us out by taking the survey. I really believe that for this program to be helpful to us at Saint Andrew’s, we need your help in being a part of the survey. The goal is to get a wide spectrum of people who are actively involved in the church; this will then give us far more accurate results. Once the survey is completed, the answers are sent off to the NCD offices and we wait for the results. When the results are returned we will all be given the opportunity to see them—and then, with the help of our coach, the Rev. Lili Bush, the vicar at St. Paul’s in Barstow, we will decide where to go from there.

I really think this is going to be exciting, and I hope you will also. Any program that is about releasing the potential that God has already implanted in our lives can only be helpful, not only for us, but also for the world around us.