December 24 - Natural Church Development

Introduction. Christian Schwarz’ goal for the book is to critique his perception of the church growth movement and to put forward a more biotic-organic model of church leadership, as opposed to a business-corporate model that he perceives as inadequate. What makes this book valuable to leaders is that it is based on a study of 45,000 churches in 70 countries, focusing on developing church growth (quantity) naturally out of church health (quality).

Eight Characteristics. From Schwarz leaders learn that the worship wars that have plagued United Methodism are irrelevant: churches that grow have high quality, inspiring worship services regardless of style. In Schwarz’ estimation, it is the inspiring experience that draws people. Second, Schwarz saw a pattern between quality, growth and the intentional development of holistic small groups and loving relationships. Third, there was a pattern between quality, growth, and having spiritual gift-based lay ministry with a focus on the search for and the training of those gifted with evangelism. Schwarz disputes the idea that everyone is an evangelist. This one fact from his research gave me the best reeducation in spiritual gifts that I have ever had. Finally, and ironically, leaders learn from this book that as theological training for clergy increases, the quality and growth of the church decreases. One wonders what that says about the quality of theological education in the 70 countries surveyed.

Minimum Factor. Leaders have to communicate. While people are not stupid, the simpler the message, the more people understand the message a leader is working to communicate. The image of the barrel in the minimum factor is priceless. I wish all images could be that simple. Also, leaders need short term and long term vision. Schwarz’ research shows that by working on the minimum factor in a church, many of the other factors will also rise. That is, leaders can improve the general fruit of a church by focusing on one problem at a time instead of equally dividing scarce resources to attack all limiting factors at once.

Six Growth Forces. In this section, Schwarz emphasizes the organic nature of his church development model. He reminds leaders that the church is not a factory where robots are produced but rather is a life form that reproduces itself. Also, in this chapter, Schwarz takes the time to refine fruit: the fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, it is another apple tree. The church exists not to produce but to allow God to reproduce through us.

New Paradigm & Growth Spiral. Schwarz critiques leaders who view the art as more head than heart, calling them ‘technocrats’, and identifying them as people more concerned with ‘making’ a church grow through programs. Schwarz is also critical of leaders who view the art as more heart than head, calling them ‘spiritualists’, and identifying them as people who view “institutional elements” as “evil” (94). Then, sounding almost classically Methodist, he draws up a new paradigm for church leadership where head and heart go together. Schwarz gives a quality control framework for evaluating and improving the quality of things at a given church, which he calls the ‘growth’ spiral.

Final Thoughts. Ultimately, there are four great gifts that this book gives any leader who digests and implements its best ideas. First, unlike much theological training of which I have been a part, Schwarz gives his readers permission to set quality goals and to achieve them. Instead of a passive spiritual leadership, he recognizes the necessity of an active spiritual leadership. Second, this book provides a detailed, research supported quality control system for churches that emphasizes both quality and quantity. Third, Schwarz gives to leaders the rationale to lead change in ‘technocratic’ institutions which would merge all denominational activity into a great, mindless uniformity. Finally, Schwarz also gives leaders the rationale to challenge all ‘spiritualists’ who would rather be passive rather than be active. In short, Schwarz blesses those who would respond to God’s gift to lead, and respond to critics on each side.