Natural Church Development

8 Quality Characteristics

Empowering Leadership
Empowering Leadership is lay and clergy leadership that supports, mentors and encourages the leadership of others.  Some questions to ask about empowering leadership are:
  • How do your church's leaders develop new leaders rather than just new followers?
  • How do your leaders recruit and train apprentice or beginning leaders?
  • How do your leaders encourage and support change, even change that diminishes their authority or importance?
  • How are your church leaders more like spiritual leaders rather than organizational or business leaders?
Some helpful resources for developing your leadership skills include:
Gift-Based Ministries
Ministry in growing and dynamic churches is not based on a cookie-cutter approach that attempts to offer the same ministries as all of the other churches.  Rather, it is ministry that is oriented on people in the congregation understanding their gifts and using them to serve Christ.  Some questions to ask about gift-oriented ministry are:
  • How well do the people in your congregation understand their gifts for ministry?
  • How are people hearing and following God's call for their ministries?
  • What systems are in place to teach and coach people in using their gifts?
  • What new ministries should begin and which existing ministries should be discontinued in order to match people with their gifts and calling?
  • How do people understand their ministry to be a part of the life-changing, world-altering mission of God's love in Jesus Christ?
Some helpful resources on spiritual gifts and ministry include:
Passionate Spirituality
Methodists began as "enthusiasts", but some of our churches seem to have drifted away from the passion and excitement of our early years.  Dynamic and healthy churches are filled with the joy and love of Christ, and they display this passion in culturally appropriate ways.  Some questions to ask about passionate spirituality include:
  • In what ways do the people in your congregation practice the personal spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, Bible study, tithing, fasting, charity and justice?
  • In what ways do you model the practice of spiritual disciplines?
  • How important is prayer to the regular life and work of your congregation?
  • How excited are people about their relationship with God?
  • How often are people talking about their faith inside and outside of the church?
In addition to devotional material, like The Upper Room and Disciplines, some resources for developing a passionate spirituality are: 
Effective Structures
Church ought to work right.  Our structures of organization, leadership, programs and finances ought to support our stated mission of making disciples and transforming the world.  If not, then we ought to change our structures, even if "we've always done it that way".  Some questions to ask about the effectiveness and functionality of our structures could be:
  • What is the life-changing, world-altering mission of your church, and how committed is the congregation to living it out?
  • How do all of your ministries, committees, activities and leaders support this mission?
  • What new ministries should begin and which existing ministries should discontinue each year in order to best serve Christ's mission in our community?
  • How do we develop short and long term goals that are measurable, achievable, but challenging?
  • How are we cultivating a culture of creative and innovative leadership?
 Some good resources on functional structures are:
Inspiring Worship
Worship is about a real encounter between the worshipper and God.  God can be experienced through liturgical, traditional, contemporary, post-modern, casual, formal, high-church, low-church, or whatever style.  The form and style of worship should serve to set an environment in which worshippers can experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  Worship should never be only about the gathered congregation, but should be engaging for new people who might be unfamiliar with church culture and traditions.   Some questions to ask about inspiring worship are:
  • How often do people express through changed behavior that they have experienced God's presence during worship?  When was it and why?
  • How do you regularly plan, evaluate and improve your church's worship services?
  • How can you include more people in planning your church's worship services?
  • How does the worship music move people into a closer relationship with God?
  • How do the preaching and liturgy serve God's purpose of connecting to all people?
  • How are you using your best quality communication tools, technologies and resources in worship?
Some other resources for planning inspiring worship include:
Holistic Small Groups
All churches have small groups.  A small group is any regular gathering of 4-20 church folk.  These groups include committees, choirs, fellowships, studies, prayer groups, youth groups, and classes.  Holistic small groups ensure that they deal with the whole person every time that they meet.  They care for the emotional, relational, spiritual and ministerial needs of every participant, and they don't just use people to get done the "work" of the church at the expense of caring for one another and God.  Some questions to ask about the small groups in your church could be:
  • How frequently does God "show up" in your congregation's small groups?
  • How are prayer, music, and worship used in your small groups?
  • How well do people within a group know each other? 
  • Do they share what's really going on in their lives, or are they just being polite?
  • How often are you starting new groups to reach out to new people?
  • What intentional system do you use to multiply group leaders?
Some good resources are:
Need-Oriented Evangelism
Evangelism is more than just marketing the church and welcoming new people.  Although these are important, evangelism is really about doing "good news" in people's lives through love and justice, so that they might experience the transforming power of an authentic relationship with a loving God.  The goal of evangelism is to assist God in making new disciples of Christ, not just filling up our seats on Sunday.  The best strategy in the history of Christianity for making new disciples is to understand the needs of people, community and the world, and then to meet those needs in love without expecting anything else in return.  Basically, it is to love people like Jesus loves them.  Some questions to ask about need-oriented evangelism include:
  • How does your church help people to share their faith through practical acts of Christian love and justice combined with clear communication about Christ?
  • What are the next steps for making your church more user-friendly for visitors and more welcoming for guests and new participants?
  • How are you regularly inviting people into a relationship with Christ through the ministries of your congregation?
  • How do you encourage and engage the gifts of new Christians in sharing the Gospel through their existing relationships with other unchurched people?
Many churches may not be able to afford expensive marketing tools, but every church can organize its people to share their faith in practical ways with new people.  Some resources for helping you encourage and develop need-oriented evangelism include:
Loving Relationships
Healthy and vital churches are places filled with love.  Many churches will name their care and love for each other as their best quality, but some of these same churches will be filled with behaviors that are not very loving.  Loving relationships are displayed by how we treat one another, even when we disagree.  Some questions about the relationships in your church are:
  • How are joy and trust experienced, expressed and encouraged in your church life?
  • How do people support one another and develop new friendships in your church?
  • How does your congregation intentionally celebrate and build relationships?
  • How well do people know and understand their leadership styles and use that knowledge to keep disagreement from becoming conflict?
  • How do people behave during times of conflict?
Some helpful resources might be:
 
8 Quality Characteristics of Natural Church Development
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congregational development office      978-682-8055 ext 210      curtis@neumc.org