Natural Church Development Background

In May 2006, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church adopted a Vision for Mission that included a five year strategic plan. While we have made significant progress in implementing many of the missional objectives, it is clear there is work yet to be done.

The church council decided to utilize an assessment tool provided by the Grand Canyon Synod and the ELCA called Natural Church Development. NCD was developed through a research project involving thousands of congregations in 32 countries to determine the causes of growth. As a result of this research project, 8 quality characteristics of growing churches were identified:

1. empowering worship
2. gift-based ministry
3. passionate spirituality
4. effective structures
5. inspiring worship
6. holistic small groups
7. need-oriented evangelism and
8. loving relationships.

This past fall a survey of 30 active members was taken to determine how well our congregation was doing in these areas. The results of this evaluation were intended to reveal the one or two characteristics that could be considered growth areas which would assist the council in determining priorities for setting our missional objectives in 2008-2009.

The survey results indicated four strengths of our Prince of Peace Community. Among the highest scores were: 1) Empowering Leadership, 2) Effective Structures, 3) Loving Relationships, and 4) Gifted-based Ministry. It certainly reflects the significant and positive climate changes in our ministry over the last two years.

The growth areas are, 1) Passionate Spirituality and 2) Inspiring Worship. These will be described in future posts