I have a friend who says that every person needs to have a good barber/hairdresser and a good mechanic. Let me expand that advice to also include a good doctor. I thought about this piece of advice after having recently attended the Natural Church Development (NCD) training in Orlando, Florida. Finding a doctor is not fun. After all, who enjoys having to endure the tedious repetition of going from one doctor’s office to another, trying to find a doctor that is right for you? Answer: No One! And when you do find a doctor, it is often not a rip-roaring good time to go! However, it is necessary for our health and longevity. We need someone in our lives to share with us what we are doing well and what we could improve.

Even if we are healthy, an occasional check-up is still a good thing. I believe this is also good for a local church to do. The local church needs a way to assess what it is doing well and what it could improve. Like people, churches can struggle with being healthy. As one author observed, “People do not drift towards holiness, and churches do not drift towards good health.”

While there are certainly many church assessments to choose from, I want to share with you some compelling reasons why I believe Natural Church Development is a valuable tool for your church's health assessment.

It is used extensively. NCD has been around for over 20 years and has been used in over 70,000 churches on six continents in 84 countries. Put simply: That’s a lot of churches in a lot of places! That means NCD has a track record and extensive data by which to effectively measure church health with a great deal of accuracy and reliability.

It measures church health, not church growth. It is easy to equate church growth with church health, and along with it, assumptions such as if your church is growing you must be healthy, and if you're not growing, then you must not be healthy. NCD does not focus on church growth measurements but health measurements. Think of it like health vitals for the church. Here are the vitals the NCD measures:

●    Empowering leadership: How well does church leadership empower others to become all that God wants them to be?

●    Gift-based ministry: How well are people matched with their gifts to ministries in which they can use their gifts?

●    Passionate spirituality: How well are people's faith actually lived out with commitment, fire and enthusiasm?

●    Effective structures: How effective is the way your church is structured at achieving your church’s purpose?

●    Inspiring worship service: Is the worship service an inspiring experience for those who attend?

●    Holistic small groups: How well are people involved in groups where the Bible is studied and applied to everyday situations?

●    Need-oriented evangelism: How well does your church identify and help meet the needs of pre-Christians?

●    Loving relationships: How well do people in your church practically love one another?

It is more than an assessment. Yes, the NCD is known most notably as a tool to measure church health, but it also offers much more. In addition to the church health assessment, Natural Church Development digs deeper into many of the eight factors described above. The NCD offers such things as a spiritual gift assessment, leadership assessment and practical ideas and ways to incorporate each factor into your church.

My church has used it. What good would a recommendation be if my church didn’t use the NCD. My church has used the NCD assessment several times, and each time we have found it helpful in assessing our church health, including areas where we need to improve and areas where we are doing well. Recently, we have decided to utilize NCD more fully in helping us achieve our purpose.

As I shared at the beginning, we all need a good doctor, and so does the church. It’s not always fun to see a doctor but it is oh so necessary for our health. We often find a doctor on the recommendation of a friend or family member. So, as a fellow church leader and co-laborer, let me recommend Natural Church Development. No doctor is perfect and neither is the NCD. However, I believe the NCD is a great option to help measure the health of your church!