Natural Church Development and ... The Orthodox Church?

Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff

Since its inception about two decades ago, Natural Church Development (NCD) has worked with and partnered with many Christian denominations across the world, working with many different pastors and lay leaders all across the theological spectrum - with one notable exception: The Orthodox Church. This is now beginning to change …

Orthodoxy has presented numerous challenges to NCD, and with the exception of some work done in the United States by a licensed NCD coach who also happens to be an Orthodox priest, there has been no concerted and coordinated effort to bring NCD into any of the Orthodox Churches around the world.

Until now.

In January of this year, nine Orthodox men - seven priests, one deacon, and one layman - met at ChurchSmart in St. Charles, Illinois (the headquarters of the U.S. licensee) to hold the first-ever NCD Coaches class for Orthodox Christians.  Led by Dave Wetzler, founder and president of ChurchSmart and an NCD coach since 1996, the nine attendees were from The Orthodox Church in America and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.  All attendees are or have been involved in evangelization, church planting, or parish revitalization efforts either at a national or diocesan level. 

The effort to assemble this class has been three years in the making.  In 2003, Priest Jonathan Ivanoff of The Orthodox Church in America attended the first of several NCD or parish revitalization classes held at ChurchSmart, and began working with parishes interested in NCD. To date, a dozen churches have taken the NCD survey and made varying degrees of effort - and success - in working through the NCD process. 

For several years thereafter, Father Jonathan sought to establish a network of NCD trained and certified coaches throughout the United States and Canada who would be able to work with priests and parishes for whom NCD offered the tools and the means with which to address issues of stagnant or declining growth.  That dream proved difficult to bring to fruition until Dave called Fr. Jonathan in November of 2007 and said Christian Schwarz was going to be in the United States later in the month and wanted to meet with him to discuss Orthodoxy and its role in Christian's new book on the Passionate Spirituality quality characteristic.

Christian and Fr. Jonathan met for three days in late November, and Fr. Jonathan was asked by Christian what it would take to bring NCD into the Orthodox Church.  He responded by saying that there were be three things that would have to be done to accomplish this.  The first was to hold a class for a selected number of men heavily involved in their diocese of national church programs of evangelization, church planting, or parish revitalization.  Over a dozen men from across the U.S. and Canada were invited for this initial event with nine eventually in attendance; three had to back out due to weather during that week or other logistical problems, but even the ones who could not make it have asked to attend the next scheduled class.  The three days of instruction proved to be challenging yet extremely "eye-opening" for all in attendance.

During this time, the second point brought up by Fr. Jonathan to Christian became readily apparent: the survey and other select collateral material would, without question, have to be tailored for an Orthodox audience.  Orthodoxy's understanding of ecclesiology and other vital theological concepts would make it necessary to alter the way in which the questions were asked without, at the same time, altering the fundamental core concepts and research principles they represented.  As of the writing of this article, that process is soon to be brought to conclusion, and the Orthodox in North America will soon have both a survey and an explanatory booklet to aid in the dissemination and promotion of Natural Church Development.

This coming fall of 2008, the third point of Christian and Fr. Jonathan's discussion will, God willing, be implemented: Fr. Jonathan will be attending NCD trainer training at ChurchSmart and will then hold, sometime soon after that, the first-ever all-Orthodox NCD coaches class.  Already, there are at least an half-dozen men identified to attend the class.

The logistics in making all this happen is a tribute to the generous spirit of love and concern shown by both Christian Schwarz and Dave Wetzler in helping create and further these many opportunities for the Orthodox parishes here in North America.  We sincerely thank them for their wisdom and foresight in bringing about this wonderful development, and we look forward to an exciting time of learning and, as we pray in the Orthodox divine liturgy, "growth in life, and faith, and spiritual understanding."

Father Jonathan Ivanoff, a 1986 graduate of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, is pastor of "The Orthodox Church of St. John the Theologian" (www.stjt.org) in Shirley, New York. Contact: frjonathan@hotmail.com