Cycle Starter Plans

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Having understood your church a little better with the help of the NCD Church Survey, its now time to start cycling together towards a healthier church. You’ve chosen to start experimenting and learning more about the topic to the left. Now, select one of the cycle starter plans below and write number 1 in its box. Put this sheet on your wall, then, go do it!

Next time you are meeting with others who are also working through a topic, ask each other the questions from the cycle, starting at “do” and finishing at “plan”. After a cycle you may decide the most important thing to do now is to keep going with the same plan, modify it, or choose another option from below. If choosing another from below, just write 2 in its box and so on.

If you’d like more cycle starter options, or to work on another topic highlighted by your NCD Church Survey results, just visit ncdchurchsurvey.org/cycle-starters

Q10

  • Ask three quite different people what passage of Scripture or topic would be most instructive for helping your congregation to mature in their Christian lives.
  • Ask two or three people to offer verbal or written feedback on your sermons. As well as their general comments, ask them for specific feedback on how you might improve in explaining biblical principles and how to apply them to daily life.
  • Consider what can be done through a sermon that cannot be done equally well or better through another forum of church life.
  • Encourage listeners to think about whether the current sermon applies to them directly, or might contain ways of understanding the topic that they as disciple-makers could learn from and pass on to others.
  • Find a way to get a modern translation of the Bible into the pews of your church.
  • Next time you hear a biblical principle in the sermon which you can readily take and apply in your life, let the preacher know what principle you learnt and how you intend to apply it.
  • Preach a series about your NCD Minimum Factor/s, explaining why this is important for the church's future. For greatest impact, make sure that the key influencers of the church have begun wrestling with the issues in practical ways before expecting the congregation to do so.
  • Take the 3colorsofyourspirituality.org Spiritual Style Test on your own or in a group.