Toongabbie Anglican Church Blog

Weekly Blurb Natural church development

Natural church development

Sunday 22 August, 2004 · Posted by Philip Bassett

I�ve just been looking at a book on church Growth called "Natural Church Development "by Christian A. Schwarz. In it the author identifies "Eight Essential Qualities for Healthy Churches. " I thought they are worth mentioning because they reflect the values that the Ministry Strategy Group arrived at as we developed "A Way Forward "which Toongabbie Anglican Church has adopted as our plan for the development of our church.

The "Eight Essential Qualities "are:

  1. Empowering Leadership
  2. Gift-Oriented Ministry
  3. Passionate Spirituality
  4. Functional Structures
  5. Inspiring Worship Services
  6. Holistic Small Groups
  7. Need-Oriented Evangelism
  8. Loving Relationships

Additionally the author stresses that no one characteristic is the key to growth and development of a church, but rather the interplay of all eight. In the survey of over 1000 churches on all six continents churches which scored 65 or over in all eight characteristics invariably were growing churches.

The conclusion is that if a church concentrates on improving these "quality "factors then growth will follow. It�s not that it�s better to concentrate on quality than quantity but that the secret of growing quantitatively is to concentrate on the quality factors.

There are several copies of the book in circulation around Toongabbie Anglican Church. I thoroughly recommend it as a book we could all read and benefit from.

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