Only God can make the seed grow,” observes Rev. John-Peter Smit, “and only God can make the church grow.” Smit made his comment before getting into the details of an ongoing survey on the health of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
The details aren’t pretty. They suggest that if the church is soil for the seed, it is sorely in need of some tender care.
In all categories, Presbyterians ranked themselves poorer in spiritual health than other Christians in Canada. The lowest ratings are about how people live out their faith on a daily basis, what the survey calls “passionate spirituality,” and an ability to discern and meet the needs of people outside the church, what it labels “need-oriented evangelism.”
The survey results were compiled over a seven-year period under the auspices of Natural Church Development. NCD’s program is designed to help churches assess their own organizational health through a benchmarking survey of church members. Smit is congregational development consultant for the Synod of Central, Northeastern Ontario and Bermuda and the national church’s staff liaison with NCD.
According to its website, NCD’s primary goal is the “quality of the church” or what it calls the church’s health. But as Bill Bickle, NCD Canada’s point person said in an interview, “Healthy churches grow.” And he said NCD’s eight health categories were originally determined by looking at growing churches to see what traits they had in common so that they could be used as benchmarks.
So NCD also notes that churches that complete at least three surveys increase their growth rate by more than 50 per cent between the first and third survey. This means that a church that had been growing at, say, four per cent a year would now be growing at about six per cent.
NCD also says that the workload of the church leaders “significantly” decreases over the same time-period.
The Institute for Natural Church Development was founded in 1989 by a German evangelical, Christian Schwarz. Forty-four percent of the nearly 61,000 surveys completed since 1996 have been done in the United States; Canada follows, contributing just over nine per cent of all surveys. In all, more than 70 countries are involved in NCD.
In terms of denominational participation, Presbyterians rank fifth internationally, with 5.3 per cent of all surveys. Baptists are the largest participating denomination at just over 11 per cent.
In Canada, NCD is one of a dozen congregational development programs available through the Presbyterian national church. Dorothy Henderson, the associate secretary of the Life and Mission Agency responsible for the NCD survey, says the findings are influencing her work already as she tries to find resources for congregations that focus on healthy, dynamic spirituality and outreach. She says further meetings are planned with LMA staff to see what if any adapting needs to be undertaken in response to the NCD results.
The Healthy Garden
NCD doesn’t tell congregations how to improve their health. That is seen as the responsibility of the congregation’s leadership. But it does aim to help congregations identify areas impeding their development, what NCD refers to as barriers to health.
The idea is that this is foundational work: Unless the soil is good, rich and well watered, it doesn’t matter what else the church does, the plants will die. Conversely, as Smit says, picking up his metaphor: “God has designed the church to grow—all by itself—if the conditions are right.”
So what are the conditions? Won’t they be different depending on the culture of the denomination and the people involved—the soil, to extend the metaphor?
“We know what all plants need to grow: good location, water, fertilizer sun and space,” Smit replies. “They are principles of growth.
“The question is, what do churches need? Are there principles of church health that apply to congregations regardless of location, size, theological point of view or other factors, and if so, how do we measure them?”
Smit and NCD say, yes: These are the eight Essential Areas for a Successful Church—see box below.
“In all of these characteristics,” says Smit, “the adjective is the key.” In other words, he says, “churches don’t just need leadership; they need a particular kind of leadership, they don’t just need ministry, they need gift-oriented ministry.”
When congregations are given the means to measure these qualities, they can make strategic decisions about changing the conditions, if they want to.
And why would congregations want to change, especially if some of the factors (for example, daily Bible reading) are part of the wider national culture?
“Because it’s a sign of ill health,” says NCD’s Bickle.
The survey has 91 questions. The congregation’s leaders choose 30 active, committed members to fill it out. The results are then collated and placed in relationship with every other survey conducted in the country. Overall, 2,700 congregations in some 43 denominations have completed at least one survey in Canada.
Congregational profiles are combined to create a profile for the larger denomination.
Smit says its important to recognize that the survey is only a diagnostic tool. It does not suggest why the health of a congregation is the way it is or what to do about it. It is left to the church leaders to interpret the results and make decisions about what to change.
But he says, the survey results should be regarded as “a way to begin a conversation,” about what they reveal regarding the culture of the congregation and denomination and how that might be changed to better address the perceived weaknesses and help the church meet people’s needs.
And just like a gardener tests the soil every spring before planting, the NCD survey is meant to be repeated annually so the congregation can track its progress.
The Presbyterian Church in Canada’s profile
About 100 congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Canada have completed at least one NCD survey. The current denominational profile—see page 21—is based on 87 surveys from 78 congregations, involving more than 2,400 Presbyterians from across the country, done before 2007 when a new survey was introduced by NCD.
The red flag is the passionate spirituality category. Presbyterians’ practices result in this being ranked in the unhealthy range. This is also typical of most Anglican and United congregations in Canada, says Bickle, possibly reflecting some wider cultural issues.
Need-oriented evangelism is ranked second-lowest. And cumulatively, the rankings in all eight categories fall below the mean.
Bickle interprets the results though some straightforward questions he says Presbyterians may want to ask themselves. “Are we about evangelism? Are loving relationships important to us or are structures more important? Do we want to tell people the Good News?”
Smit believes Presbyterians have suspected all this about their own denomination for some time. “I have shown this survey to many people over the past year,” he says. “Nobody is surprised by the results,” but he adds they are still shocked by the extent to which their assumptions about the church are validated by the survey.
What Does this Garden Need?
NCD’s theory is pretty simple: A church’s overall health is only as good as its lowest assessment, which NCD refers to as a barrier to health. Just as a well-watered garden that lacks certain nutrients won’t improve if it is given more water, a church that has uneven rankings won’t grow until the barriers are removed.
For Canadian Presbyterians, Smit says, it means failing to address the issue of passionate spirituality is more likely to drag the church’s health down than developing empowering leadership will pull it up.
“It’s like our own health,” Smit says. “High cholesterol is more likely to bring down the rest of our health than the rest of our health is likely to reduce our cholesterol.”
Unearthing Where the Church is Healthy and Where it is Not
The denominational results are reflected in the results of individual congregations. In more than 40 per cent of all Presbyterian congregations, passionate spirituality is the lowest factor. This is followed by need-oriented evangelism, holistic small groups and loving relationships.
But Smit says a thorough analysis requires looking at some of the individual question results.
He starts by looking at the denomination’s top 10 healthy practices—see box on this page—as revealed by the survey.
“These are all important indicators of our health,” says Smit. “We can disagree and be open about things. The example our pastors set should not be one of overwork and exhaustion, and we have a greater than average capacity for change,” he says of the list.
“We praise people for doing good work [and] we greet newcomers. These all speak of our openness and a positive environment of affirmation and praise.”
These characteristics are critical starting points for becoming healthier as a denomination, says Smit, and should be celebrated.
So what about the areas that aren’t so healthy?
The survey uncovered some interesting findings. Respondents said they tend not to read the Bible privately or see it as a guide in their life. Nor are they inclined to share their faith experiences with other Christians. Prayer is not terribly inspiring for them and they are not confident others are praying for them. And they struggle with stewardship.
These results raise three questions for Smit. “Are we looking at different issues, (Bible, experiencing God’s work, stewardship and prayer) or one, namely spiritual disciplines? What is causing this? Can we name the barrier to growth? How can we remove the barrier?”
Finally, Smit says, respondents indicated that while they are enthusiastic about their church, they lack the confidence to share this. “What,” he asks, “does this say about us and about our future as a denomination?”
Digging Deeper Still
The least affirmed answer of all was the response to the statement: “The Word of God is the most important authority in the decisions of my everyday life.” Barely higher-rated were questions that asked if the respondents had socialized recently with others in the church, deepened their relationship with non-believers and adequately shared their wealth by supporting the church and its missions.
Observed Smit, “we don’t seem to build strong relationships within our church and we don’t build relationships with those who don’t know Christ.
“Both in and out of our Christian communities, friendliness isn’t enough; we are called to relational depth with one another. These are the aspects of our soil sample that need attending to before the seeds will grow.”
Tending the garden
When the results of the denominational profile were presented to national Life and Mission Agency staff, one member asked the NCD presenter how he would describe the denomination’s profile in a sentence.
“This is a church that loves what it is doing but has forgotten why it is doing it,” was the reply.
One of the congregations that completed the survey was St. Andrew’s, Brampton, Ont. “Our lowest score was in the area of need-oriented evangelism,” they wrote to the Record.
“Our highest score was in the area of loving relationships.
“When we looked at the answers to the questions, it seemed clear that we had a great church where people had meaningful experiences with God and with others … and they wanted to keep that secret!”
As a result, the congregation’s planning committee held focus-group meetings with members of the congregation.
Last January they held an all-committee, all-group meeting. “When we took our next survey in the spring of 2008,” they reported, “our [rating] in the quality characteristic of need-oriented evangelism had jumped from below average to well above average. And in a very practical sense, the people of St. Andrew’s feel more free to talk about their faith experience and are better able and equipped to do so,” they said.
“Of course, every survey reveals a new area of weakness needing to be addressed. Our 2008 survey revealed a typically Presbyterian deficit: Our low score now was in the area of passionate spirituality.”
Rev. Penny Garrison of St. Giles’, Cambridge, Ont., noticed a change in her congregation just through the process of taking the survey and discussing it. “Doors have been opened to enable us to talk together more freely about spiritual matters and our faith journeys. My preaching has shifted in response to the survey data and I am making headway in being more responsive, relevant and passionate in my sermons.”
Smit says he hopes the denomination takes the national profile to heart in a similar fashion. “I have come to believe that we may be so busy doing church that we forget to be the church. We are so caught up with programs and budgets and activities that we have lost sight of who we are and, more importantly, whose we are. Perhaps it is time to tend those needs.”
For more information please see www.ncd-canada.com.
How to Read the NCD Graphs
An NCD graph is a bell curve, which creates an average of all responses and then places each singular category in relation to that average. Bell curves are often used in academia to place a single student’s exam in relation to all the exams written by all the students in that class. (Yes, it is theoretically possible for a bell curve average to be 49 out of 100; or 83 out of 100.)
What is labelled average here on this example graph, or on the graph on page 21, is where most responses fall after being sifted through NCD’s proprietary mathmatical formulas. Low is not a value judgement—in the PCC’s example, NCD surveys show that for Canadian Presbyterians, passionate spirituality is not as much of a focus as empowered leadership.
