Customer Reviews

Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I believe it was actually here on Amazon.com that I read someone's assesment that this book looks like an infomercial. Whoever said that... was right! You will be impressed by Schwarz's graphics and charts-- although some of them will take a bit of deciphering to comprehend. And, you'll like the easy lay out of this book (in five parts: here's what we're talking about, here's when to do it, here's how to do it, here's why... now, do it this way...

My only negative critique of Schwarz is that he starts off by pummelling the church growth movement-- and its highly pragmatic orientation (which he caricatures like "do this and your church is guaranteed to grow by x amount of people in the next year"). I have no problem that he takes this approach to the movement at the outset of his book (we could stand to look at the issue from many perspectives, and I think there does need to be some balance here), but Schwarz's theories CAN come close to being just another pragmatic approach, if not read and implemented carefully.

His work is invaluable in that it causes us to stop, step back, and look at the issue of QUALITY growth as opposed to seeking out QUANTITY growth. Of course, I'm not so sure that many church growth books would actually disagree with this idea. Schwarz's conclusion is that if you get the quantity, quality will happen (see-- this can quickly sound like pure pragmatism, if you're not careful).

I think, however, he is aiming at a more organic view of growth-- than a managerial or business model. In this, his comparison in the middle of the book between a robot and a human is helpful. Sure, you can create a robot (or a church) by doing this certain thing. But, it can't change, can't adapt, can't maneuver, can't reproduce itself. On the other hand, sometimes humans are messy... but they can adapt... they are living... and so should be the Body of Christ, the Church.

The way Schwarz lays out his eight "biotic" (life giving) principles is helpful, especially in how he illustrates how they affect each other-- and the idea of the minimum factor, the idea of interdependence in the system, etc... In this, those charts ARE helpful.

Much of what he writes is not new. What is helpful, though, is that there has been a comprehensive survey going on behind the scenes of this book-- and Schwarz lets you in on the preconceptions he had, what he thought he might find out but didn't, where he was wrong in his initial gut takes, etc. In other words, the most helpful aspect of this information is HOW he says it, and how you can work through it and apply it.

Much of what is in this book I have read (in different ways) in Callahan's book on "12 Strategies of Effective Churches," in Aubrey Malphurs book "Planting Growing Churches," and others. An interesting study might be to chart all of these out side-by-side, and see what the commonalities are... Just a thought. If you're only going to be one of those books, though, get this one. The way in which the information is presented (graphically and linguistically) places this at the top of the list.

Schwarz does an extensive scientific study on what makes churches grow. The research shows 8 quality characteristics of a healthy (and therefore a growing) church: Loving Relationships, Empowering Leadership, Need-Oriented Evangelism, Functional Structures, Holistic Small Groups, Inspiring Worship Service, Passionate Spirituality and Gift Oriented Ministry. As a Pastor I found the information contained in this book to be extremely helpful as it caused me to concentrate on the minimum factor in our church. There is a corresponding survey that must be taken to get full use out of the research and help you identify what your strengths and weaknesses are in your church. If you don't think scientific research can be effective at measuring intangible things like spirituality, or spiritual gifts then this book is not for you. Otherwise it will be an excellent investment.

As a full-time church consultant, I read a lot of good books on how to enhance ministry in the local church, and I recommend a lot of them to the pastors and church leaders I work with. This book was given to me in 1997 and I fell in love with it at first sight. In January of 1998, the Natural Church Development survey became available for use by English-speaking churches, and since then I have used it with every congregation where I have conducted a full consultation.

At first, the work that I did with the survey represented only about 5% of what I did with churches during a consultation. But the more I have worked with the survey, the more valuable it has become to me. Now, this book and the results generated from the corresponding survey more often than not become central to my ministry recommendations for the congregation I am working with.

They survey consists of two questionnaires--one filled out by the senior pastor, the other filled out by 30 lay leaders. The survey assigns the church a percentile score on each of "eight essential qualities of healthy churches." The minimum factor--the one that scores lowest--is the area of church life most in need of creative attention, and the one where an investment of time and energy can produce the greatest return in terms of improved health.

I find that church leaders are far more willing to give weight to a Natural Church Development score than they are to my intuitive observations about what their church needs to attend to (and appropriately so), and so they are more willing to make needed changes.

This tool is designed to be used regularly, like an annual or semi-annual health checkup for churches. Repeating the survey monitors progress and reveals what area of church life needs the greatest attention now.

If you believe it is the nature of a healthy church to grow, and you want to identify and remove barriers to health and growth in your church, you won't go wrong with this book.

I DID appreciate the book and was so hyped up about it that I presented the concepts to my church and they got excited about it too.

However, this book does NOT actually go into details about the eight quality characteristics that the title claims to be a "guide" for.

The book is more about methodology rather than the factors involved. The book merely gives the benefits of the research, why a church should participate, and how a church applies the findings.

There may be other booklets out there that describe the eight qualities in more detail.

I do have one critique of the whole process. My problem is that the whole process leaves out some important underlying factors, such as faith, dependence on God, and evangelism. Issues that paralyze a church and impede change are overlooked.

Problems such as codependency or spiritual abuse that put a church on a downward death spiral are not considered from this paradigm. The spiritual/emotional health of a church leader is also overlooked, which is a very critical influence on the health of a church.

As a result, it becomes another externals-based "legalistic" approach to church health. It is ironic that Christians talk a lot about spiritual growth as a result of faith, but when it comes to church growth, we allow ourselves to be purely legalistic.

NCD and its "works" ARE helpful and important, but they come more as a gift from God when we are truly dependent on God in faith. We need to look under the hood, so to speak, and get at the real, deeper issues that keep churches from growing.

Here are some valuable books that I recommend in addition to NCD:

Mains, David, D.Div. Healing the Dysfunctional Church Family: When Destructive Family Patterns Infiltrate the Body of Christ.

Quick, Kenneth, D.Min. Healing the Heart of Your Church: How Leaders Can Break the Pattern of Historic Corporate Dysfunction. ChurchSmart Resources.

Rainer, Thom S. (2001) Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them.

Richardson, Ronald, Ph.D. Creating a Healthier Church: Family Systems Theory, Leadership, and Congregational Life.

Scazzero, Peter. The Emotionally Healthy Church.

Steinke, Peter L. Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach.

Steinke, Peter L. How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems.

Having read a number of books on Church Leadership and "How to Have An Effective Church" a lot of times I feel people put forth a "Model" approach rather than a "Principle" approach. "If you just do this more, than your church will grow" as if there is just one secret to growth.

Christian Schwartz does a great job in sharing principles for a "Heathly Church" whatever model of church you may decide to have. Christian gives us eight character qualities that every church should be concerned about, as well as a way to test your own church to see if it is healthy. With the help of Christopher Schalk, a statistician, the study is based upon one of the most comprehensive research projects done in church history. The research basically shows us that a "Healthy Church is a Growing Church." I found this book extremely helpful as a pastor of a church myself. I highly recommend it for people who want to effectively further the kingdom of God.

"There is one rule," writes author Christian Schwarz, "for which we did not find a single exception among the 1000 churches surveyed. Every church" - and please not that word, "every" - "every church in which a quality index of 65 or more was reached for each of the eight quality characteristics, is a growing church" (p. 39). That is as near to an iron-clad guarantee as you'll find anywhere in the church growth literature.

I have spent 25 years studying church growth. I have pastored in both California and West Virginia. My doctoral dissertation (Asbury 1998) is - as far as I know - a unique study of unchurched persons and opportunities for evangleism in rural Appalachia and I teach evangelism in the Ohio Valley School of Ministry. In theory at least, I should know something about the subject and, when I read "Natural Church Development," I realized it was something that should have done years and years ago.

Yes, the book is terribly dense and at times difficult to read. It reads as though it was translated out of German. However, I'm not aware of any easier-to-read alternative. It's worth the effort.

I heartily recommend "Natural Church Development."

Having read a number of books on Church Leadership and "How to Have An Effective Church" a lot of times I feel people put forth a "Model" approach rather than a "Principle" approach. "If you just do this more, than your church will grow" as if there is just one secret to growth.

Christian Schwartz does a great job in sharing principles for a "Heathly Church" whatever model of church you may decide to have. Christian gives us eight character qualities that every church should be concerned about, as well as a way to test your own church to see if it is healthy. With the help of Christopher Schalk, a statistician, the study is based upon one of the most comprehensive research projects done in church history. The research basically shows us that a "Healthy Church is a Growing Church." I found this book extremely helpful as a pastor of a church myself. I highly recommend it for people who want to effectively further the kingdom of God. I appreciate his emphasis on the fact that we are called to "plant and water", but it is God who "causes the growth". This book has had a profound effect in how I approach ministry as a practitioner.

Not only that, but since this book has been out, over 40,000 different churches around the world have participated in NCD studies and many have put into practice the principles they learned. Now they can say from a statistical sample, on average, those who started utilizing these princples found a measurable increase in quality, a growth of 51% in attendance, more conversions, all while those in leadership were able to lead a more balanced life. This sample was from churches who started focusing on the quality of the church instead of the quantity and after a period of 31 months. If you are a pastor, it is a book worth reading.

Published over 5 years ago this book became a beacon of hope for denominational leaders who were mourning the decline of their ministries. Bishops, superintendents, seminaries, colleges, seminars, etc. held this book before clergy and warned them to take heed of the lessons learned lest their churches become statistics of decline.

And with good reason. NCD (Natural Church Development) was based on research that included 1000 churches in 32 countries on all 5 continents. A total of 4.2 million responses were analyzed. The study identified a collection of 8 common sense characteristics that were common in EVERY growing church studied. This paragraph alone should encourage any serious pastor to examine this study.

BUT, did it work? That is a harder question. Did the churches grow because they had these characteristics or did they have these characteristics because they were growing? Can these characteristics be imported to your church? It is easier to see the problems with a congregation and to read formulas for correction than to impliment those formulas. Have the principles in this book been tried and found wanting or have they simply not been tried? I do not know. I've known several churches that gave NCD a good effort, but still did not grow.

This work is important enough for the pastor to understand. But it is not a cure all for the problems of a congregation.

This book will help you more than most pastoral aids. I've used it since 1997 and have coached others to use it since 1999. This book will transform your perspectives. There are many nuggets in each section of the book worth going over several times.

I have used the principles in this book and the related materials to coach many pastors and their leadership teams on simple strategies to help their churches grow. When the teams have listened to and followed the advice given, I have seen an increase in church health and a corresponding increase of conversion growth. For example, one church I worked with in 2002 had a growth rate of 8% before using this book, and the related tools. Afterwards their growth rate jumped to almost 20%. This higher growth rate was a direct result of the increased church health.

One of the factors that this book has contribute to the field of Church growth is a shift towards health vs growth. It also helped to demonstrate the fact that Loving Relationships are a separate, measureable category of church health. This invaluable contribution to church growth and health has become accepted in many grad schools around the world since it was first published in the middle 1990's.

Schwarz has a little section on biotic principles towards the end of the book. This shows the key to releasing growth principles in a church. Further research since the book was published has essentially strengthened the argument laid out. With overwhelming research data to support his argument, no one can afford to ignore this landmark volume in our day.

I would also recommend NCD Implementation Guide which is filled with practical tips as well.

Buyer, beware! Natural Church Development is quite impressive on first read. Packed with graphs that illustrate the remarkable research that was done on the book, it is easy to be overwhelmed by it. Schwarz also uses illustrations from nature to further illustrate his points.

I commend Schwarz on the scope of his project and his effort to put some kind of framework to his findings. However, I found the following issues to be something the reader needs to consider when reading and evaluating this work.

First, even without the extensive survey, I imagine the average church leader could have come up with the 8 Quality Characteristics his or herself. There is nothing new here. Second, Schwarz, who openly critizes the Church Growth Movement early in the book, actually ends up supporting what the CGM has said all along. Quantity is a result of quality. Third, Schwarz does not ever define "evangelism". Is it conversion growth, transfer growth or some of both? Classic church growth would define evangelism as "conversion growth". Finally, I doubt the Acts 2 church would have passed as a healthy church. No structure, no "needs oriented" evangelism, etc.

This is a good book, and there is value in what Schwarz is presenting, but be sure you think through and define exactly what some of his terms mean.