Selected Product:
| Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches
Hardcover
Edition: 7th - 2006
Author: Christian A. Schwarz
Publisher: Churchsmart Resources
Release Date: 1996-09-01
ISBN-10: 1889638005
ISBN-13: 9781889638003
List Price: $25.00
Average Customer Rating:
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Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples
ISBN-10: 0805443908
ISBN-13: 9780805443905
List Price:$19.99
The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message & Mission
ISBN-10: 0310201063
ISBN-13: 9780310201069
List Price:$19.99
The ABC's of Natural Church Development
ISBN-10: 1889638048
ISBN-13: 9781889638041
List Price:$2.00
Color Your World with Natural Church Development
ISBN-10: 1889638471
ISBN-13: 9781889638478
List Price:$25.00
Implementation Guide to Natural Church Development
ISBN-10: 188963803X
ISBN-13: 9781889638034
List Price:$14.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Critics of the church growth movement have often emphasized the need for quality congregations. We should not focus on numerical growth, but rather, we should concentrate on qualitative growth.
Christian Schwarz has done extensive research world-wide and found that healthy, growing churches seem to share eight quality characteristics. These characteristics are:
Empowering leadership
Gift-oriented ministry
Passionate spirituality
Functional structures
Inspiring worship service
Holistic small groups
Need-oriented evangelism
Loving relationships
Schwarz uses the illustration of a barrel with eight staves to symbolize the eight quality characteristics. The barrel can only hold water to the height of the lowest stave. So too, Schwarz argues, a church can only grow as far as their 'Minimum factor,' which is the lowest of the eight quality characteristics in their church. He challenges churches to resist the temptation to work on improving areas in which they already excel, for by doing this they do not increase their minimum factor or their church quality.
This revised version of Natural Church Development now includes Schwarz's "3 Colors" teaching.
Does not really describe the eight quality characteristics
| Customer Rating:  | 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.
I am actually working on a study that would supplement NCD by focusing more on the underlying spiritual & emotional factors involved. (unchainedchurch.com)
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.
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There is Not Just One Secret!
| Customer Rating: | 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. |
Pastors should not just read this book, but study it.
| Customer Rating: | 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. |
Ground breaking book
| Customer Rating: | I have spent the last 20 years serving as a marketing consultant for non-profit organizations, so I have read and written a lot about growth. Nevertheless, I found this book to be ground breaking and inspiring. Schwarz has written a book not based on his observations and experience, but based on sound research. His thinking and perspective are truly out of the box. He is very careful to present principles that have proven to be effective in building quality churches and avoided the technique trap. His basic premise is that God's economy is to grow His church. We need to be good gardiners to provide the essential nutrients that allow this growth to take place.
One way the book could be improved is to supply to actual data from his church surveys for the reader to review. |
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