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This question translates into a common
concern for churches incorporating Willow Creek strategies or other
strategies for that matter. Will NCD mesh or clash with their strategy?
When introducing NCD to a new audience I have often heard, "Oh, we are
doing Saddleback or Willow Creek or Meta Church". A particular model may
have become part of the church culture and is well understood by their
ministry leaders. Leaders fear a clash of systems will lead to confusion
and a loss of direction clarity.
I would like to address the question of
tension or synergy from the perspective of our ministry, The Leadership
Centre Willow Creek Canada. We are both the Willow Creek Association
Canadian partner and the Natural Church Development (NCD) National Partner
in Canada. This question of tension or synergy has long been part of our
thinking and experience.
There are tensions. Willow Creek is falsely
perceived as focused entirely on building mega churches which conduct
seeker targeted weekend services. That is certainly part of the strategy
of the Willow Creek Church in Chicago where they have structured the
church in such a way to reach as many people as possible in their
community. Willow does not encourage the exact imitation of their strategy
and in fact, the strategy differs for the worldwide Willow Creek
Association where ministry movement areas are encouraged.
 Tensions are also caused by
misperceptions of NCD such as, "NCD is against church models, opposed to
building large churches, and is critical of seeker services". The research
found that we need to discover and draw principles from such church
strategies and not simply imitate them. This does not negate their value.
This mirrors what Willow Creek is telling their association churches.
With these tensions identified, we have discovered a tremendous synergy
between the Willow Creek movement and NCD. Willow Creek discovered
(through experience and intuition), that they needed to be strong in a
number of ministry areas. They developed programs, curriculum and
conferences to train and envision leaders in these ministry areas.
NCD discovered (through worldwide research)
that growing churches are healthy in eight critical areas of ministry.
There is a very strong correlation between NCD’s eight quality
characteristics and Willow Creek’s movement areas. Note the chart. In
Canada we encourage our Willow Creek member churches to incorporate the
principles of NCD into their strategies and our data is very supportive.
The data on Willow Creek member churches
(that have completed an NCD evaluation) is fascinating. We have discovered
that a Willow Creek member church is more likely to be healthy and
growing. The average church in Canada (non-Willow Creek member) completing
an NCD evaluation has a 42% likelihood of being a growing church. That
likelihood grows to 52% for Willow Creek member churches. The average
health index for a Willow Creek member church is an astounding 60. This
compares to a mean of 50.2 for other growing churches (non-Willow
members). These statistics are drawn from 1,327 Canadian churches that
have reported their NCD results of which 349 are Willow Creek member
churches.
These results should not be surprising.
Willow Creek member churches have invested in conferences, resources and
participated in church networks focused on the development of the Willow
Creek movement areas which include leadership, small groups, spiritual
formation, evangelism, worship and the arts, spiritual gifts and
children’s ministries. As a result, Willow Creek member churches have been
intentionally addressing health issues for years and are therefore more
likely to be growing churches.
Of course, there are very strong benefits
for Willow Creek member churches who are empowered to target their
resources more effectively with Natural Church Development. In Canada, the
synergies between Willow and NCD have helped many Canadian congregations
become healthy, growing churches.
Jeff Berrie is
Director of Natural Church Development in Canada |
