Natural Church Development (NCD)

We work with churches and church leadership teams to identify the barriers to releasing all-by-itself growth potential that God has already placed in them. We bring surveys & assessments, books and processes to apply God’s growth principles.

Focusing on health will bring about growth, this is how God works. Focusing on quantity won’t usually result in health, and typically does not produce sustainable growth.

All by itself growth happens when you, the leadership team and the congregation consistently live in line with the unique gifts, energies and resources that God has already granted you. You have everything you need to become healthy. You can start now, you don’t need permission.

Your church can grow regardless of unfavourable trends in society. You can maximize your impact in your church regardless of your level of responsibility. You can maximize your fruitfulness in all areas of life, regardless of your starting point. All with the help of NCD UK & Canada.

We can see in Mark 4:26-29 how all-by-itself growth works: the farmer does not make the plants grow, that’s God’s job. The farmer’s role is to care for the soil, plant, water and harvest. When we focus on removing barriers to the already existing all-by-itself growth potential in our churches, God will honour that with growth. 

NCD’s tools, resources and processes direct the church’s focus to health by:

  1. Gathering data to see where things stand against eight markers, or Quality Characteristics
  2. Discerning – and prioritizing – the barriers to all-by-itself growth
  3. Planning how to remove the identified barriers
  4. Watching to see how God grows the head, hearts and hands of people as the barriers are removed

Bill leads a small organizational health and growth practice. He works with businesses, faith-based organizations, and charities.

Bill Bickle, NCD UK & Canada

Bill’s consulting practice, Fordelm Inc., has been the National Partner for NCD in Canada since 2008 and in June, 2023, he assumed responsibility for the National Partnership in the UK & Ireland. Bill is passionate about the health of the global Church, working to help faith communities focus on health. Bill believes churches need discipline in their approaches to people and their connections to the Triune God – his vocation is coming alongside churches, church leaders, and denominations in this quest.

Bill is an Anglican layman and spent 25 years working at RBC Royal Bank, half of those in branch banking & administration, and the other in marketing positions in Project Management, Product Management, and Segment/Strategy Management. He has an accounting degree from Queen’s University in Kingston and an MBA in Organizational Behaviour from York University in Toronto.

Bill and his wife Marnie live in Port Hope, Ontario, about an hour east of Toronto on Lake Ontario where he grew up and returned in 1997. Bill & Marnie are active in the restoration of old houses, their local church community, and other organizations in the town.

For more information on NCD globally, click here.

A sister resource for non-church faith-based organizations, Organic Quality Management (OQM), leverages all the principles, tools and processes of NCD.

Universal Principles of NCD UK & Canada

Healthy organisms grow. Healthy churches grow. These are universal principles.

As the farmer discovers in Mark 4:26-29, growth happens as if all by itself. God’s role is to do the growing; the farmer’s role is to tend the plants and the planting process.