Ian Campbell became the Director of NCD in June 2007, working for The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada, the NCD National Partner in Canada since 1998. Previously, he ran the Australian NCD Partnership between 1999 and 2005 before handing the reins to his colleague Adam Johnstone. Ian is living in Vancouver with his wife, Kathy.
Canadians and Australians have always been very friendly with each other so I have received a warm welcome here. Add to that a country of stunning beauty and you can understand why I feel very blessed to be here. There is strong and growing engagement with NCD at local, provincial and national level. So far I have had contact with leaders from over 20 denominations. There is both a hunger for and commitment to growing God's Kingdom here which gives me great confidence.
A key component to my work is to encourage Canadian churches to repeat the NCD Survey regularly. My long experience says this is the only way to learn to apply NCD principles in practical ways and achieve sustainable healthy growth. If churches fail to survey every 12 to 18 months, it becomes very difficult to determine which decisions, activities, programs and events in church life produced the NCD results. Leaders are left asking, "Why did these results go up?" or "What caused that to go down?" Regular surveying …
- allows leaders to refine and refocus their strategy;
- energizes the church by showing where health is improving;
- prevents poor decisions becoming disastrous ones by providing early warning signs; and
- teaches leaders in very practical ways how to see, and treat, their churches as living organisms rather than just spiritual organizations.
I am focusing on four key tools to encourage churches and denominations into the NCD process:
1. The new NCD Cycle has had a profound influence on the way I approach ministry and life (see Natural Church Development by Christian A. Schwarz, 2006 edition). It is simple yet profound, easy to use in churches, useful for all parts of life and thoroughly biblical. I use the Cycle in my training and have joined the NCD International team in beginning to produce resources.
2. The Profile Plus has been available in Canada for a couple of years but, as I say, has been "a Ferrari driven in first gear." As a tool for getting at the root causes of issues arising from the NCD Survey results, it is without peer. I am working hard to help pastors, consultants, coaches and denominational leaders to use it to best effect.
3. I have been introducing the Denominational Profile Plus. My colleague Adam Johnstone and I first used this tool in Australia in 2005. It gives a denomination-wide picture based on all the NCD Surveys done to date in a denomination. It is very empowering for denominational leaders to have such high quality, specific information about the cultural strengths and weaknesses of their denomination. That said, to avoid misuse, it should only be given to denominational leaders with the appropriate level of authority and only by someone experienced in interpreting the results.
4. I have updated the manual Natural Church Development: An Introduction for Churches. While this has some specific processes related to Canada, it also has basic information on the NCD paradigm, including the new NCD Cycle. It is available for free from our website www.ncdcanada.com.
January 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of a colleague putting the book Natural Church Development in my hands with the words, "Ian, read this, this is you." How right he was. It is extraordinary to think how far NCD has come internationally in the last ten years. In many ways it is only just the beginning. I feel very privileged to have been a part of the journey.
Ian Campbell is Director of NCD at the The Leadership Centre Willow Creek Canada, NCD's National Partner in Canada. Contact: ncd@growingleadership.com.
