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Week 1: Is Your Church Growing in the Ways That Matter Most?

A pastor can finish a full week of ministry and still wonder whether anything is changing. The message was prepared. The gathering happened. Someone needed a visit. Another problem needed attention. You worked hard, and much of that work mattered. Yet the question remains: Are people becoming more like Jesus? That question can be uncomfortable. It can also bring relief. It invites us to look beyond everything we are trying to maintain and remember the people God has entrusted to our care. Looking beyond the weekly count In Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth , Will Mancini and Cory Hartman challenge church leaders to move beyond treating attendance and participation as sufficient evidence of disciple making. Their concern invites an honest examination of what our ministries actually produce. Attendance matters because people matter. Welcoming a new believer matters. Noticing that someone has stopped gathering matters. Financial records also help us steward resources respons...
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Your Next Healthy Step: Beginning an NCD Journey - Week 12

Week 12 of the Small Church Guys series: Healthy Things Grow—A Biblical and Global Approach to Natural Church Development For eleven weeks, we have talked about church health. We have explored what it means to believe that healthy things grow . We have examined the eight quality characteristics. We have discussed the minimum factor. We have considered how strengths can address weaknesses. We have challenged the temptation to copy successful churches. We have seen that pastors plant and water while God gives the growth. We have examined the six growth forces that help us understand how living things develop. We have questioned whether more programs actually produce more health. We have walked through the NCD Cycle. And last week, we considered why churches sometimes need an honest assessment. Now we arrive at the most important question in this entire series: What will you do with what you have learned? Because church health does not improve simply because we understand it. Healthy ch...
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Why Your Church May Need an Honest Assessment - Week 11

  Week 11 of the Small Church Guys series: Healthy Things Grow—A Biblical and Global Approach to Natural Church Development Most churches know how to talk about their strengths. “We are a loving church.” “We have strong preaching.” “Our people are faithful.” “We care about missions.” “We have great worship.” “We are like a family.” Those statements may be true. But they may also be incomplete. Every church sees itself through a particular lens. Pastors see one side. Long-term members see another. Newcomers may experience something entirely different. Ministry leaders often know problems that the broader congregation never sees. And sometimes a church’s strongest assumptions about itself are the very things that make honest evaluation difficult. That is why healthy churches occasionally need more than opinions. They need an honest assessment. Natural Church Development places deep self-reflection near the beginning of the church-health process. Its current training...
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