Natural church development: blending the spiritual and traditional approaches to understanding organizations

Abstract

Natural Church Development (NCD) is an emerging model that was designed to assess and develop the health of a church (Schwarz, 1998). With modification, it is argued that the NCD model could make a significant contribution to the examination of secular organizations due to its fresh perspective on traditional management concepts, new dimensions, focus on organizational purpose, systematic nature and potential for providing a framework for exploring and developing the construct of spirituality. This paper will introduce the model, develop the links between the model and management literature and discuss the significant contribution made by the NCD perspective.