Media Release: National Church Life Survey to take place 2011

Healthy Churches

"I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly" said Jesus (John 10:10). The NCLS Research team works with all churches to explore abundance of life in Christ Jesus.

NCLS resources are shaped by 15 years of research on patterns of health and vitality in thousands of Australian churches.

Churches that take part in Church Life Surveys are helped to assess and appreciate their church's core qualities.

Nine Core Qualities

The nine core qualities of healthy churches are:

• an alive and growing Faith
• vital and nurturing Worship
• strong and growing Belonging
• a clear and owned Vision
• inspiring and empowering Leadership
• open and flexible Innovation
• practical and diverse Service
• willing and effective Faith-sharing
• intentional and welcoming Inclusion

The faith, worship and belonging core qualities are indicators of both the commitment of attenders and their confidence in your church. These are important motivational resources when it comes to mission.

The leadership and vision core qualities reveal the extent to which attenders are committed to the directions and visions of the church. The innovation core quality reveals openness to change. While leadership may be taking the church in one direction, are attenders actually on board? An empowering style of leadership has been linked to the development of church vitality.
   
Finally the service, faithsharing and inclusion core qualities reveal how, in concrete ways, attenders at your church are involved in missional activity. Some churches will place greater emphasis on the service statistics than others, seeing the activity of church attenders in the community as much more salient than evangelism or the attraction of new attenders to the church.

We invite you to focus on the qualities of life God has given you, in the present and the past, and to dream, plan and pray about how to develop that life in the future.

Attendance Measures

NCLS Research also explores patterns and trends over years. These include changes in attendance (church growth or decline), the percentage of newcomers and the proportion of the children of attenders still attending your church. These are concrete measures of the missional impact of your church.