Use Your Strengths to Address Your Weaknesses

When a church discovers an area of weakness, the first reaction is often discouragement.

Leaders may immediately focus on what they lack:

“We do not have enough people.”

“We do not have the right leaders.”

“We do not have enough money.”

“We do not have the necessary facilities.”

“We do not have enough training.”

“We do not know how to fix this.”

Those concerns may be real. But they can also cause a church to overlook something equally important:

God has already placed strengths within the congregation that can help address its weaknesses.

Natural Church Development does not teach churches to ignore their minimum factor. A church cannot become healthy by celebrating its strengths while refusing to face what is restricting its development. The NCD training is clear that strengths alone cannot compensate for weakness and that health requires attention to the whole church system.

But addressing weakness does not mean beginning from nothing.

The same church that has an underdeveloped area also possesses gifts, relationships, experiences, traditions, spiritual vitality, and leadership capacities that can become part of the solution.

This leads to one of the most hopeful principles in the NCD process:

Use your strengths to address your weaknesses.

A healthy development process does not ask a church to become someone else. It helps the congregation recognize what God has already provided and redirect those strengths toward the area needing growth.

Weakness Can Dominate the Conversation

When churches begin a process of evaluation, their attention can become consumed by problems.

The leadership team may identify weak evangelism, limited discipleship, ineffective structures, leadership exhaustion, poor communication, or shallow relationships.

Before long, the conversation can sound as though nothing is working.

That is rarely true.

Even struggling churches usually possess signs of grace.

There are faithful people who continue serving.

There are relationships that have endured hardship.

There are members who pray.

There are leaders who care deeply.

There are stories of changed lives.

There are gifts that have not yet been fully recognized.

There are values worth preserving.

There may be one area restricting health, but that does not mean God is absent from the rest of the church.

Paul reminded the Corinthian believers:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”
—1 Corinthians 12:4–6

The church at Corinth had serious weaknesses, yet Paul did not begin by telling them they possessed nothing of value. He reminded them that the Spirit of God was already at work among them.

Their gifts needed maturity.

Their relationships needed healing.

Their worship needed order.

Their understanding of leadership needed correction.

But the raw material for greater health was already present.

The same is true in many churches today.

A Strength Is More Than Something You Enjoy

Churches sometimes define a strength too casually.

“We love worship.”

“We are friendly.”

“We believe in the Bible.”

“We care about missions.”

These may be important values, but a true strength should be visible in the life and fruit of the congregation.

A church may say it values prayer, but few people pray together or demonstrate dependence upon God.

A church may call itself relational, but newcomers remain outsiders.

A church may claim to value leadership development, but the same people have held every responsibility for twenty years.

A genuine strength is not merely something the church admires. It is a quality that is consistently practiced and produces recognizable fruit.

For example:

Empowering leadership is a strength when leaders regularly identify, equip, trust, and release others.
Gift-based ministry is a strength when people are serving in areas aligned with their God-given capacities.
Passionate spirituality is a strength when faith is alive, personal, practiced, and transforming.
Effective structures are a strength when ministry is clear, sustainable, and supported.
Inspiring worship is a strength when people meaningfully encounter and respond to God.
Holistic small groups are a strength when people experience care, discipleship, and practical transformation.
Need-oriented evangelism is a strength when members build relationships with people outside the church and respond to genuine needs.
Loving relationships are a strength when love is visible through belonging, forgiveness, cooperation, and care.

The goal is not to flatter the church.

It is to identify the areas where God-given life is already flowing most freely.

Those strengths can then become resources for addressing the minimum factor.

David Did Not Fight in Saul’s Armor

One of the clearest biblical pictures of using existing strengths is found in the story of David and Goliath.

When David offered to face the Philistine warrior, Saul attempted to equip him with the king’s armor.

David tried it, but quickly recognized that it did not fit.

“I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.”
—1 Samuel 17:39

David removed the armor and went into battle with the tools he knew how to use: his staff, his sling, and stones from the brook.

David did not deny the size of the problem.

He did not pretend Goliath was harmless.

He did not refuse preparation.

But he also did not attempt to become Saul.

He faced the challenge from the strength, experience, and calling God had already developed within him.

Churches often make the opposite mistake.

They identify a weakness and immediately reach for someone else’s armor.

A church with weak evangelism copies a large outreach event from another country.

A church with limited leadership adopts a complicated corporate development system.

A church struggling with community launches a small-group model designed for a very different culture.

A congregation with ineffective worship attempts to reproduce the technology and music of a prominent church online.

The borrowed model may appear impressive, but it may not fit.

Natural Church Development is principle-driven rather than model-dependent. Its framework is designed to work across cultures because churches can apply health principles through their own people, gifts, and ministry settings.

The question is not:

“What did another church do?”

The better question is:

“How can the strengths God has already developed in our church help us address this weakness?”

Strengths Are Leverage Points

A strength can function as a leverage point.

In mechanical terms, leverage allows a person to apply force more effectively. In church development, a strength becomes a leverage point when it helps create movement in an underdeveloped area.

Imagine that a church’s minimum factor is need-oriented evangelism, but the congregation is strong in loving relationships.

The church should not abandon its relational strength and attempt to become an event-driven evangelistic church.

Instead, it might ask:

How can our strong relationships become more open to outsiders?
How can members include neighbors, coworkers, and new families in existing gatherings?
How can our culture of care extend into the community?
How can trusted relationships help members become more confident in sharing their faith?

The church’s strength becomes the bridge toward its weakness.

Or imagine a church strong in passionate spirituality but weak in empowering leadership.

That congregation might connect leadership development with prayer, spiritual discernment, mentoring, and calling.

Rather than merely creating leadership positions, the church could:

Pray intentionally for emerging leaders
Invite spiritually mature members into apprenticeships
Use testimonies to celebrate God’s calling
Build leadership development into existing prayer groups
Help people discern where the Spirit may be inviting them to serve

The strong spiritual culture becomes a resource for developing leaders.

Eight Ways Strength Can Address Weakness

Because the eight quality characteristics are interconnected, every strength has the potential to influence another area.

Empowering leadership can strengthen gift-based ministry

A church may believe in spiritual gifts but fail to give people real opportunities to use them.

Empowering leaders can change that by identifying potential, providing coaching, allowing experimentation, and entrusting meaningful responsibility.

The NCD training describes empowering leadership as moving from doing ministry to developing people. Leaders multiply capacity by releasing the God-given potential of others.

Gift-based ministry can strengthen effective structures

If structures are weak, the answer may not be importing a complex organizational model.

The church may already have people gifted in administration, leadership, communication, hospitality, teaching, or service.

Those gifts can be brought together to clarify responsibilities, improve systems, and reduce confusion.

NCD emphasizes that churches thrive when people serve from God-given strengths rather than merely filling available positions. Ministry alignment contributes to joy, effectiveness, and sustainability.

Passionate spirituality can strengthen evangelism

A church may possess deep prayer, strong worship, and genuine devotion to Jesus but have little contact with people outside the congregation.

Rather than replacing its spiritual identity, the church can direct that passion outward.

Prayer can focus on specific neighbors.

Testimonies can build confidence.

Spiritual disciplines can include listening for God’s direction in everyday relationships.

Love for Jesus can become love for those He came to seek and save.

Effective structures can strengthen loving relationships

Some churches care deeply but lack reliable ways of making sure people receive care.

A simple structure can support love.

The church might develop:

A process for contacting new people
A care-team system
A prayer-request follow-up plan
A clear way to respond to crises
A communication process for members who are absent
A method for connecting people to groups or mentors

The structure does not replace love.

It helps ensure that love is consistently expressed.

Inspiring worship can strengthen passionate spirituality

A church may have members whose faith has become routine or disconnected from daily life.

Worship can help awaken spiritual hunger through Scripture, prayer, testimony, confession, celebration, lament, and response.

The goal is not emotional manipulation. It is to create space for people to encounter God and respond with renewed devotion.

Holistic small groups can strengthen leadership development

A church may struggle to identify future leaders.

Small groups often reveal leadership potential more clearly than public services do.

Within smaller communities, people begin caring for others, explaining Scripture, organizing service, resolving conflict, and taking responsibility.

A group can become a safe environment where emerging leaders are observed, encouraged, trained, and released.

Need-oriented evangelism can strengthen passionate spirituality

When Christians begin serving and sharing Christ outside the church, their own faith is often deepened.

They pray with greater urgency.

They depend upon the Holy Spirit.

They confront questions that drive them back to Scripture.

They experience the joy of seeing God work in another person’s life.

The weaker area of spiritual vitality may be strengthened as the church engages more faithfully in mission.

Loving relationships can strengthen nearly everything

Trust is one of the church’s greatest forms of relational capital.

Where healthy love exists, people are more willing to:

Try new ministries
Receive feedback
Admit weakness
Resolve conflict
Accept training
Take appropriate risks
Support change
Serve together
Welcome newcomers

Love does not remove the need for strategy, structure, or accountability.

It creates an environment in which healthy change becomes more possible.

Begin with What God Has Given You

Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand offers another important picture.

The disciples saw the need and immediately focused on what they did not have.

The crowd was large.

The location was remote.

The available resources appeared inadequate.

In John’s account, Andrew brought attention to a boy with five barley loaves and two fish, but then asked:

“What are they for so many?”
—John 6:9

Jesus began with what was available.

The small provision did not appear sufficient, but placed in His hands, it became the starting point for abundance.

This does not mean every limited resource will miraculously become a large program.

It means faithful ministry often begins by recognizing what God has already provided.

A small church may not have many volunteers, but it may have three deeply committed people.

It may not have a large budget, but it may have strong community trust.

It may not have trained staff, but it may have older members with decades of wisdom.

It may not have a formal discipleship system, but it may have natural mentors.

It may not have advanced technology, but it may have meaningful face-to-face relationships.

It may not have numerous programs, but it may have the flexibility to change quickly.

The starting question is not only:

“What are we missing?”

It is also:

“What has God already placed in our hands?”

Small Churches Have Strengths Large Churches May Not Possess

Small churches are often highly aware of their limitations.

They see the missing staff positions, the aging building, the restricted budget, and the limited volunteer pool.

But small congregations may also possess strengths that are difficult to reproduce at scale.

They may have:

Deep personal knowledge of one another
Quick access to key decision-makers
Strong intergenerational relationships
Flexibility to make changes
A high level of pastoral accessibility
Community credibility built over decades
Fewer organizational layers
Greater awareness of individual needs
A strong sense of shared history
The ability to mobilize informally

These strengths can become powerful tools in addressing weakness.

A church with close relationships can use them to mentor new leaders.

A congregation with flexibility can test a new discipleship approach without creating a large administrative process.

A church with community credibility can build relational evangelism around trusted local connections.

A church with intergenerational strength can create apprenticeships between older and younger believers.

Small does not mean empty.

Limited does not mean powerless.

The church may possess more developmental resources than it realizes.

Cultural Strengths Matter

Every culture contains patterns that can support church health.

A communal culture may possess strong family networks, hospitality, and shared responsibility.

An oral culture may have strengths in storytelling, memory, testimony, and relational learning.

A culture that highly values elders may have rich possibilities for mentoring and wisdom transfer.

A younger, mobile culture may be highly adaptable and open to experimentation.

A community shaped by hardship may possess endurance, generosity, and mutual care.

A multicultural congregation may have unusual capacity for bridge-building, translation, and reconciliation.

These strengths should not be dismissed in favor of imported ministry systems.

They should be examined prayerfully and brought into service of the church’s health.

At the same time, every cultural strength may have a shadow side.

Strong family bonds can make it difficult for outsiders to enter.

Respect for authority can discourage honest feedback.

Informal relationships can weaken accountability.

Individual freedom can make commitment difficult.

Efficiency can reduce patience and care.

The goal is neither to glorify nor reject a culture.

It is to discern how its strengths can serve biblical health while its limitations are addressed.

A Global Example: The Same Weakness, Different Strengths

Imagine three churches on different continents that all identify empowering leadership as an area needing growth.

The first church has strong loving relationships. Its best path may be relational mentoring. Trusted leaders can invite younger believers into ministry, walk with them personally, and gradually release responsibility.

The second church has strong effective structures. It may build a clear leadership pathway with defined competencies, training sessions, supervised experience, and regular evaluation.

The third church has strong passionate spirituality. It may begin with prayer, calling, discernment, and spiritual formation before moving emerging leaders into apprenticeship.

All three churches share the same weakness.

All three may improve it.

But they do not need the same solution.

Their existing strengths shape the most natural and contextual path forward.

This is why good coaching does not hand every church the same implementation plan.

The role of a coach is to help leaders understand both the minimum factor and the resources already present within the congregation.

Do Not Turn a Strength into an Idol

A church’s strength is a gift, but it can also become a source of pride or resistance.

A teaching church may dismiss relational concerns because it believes sound doctrine is all that matters.

A relational church may avoid necessary accountability because it does not want to disrupt harmony.

A worshiping church may resist structure because it fears becoming institutional.

An organized church may suppress spontaneity because it values control.

An evangelistic church may neglect discipleship because it is always pursuing the next outreach opportunity.

The purpose of using strengths is not to protect them from challenge.

It is to place them in service of the whole body.

Paul warned the Corinthian church that one part of the body cannot say to another:

“I have no need of you.”
—1 Corinthians 12:21

A strength becomes unhealthy when it acts as though the church needs nothing else.

A healthy strength contributes to the development of other qualities.

It does not demand that the whole church revolve around itself.

Strength-Based Does Not Mean Weakness-Avoidant

There is an important distinction between a strength-based approach and avoidance.

A strength-based approach says:

“We will face this weakness honestly and use our existing strengths to help address it.”

Avoidance says:

“We would rather talk about what we do well than confront what needs to change.”

Natural Church Development does not permit the second response.

The NCD training emphasizes that church health requires attention to the whole system rather than only to preferred strengths.

Strengths are not an excuse to minimize the minimum factor.

They are resources for improving it.

This requires honesty.

A church may need to admit:

Our strong relationships have become inward.
Our strong pastor has unintentionally prevented others from leading.
Our strong worship culture has not produced everyday discipleship.
Our strong systems have become rigid.
Our strong teaching has not consistently moved people toward action.
Our strong outreach has not been followed by effective care.

The strength is real.

So is the needed adjustment.

From Strength to Strategy

Once leaders have identified a strength and a weakness, they can begin building a focused strategy.

A useful process is:

Name the weakness clearly

Avoid vague language such as, “We need to do better.”

State what is actually underdeveloped.

For example:

“Potential leaders are not receiving meaningful opportunities to develop.”

Identify the church’s strongest relevant quality

Ask which existing strength could most naturally help create movement.

For example:

“Our congregation has strong loving relationships and a culture of personal care.”

Describe the connection

Explain how the strength can influence the weakness.

“Trusted relationships can become mentoring relationships through which emerging leaders are invited into ministry.”

Choose one practical experiment

Do not begin with an entire program.

“Over the next three months, each ministry leader will invite one person into an intentional apprenticeship.”

Define what progress would look like

“At least five emerging leaders will receive guided ministry experience, feedback, and increasing responsibility.”

Review and learn

Ask what worked, what did not, and what should be adjusted.

This turns a general principle into a focused developmental process.

Questions for Pastors and Leadership Teams

Discuss these questions together:

Which of the eight NCD quality characteristics appears strongest in our church?
What specific evidence shows that this is a genuine strength?
What fruit has this strength produced?
Which quality appears to be our current minimum factor?
How might our strongest quality help improve our weakest one?
Which people, relationships, gifts, or systems already exist that could become part of the solution?
Are we overlooking cultural or community strengths because they do not resemble formal ministry programs?
Has one of our strengths developed an unhealthy shadow side?
Are we using our strengths to serve the whole church or merely to reinforce what we already prefer?
What is one small experiment we could begin without creating another permanent program?
What would measurable progress look like?
Who should take responsibility for guiding and reviewing the next step?

One Healthy Step This Week

Complete this statement as a leadership team:

“Because God has made our church particularly strong in __________, we can use that strength to improve __________ by __________.”

Be specific.

For example:

“Because God has made our church particularly strong in loving relationships, we can use that strength to improve empowering leadership by pairing experienced members with emerging ministry leaders.”

Or:

“Because our church is strong in passionate spirituality, we can use that strength to improve need-oriented evangelism by praying for specific relationships and regularly sharing testimonies of gospel conversations.”

Then select one action that can begin within the next 30 days.

Do not attempt to solve the entire weakness at once.

Begin with one focused use of an existing strength.

You Are Not Starting Empty-Handed

Pastor, discovering a weakness does not mean your church has failed.

It means your church has found its next area of stewardship.

Do not allow the minimum factor to convince you that nothing is working.

Look again.

Look for the people who are already faithful.

Look for the relationships that already carry trust.

Look for the gifts that have not yet been fully released.

Look for the spiritual practices that already produce life.

Look for the cultural strengths present within your congregation.

Look for the ministry experiences from which your church has already learned.

God may not have given your church every resource possessed by another congregation.

But He has not left your church empty-handed.

Your next step toward health may not begin by importing something new.

It may begin by recognizing, redirecting, and multiplying what God has already placed among you.

At Small Church Guys, we believe healthy things grow.

And healthy growth often begins when a church stops seeing its strengths merely as accomplishments and starts using them as tools to strengthen the whole body.

Turn Your Church’s Strengths into a Pathway Toward Health

Small Church Guys helps pastors and leadership teams identify both the areas restricting congregational health and the God-given strengths that can support meaningful improvement.

Through Natural Church Development assessment, interpretation, coaching, and contextual implementation, we help churches build practical strategies from their own people, gifts, culture, and calling rather than copying a model that does not fit.

Your church does not need to become someone else’s church to become healthier.

Contact Small Church Guys for NCD coaching, implementation support, and guidance in using your church’s strengths to address its minimum factor.

https://smallchurchguys.com/

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Jesse Reimers

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