The Place of NCD in Making Healthy Disciple-making Churches

by Conference Minister Ron Hamilton

The CCCC church development process involves the Natural Church Development (NCD) assessment. A major premise of this process is stated in this principle,

Healthy churches are growing churches, and quality can be measured.

I’m pleased that church health has become a popular subject in the 21st Century. Much of the analysis of the church focused on church growth at the end of the last century. The fastest growing churches received all of the attention and the pastors of large, growing churches became the popular speakers at gatherings for pastors and church leaders. However, careful analysis of the growth of the church in America showed that a majority of the growth was transfer growth. Many churches were growing at the expense of others and church members had become consumers of popular church programs.

One of the key guidelines for a pastor of a healthy church is laid out in 2 Timothy 2:2.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

This teaching about church leadership has been described as discipleship to the fourth generation. Paul is a strong disciple (first generation) who disciples Timothy (second generation) who disciples reliable people (third generation) who are then qualified to disciple others (fourth generation). Any church that has this level of discipleship is healthy and strong and will survive many challenges.

Discipleship of the next generation is a key factor for the health and growth of any church. The leadership of the CCCC is committed to ministry that makes more and better disciples, more and better leaders and more and better churches. To this end, we ask every church to describe their process of discipleship in the annual questionnaire. DISCIPLESHIP is the key metric to the health of the church.

Church health and church growth are not opposing forces. As the NCD material teaches, “Healthy churches are growing churches.” The CCCC is making every effort to encourage our pastors and church leaders to engage in discipleship at every level. The mission of our Conference is driven by the principle of discipleship. The ministry of the Conference will never be stronger than the ministry of its member churches.