Natural Church Development

This week, the focus is on a great resource that has been available for a number of years, Natural Church Development by Christian A. Schwarz. Ten years ago, when I was strategy coordinator for Bryansk, NCD was one of the first materials translated into Russian that I used to train church planters at Bryansk Bible Institute along with Garrison’s translated text on Church Planting Movements. Later, I taught an entire course on NCD at the St. Petersburg Pastors Training School. Today, one of our virtual strategy coordinators has based his entire masterplan on the program and is seeing phenomenal success both in church planting and existing church health.
The program is a quality-based program that identifies 8 key ingredients necessary for any church to experience healthy growth. It is a biblically-founded program in terms of its content and metrically aligned for the local church to identify and strengthen its weakest point. I would strongly encourage you to look at the material and decide for yourself as to its usefulness in your context. One major advantage for using in the material in Russia is that the data upon which it drew its observations are not “western” per se, and many of the churches in the surveys are Russian.
There is even a newer Color Your World with Natural Church Development (2005) that focuses the same biotic health principles onto personal discipleship. And this weekend, The 3 Colors of Your Spirituality is being released facilitate personal discipleship through a study of spiritual giftedness and experiential styles. If you’re interested in learning more about NCD, you can watch some of the original training in an online seminar format:
Session One: Introduction to NCD http://www.blip.tv/file/2718838/ (1 hour)
Session Two: NCD Cycle 1 Not Currently Available
NCD Cycle 2 Not Currently Available
NCD Cycle 3 Not Currently Available
NCD Cycle 4 http://www.blip.tv/file/2723297/ (1 hour)
Session Three (Part 1) Biotic Principles http://www.blip.tv/file/2723651/ (1 hour)
(Part 2) Biotic Principles http://www.blip.tv/file/2724765/ (1 hour)
Session Four: Managing Change http://www.blip.tv/file/2728662/ (1 hour)
Session Five (Part 1): Coaching http://www.blip.tv/file/2728155/ (1 hour)
Coaching (Part2): http://www.blip.tv/file/2728383/ (1 hour)
Session Six: (FAQ) Fifty Answered Questions http://www.blip.tv/file/2729089/ (1 hour)
Session Seven: Empowering Leadership http://www.blip.tv/file/2729381/ (40 minutes)
Session Eight: Gift-Oriented Ministry http://www.blip.tv/file/2729805/ (1 hour)
Session Nine: Live Demonstration of a Gift-Counseling Meeting: http://www.blip.tv/file/2730125/ (40 minutes)
Session Fourteen: Loving Relationships http://www.blip.tv/file/2730322/ (30 minutes)