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

Creativeness

  • Ask three people in your church who are close to you, "If you could do anything in ministry, what would make you feel the most alive?" Then, determine if and how you can help them with that, or who you need to speak to to try to make it happen.
  • Consider what can be done through a sermon that cannot be done equally well or better through another forum of church life.
  • Devise a way for your church to share the Gospel using social media.
  • Help your congregation understand that inspiring worship services depend upon every person bringing along their unique gift-based offering of worship to bless God and encourage the church. Help individuals to discover what their offering might be and how it could be expressed regularly before, during, or after the formal part of the service.
  • If each of your individual worship service components always seem to go for about the same length of time each week, consider what is "magical" about that length of time and why it might not be even more fruitful if each one was shorter or longer.
  • Spend time somewhere in your church's local community where disadvantaged people gather (e.g. unemployment office, courthouse, welfare store, etc.) and ask God to show you how your or your church's gifts may connect with the needs you see.
  • Take the 3colorsofministry.org Gift Test on your own or in a group.
  • Think about parts of your life that you (and God might) find boring or unchallenging. Consider what kind of challenge you would need to undertake that would require you to rely more on God and work together more as a team.