How does this help churches?

A positive, inclusive process that helps leaders to lead

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The National Church Life Survey offers churches a process that:

  • gives each person a voice
  • organises results in categories related to church health
  • compares your church with national benchmarks
  • tracks your own church's history.

Nurturing church vitality

The NCLS is more than counting numbers- it’s about the life of each church its leaders,helping build vitality, develop effective and sustainable leadership, and connecting well with the local community.

Many church leaders find a season of reflection very helpful. As they listen to their attenders they capture a sense of their hopes, passions and concerns, discerning a way forward as a body.

As researchers we believe that having a credible evidence base can help inform decisions, bringing wisdom and insight to the directions and life of a church.

The local church leader is supported..

  • Local church leaders will gain a clearer picture of their people - not just their demographics, but their faith life, their commitment to the mission of their church, their Christian living and their hopes for their church.
  • Local church leaders will gain insights into the leadership qualities churches need to draw on, and their own leadership strengths, as well as those of their leadership team.
  • Leaders will see precisely the areas of church life that the congregation most values and the areas they would most like to see further developed.
  • All of this will help leaders not only discern directions but the strategies necessary to build and owned vision and move surely into those directions.

The local church is resourced..

  • The congregations will gain a clearer understanding of their strengths as a Christian community, on mission and in caring for each other.
  • The ministry groups will gain feedback on their own area of ministry.
  • The church as a whole will be better equipped to hold meaningful discussions and set goals based on reality rather than surmise.
  • The church will come to understand itself more clearly and be drawn to be a stronger Christian community.
  • The church will be equipped to determine directions and foster the development of a clear and owned vision, so that the church can move to action together, into the future.

The denominational leadership is equipped..

  • Regional and denominational leadership will gain a clear oversight of the strengths and focus of its churches and the region as a whole.
  • Regional and denominational leaders will be equipped to offer strategic and pastoral leadership and work more effectively with local churches.
  • The survey results will help regional and denominational leaders to effectively allocate resources to particular areas of need and opportunity.
  • Denominational leaders can compare their denomination’s results against Australian churches as a whole to clearly see the differences and the similarities.