From the Pastor at Trinity!

This past Sunday 30 members of the church, chosen by our "Church Health Team," took the Natural Church Development Survey that is designed to help churches measure the quality of their health in the eight characteristics that define a growing church. In order to develop a profile for our church, our answers were compared with the 168 million other individuals who have taken the survey.

After our answers were inserted into a very complex computer program, we were given a score on each of the eight quality characteristics of a growing church. The primary purpose of the survey is to help us identify our "minimum factor," which is the key factor for growth, according to Christian Swartz and his research team. Discovering one's "minimum factor" is crucial to a church's quest to experience growth. It is designed to help churches focus their attention on those most strategic areas that can best assist them in becoming a much healthier church, which in turn will further enable them to grow all by themselves or naturally. For a healthy church is a growing church.

Our overall score was 55, which is better than the average of the other 60 churches that have taken the NCD survey within our Conference. Our "minimum factor" is FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURES. We scored 44 in this quality characteristic. We scored 47 in INSPIRING WORSHIP. (I will have copies of the Bar Graph that shows the scores in all eight characteristics available on Sunday. In the meantime, prayerfully consider the definitions below of those two areas on which we scored the lowest and focus mainly on the adjectives, i.e. FUNCTIONAL and INSPIRING, because it's the adjectives that are measured by the survey. By doing so, we can better discuss our strategy for addressing our "minimum factor" at a later date as a church family.

1. FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURES - The Church is the living Body of Christ. Like all healthy organs, it requires numerous systems that work together to fulfill its intended purpose. Each must be evaluated regularly to determine if it is still the best way to accomplish the intended purpose. The most important criterion for forms and structures in the church is if they fulfill their intended purpose. Church structures are never an end in themselves, but always only a means to an end.

2. INSPIRING WORSHIP - Inspiring worship is a personal and corporate encounter with the living God. Both personal and corporate worship must be infused with presence of God resulting in times of joyous exultation and times of quiet reverence. Inspiring worship is not driven by a particular style or ministry focus group, but rather the shared experience of God's awesome presence.

Is the worship service an inspiring experience for those who attend? It is not whether our services target Christians or non-Christians, whether they celebrate the "in the language of Canaan" or in a more secular language, or whether we worship using a liturgical or a more free-flowing approach. Inspiring worship services are often described as fun.

I Corinthians 3:8-9 "The one who plants and the one who waters work as a team with same purpose; we work together as partners who belong to God." (NLT)

With Love From Jesus,

Pastor David