Jeffery Berrie

I have to confess that it is with some hesitation that I share these things with the international NCD community. I feel somewhat like Martin Luther in the sense that, in Canada, we have questioned very accepted NCD norms. I know what you are thinking, Luther never heard of NCD and that is true, but he went against the flow. We embarked on a journey of hard questions in Canada...

... and the result was a left turn in our strategy for NCD.

We began NCD in Canada in 1998 the way that many did. We held training conferences to equip NCD coaches who would go and work with Canadian churches. We taught them about NCD and about coaching. They left our seminars with a dongle, a survey, two days of training and accreditation as an NCD coach in Canada. We counted on them to go forth and multiply and to some extent, some did a wonderful job. We have coaches in Canada that passionately share the NCD gospel with churches and denominational leaders and recruit churches to begin the NCD process. We will be forever grateful to these.

In fact, we so enjoyed working with these coaches, it took us a long time to ask ourselves how effective our strategy really was. When we took the time to ask the questions, we did not like the answers. The truth was that Canadian church leaders were spending a lot of time and money to take our NCD training and most did not go on to coach churches.

 
Unpleasant discoveries

As we began asking ourselves the hard questions, we made unpleasant discoveries. We found that most leaders who attended our training had not coached a single church other than their own. In fact, in 2001, our coaches did an average of .5 surveys each. Take note of the dot in front of the five. That is correct, less than one survey per coach. With a long term goal of 3,000 surveys per year we would need to train 6,000 coaches to accomplish the task. This was never going to happen. We were already beginning to see declining numbers attending our NCD training. There was something amiss in Canada.

Here is what we learned about our coaches. Many were denominational leaders who took the coaches training to learn about NCD, not to become coaches. Many more were senior pastors who simply wanted to be equipped to work within their own church. A number of leaders were simply too busy doing what they were already paid to do, solve denominational conflicts, help with church plants, attend meetings, preach, etc. NCD was far down their priority list and few, very few, were held accountable by anyone for their progress with NCD. To compound the problem, the people who did have the time and energy to work with churches found it very difficult to make a living as an NCD coach. Churches were simply not willing or were unable to pay reasonable consulting fees and they found the path to securing a coach a fearful and uncertain journey. Actually, I don't think we have a single person in Canada who survives on their NCD consulting fees. The ones who do NCD full-time are paid by denominations.

The other difficulty our coaches faced was that the job of coaching a church was just far too extensive. The time and energy needed to prepare a church for the survey, conduct the survey, help them with analysis and guide them through a planning session was more than coaches were able to deliver to the average church that could not pay them much. When you combine the factors against a coach engaging his or her NCD ministry, the time and effort involved in helping churches and finally the minimal financial returns, I began to think of coaches as heroes. Forgive me for this next statement; I also began to see coaching as the bottle neck in delivering NCD to churches.

The dilemma was staggering. NCD coaches stood between us and the churches we were trying to help. We were completely dependant on those coaches to get the job done but we could not hold them accountable. Their task was enormous and normally it was not their first priority and held very little financial return.

It was time for hard questions and unpleasant answers to turn into a new strategy.

 
Searching for a solution

After much soul searching and a few strategy meetings, our thinking began to change. Everything about our ministry at The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada was focused on the church as our customer. Our main focus was not the senior pastor or the denomination or the worship leader. It was churches we were trying to help. We were just slightly off the mark with NCD as we had targeted the coach as our customer. We needed to empower churches. Once we began the journey, it all seemed so clear and even freeing.

 
What were the options?

Option One – coach all Canadian churches ourselves. Wow, that's absurd. That was never going to happen. Our goal is 3,000 churches a year. We were in no position to hire and train an army of people to coach churches. It didn't seem very biotic. It simply wasn't feasible. What about all those coaches we had out there? Were we going to give up on them all together?

Option Two – find ways to equip churches to do NCD on their own, without coaching from us or from an accredited coach. This seemed like half of the solution. If the church was our primary ministry target (customer) then we needed to focus on empowering the churches. However, the thought of churches doing NCD on their own appeared to be far too daunting a task. Many churches had problems adopting the principles of NCD and moving through the NCD cycle even with the help of a coach. Certainly, less healthy churches would never make it. With a strong conviction that putting more tools in the hands of church was part of the solution, we began the task.

 
A new training focus

The first thing we did was change the focus of our NCD training conferences. We had been training coaches and we needed to train church leaders. We gathered a team of our best NCD coaches and together we determined exactly which individuals within a church we needed to reach and what they needed to know and do. Once we had our targets identified and specific learning goals for those people, we hired an educational consultant to help us strategize how to achieve those goals with our training participants. Our training became highly interactive small group sessions. Church leaders shared their ideas with others, completed exercises together, wrestled with case studies and debated questions. After the first season with our new training, we dropped our sessions on coaching altogether. If you want to become an accredited NCD coach in Canada today, you must attend the church training, complete a list of preparation exercises for prospective coaches and work with your own church first. There is more on the current role for Canadian NCD coaches later in the article.

We were still faced with a daunting task. How would we personally train all those church leaders? They would not likely travel from their regions to our training conferences in the larger cities. Most would not have sufficient funding. We needed to take the training to churches or at least to their communities.

The first step was to develop trainers, key people within denominations who were passionate about NCD and had the gift of teaching. It was surprising how many of these people we were able to find. We developed an apprenticeship program for trainers where they would begin by helping us at a training event. Next they would be a main facilitator at our event and finally they would host their own event where we would help them. Once they completed this process they received accreditation as a trainer for NCD in Canada.

As we were multiplying our trainers, we were developing tools for them. We slowly refined our training events for churches and developed training curriculum with participant's guides, PowerPoint presentations, presenter's notes, training schedules, etc. We put tools in the hands of our new trainers to help maintain a level of training excellence that stayed true to the principles of NCD and our desire to create rich learning environments for training participants. The next step for us is to find ways to take these training sessions into the churches where they can train their key influencers with the principles of NCD. We are not quite there yet but we are so close we can almost taste it.

As we began training trainers to work with churches we also started developing tools for those churches. At first we constructed a church training kit with NCD resources, PowerPoint presentations, the Core 4 software, etc. contained within the kit. The kit included a binder with a section for each phase of the NCD cycle. Although the church kits were a step in the right direction churches found them expensive and they were difficult for us to produce. There was a better way. 

 
Empowerment à la www.com

In early December of 2003 I paid a visit to the Purpose Driven Life website. I was inspired. Let me underline those words "I was inspired". What the Saddleback Church had done was place all the resources they had available for Purpose Driven Life on a website. Churches had full access to the resources as they conducted their 40 Day's of Purpose campaign. Everything was step by step. They had empowered churches to do a full Purpose Drive Life campaign without the help of a consultant. And it was working. Purpose Driven Life was sweeping North America. I was hearing so many stories of how churches had implemented the campaign and how their churches had changed. Most interesting to me was that every story, yes every story, included a little testimony about how easy Saddleback had made it with all the available tools.

I knew we needed to do the same with NCD in Canada. Well, it nearly ruined my Christmas of 2003. I spent the holidays and the two following months learning website programming and writing webpages. We designed the website (www.ncdcanada.com) to follow the NCD Cycle and provided tools for each of the phases. Churches can download an overview to inspire their leaders, print their survey forms on-line, download the Core 4 software, learn how to run a focus group, form an NCD implementation team, receive instructions on analysis, ask diagnostic questions, etc.

 
A system of regular contact

We developed a system of regular contact with churches as they move through the NCD cycle. When they download the questionnaires from the website, we collect their e-mail address and send them comprehensive instructions for conducting the survey with excellence. When they send us their Core 4 mdb file for processing, we send back full instructions for moving through analysis, for conducting focus groups and we include a promo for the Profile Plus. (Just a note here; we process all the mdb files ourselves in Canada. Coaches no longer have dongles. This gives us full access to results and the ability to track amazing statistics regarding the progress of NCD and the health of participating churches.) About two months after sending a church their results, we ask them to complete a survey regarding their progress with the NCD cycle. The logical next step for us is to contact the church after one year to ensure they are planning for their next survey. It seems like a lot of work but it is easily accomplished with today's technology. The personal contact is initiated by churches as they have questions, etc.

The response has been good. Churches appreciate being empowered. They are finding people within their congregations who make it their task to search the website for tools and understand everything they can about NCD. I think what has happened is that we have transferred ownership for NCD from the coach to the church. We are growing independent churches that can take care of the NCD ministry. Empowerment has resulted in ownership.

 
What about all our coaches?

It may appear that we have cut coaching out of our strategy. Not at all, may it never be. I take heed of the research that says a church that uses an outside consultant is likely to be healthier. I do confess that we have not put a lot of recent energy into developing our coaches. We were so fixated on empowering churches and getting tools into their hands that even some of our coaches felt left out of the picture. I remember a lengthy and difficult conversation with one of our finest coaches who felt unempowered. She believed we had taken her work from her. She was almost correct; but what we have actually accomplished is that we have done a lot of her work for her. So much of the (forgive the term) grunt work of coaching was no longer necessary because churches were doing this work themselves. Churches are now downloading and copying their questionnaires, conducting the survey meetings, and entering the surveys into the Core 4 software. I believe what we have done in Canada is that we have freed our coaches to work with churches in the areas where they really need help. A coach now has more time to do some upfront preparation work with a church and more time for analysis and perhaps action planning. It is also true that all the tools available for churches are also available for coaches. They can use our website, our training curriculum and our communication with churches to empower the churches they serve. Primarily, coaches who hold the value of passing ownership for the NCD cycle to the churches will see our strategy changes as beneficial. Coaches who want to have NCD coaching work with a church year after year may see us as a competitor.

 
Where are we at today?

There is still a lot of work to do. Now that we have placed tools in the hands of churches, we need to redevelop our coaching system to the new reality. We are considering a brokering system for coaching where we pass coaching work to trained coaches as churches request help. Remember, we consider the church our customer. It is very early in our thinking on this idea but this is how we think it could work.

We also need to continue to press forward with our new trainers. They need continued empowerment, encouragement, and tools as they do NCD training with our curriculum. They need to be encouraged to multiply and train other trainers. Our current coaches need to be retrained to harness our new system of empowering local churches for NCD. Yes, there is still a lot of work to do.

In conclusion I want to make it clear that I don't believe we have arrived at NCD nirvana in Canada. (I need more forgiveness for using a non-Christian term). The truth is that our survey sales are plateaued. Churches seem to be doing surveys but far too few have actually made the paradigm shift that NCD offers. Our survey repeat rates have dramatically improved but are probably still not at a level that will sustain a long term NCD ministry. With these difficulties facing us, I know this with absolute conviction and clarity, empowering churches through training, website tools, and an empowering coaching model is the right direction for us in Canada. It is a long road but a rewarding one. I feel very confident that as churches own NCD and persevere in their journey they will make the paradigm shift. May God make it so.

Jeff Berrie is the former director for Natural Church Development in Canada (www.ncdcanada.com). He is currently beginning a ministry which will work with denominations to help them network their churches with the purpose of growing healthy and planting churches together.

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