WINFIELD, BC-Canadian churches are slowly catching on to the principle behind a well-respected survey that claims if they want to grow, they first have to get healthy.

That means seeing the local church as an organism-not an organization-says Natural Church Development (NCD) Canada director Jeff Berrie.

"The problem with the Boomer generation is that we’ve viewed church as an institution. ‘If we just do this program, our church will grow,’" he says. "But the character of the church is more like a plant. You need to tend to the environment."

The survey is grounded on Mark 4:28-29, where Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a partnership between a man, who scatters the seed, and God, who somehow causes it to grow to maturity.

"We have a responsibility in growing the church, and so does God," says Berrie. "Our responsibility is to make sure the church is healthy. God’s responsibility is to then grow the church."

Based on 4.2 million pieces of data gathered from 28,000 churches in 32 countries, German pastor Christian A. Schwartz, who developed the NCD survey, concluded that if a church scored at least 65 per cent in eight specific areas, it would grow numerically.

This held true, he discovered, regardless of region, culture or theological persuasion.

The eight qualities are: empowering leadership, gift-oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship, holistic small groups, need-oriented evangelism and loving relationships.

What is important in all eight are the adjectives.

For example, having worship is not enough-it must be inspiring worship, according to Schwartz.

But to have an impact, churches cannot take the survey just once. They need to work with a "coach" or consultant on overcoming their areas of weakness-called "minimum factors"-and then take the survey at least once more.

In fact, Berrie says the more often a church does the survey, the healthier it becomes.

"When they do a first survey, they average 48 [per cent]. When they do a second, they’re at 53. When they do a third, they’re at 57. NCD International says that 85 per cent of churches that move to a second survey are growing churches," he says.

Berrie estimates about 350 Canadian churches are now doing the survey once a year. "That’s 350 churches moving toward health."

"It’s like going to a doctor," says Alan Braun, senior pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Penticton, B.C.

Braun’s Baptist church has taken the NCD survey four times-and each time it was diagnosed as being one of the healthiest churches in Canada.

For each minimum factor the surveys revealed, Braun sought out someone gifted in that area to address the problem. "I believe the Lord’s got somebody in the room. If I look, I can find them," he says.

In all, NCD Canada has collected data on about 1,600 churches since it began operations in 1998. And half of those, says Berrie, belong to mainline denominations.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Leduc, Alberta, is one of them. It took the survey almost two years ago, and is preparing to do it again, according to rector Lynette Kent.

"It’s given us a fresh perspective," she says. "One of the mottos that I took from it that I have up on the church wall is, ‘Growth depends not on what we do, but on recognizing obstacles to what God wants to do.’"

Incredible change

Kent says while her church has not yet seen any significant growth from taking the survey, it has nonetheless "incredibly changed" congregants’ levels of commitment to the body.

"Everyone is involved in something," she says. "You can’t get rid of them after church on Sundays. They go downstairs for fellowship and they just go on and on and on."

Kent herself was so excited by the survey that she trained to become an NCD coach, and has since helped an Anglican church in nearby Edmonton go through the process.

Berrie believes it is "realistic" to hope that 6,000 churches across Canada will eventually take the survey once a year.