Methods for Learning About Your Community
Methods for learning about your commnity
The community study task group can gather information about the community of ministry in a variety of ways:
- Census data and other published reports: The census (available on the Internet, www.census.gov provides a wealth of demographic information and tracks changing trends. Ask your local librarian for help in accessing the census data for your community. Other kinds of reports on your community may also be available from a local university, the school board, the chamber of commerce, or another church.
- Maps: Detailed street maps can be obtained from the planning department of your municipal government. Or download a map from mapquest.com. See the Word & Deed Network resource list for Christian mapping software programs (e.g. the Mapping Center for Evangelism and Church Growth, mappingcenter.org). You can also draw your own map of your community based on your observations. Use Tool #29 to fill in the map with important characteristics of the community.
- Documents: Collect neighborhood publications, articles about the community in city newspapers, and newsletters from nonprofits that work in the community.
- Surveys: Written or oral questionnaires ask community members to identify local needs, issues, and assets. If church members are not from the community, try to pair each member on the survey team with a local resident who knows the people in the neighborhood. While surveys can also gather information about people's background and interests, they should not be too personal or intrusive. Tool #32 provides a sample survey format.
- Interviews: Identify leaders and "insiders" in the community (elected officials, business leaders, community organizers, other pastors, long-time residents) to interview. Also include interviews with "ordinary" members of the community. Ask about their experiences and views of the community, their perceptions of your church, and their suggestions for how the church could impact the community's well-being. See "Networking in the community", and Tool #33 for a sample interview guide and networking log.
- Focus groups: Gather a group of community members to share their insights. Groups can either reflect the diversity of the community or share a common key characteristic (such as seniors, or parents of teenagers). It is helpful to start by asking broad questions about people's opinions and observations of community life - their fears, gripes, prides and hopes. As your ministry focus narrows, focus groups can target specific questions (such as what kinds of ministries for seniors are needed, or why people think so many local teens are becoming pregnant).
- Community informant panel: Invite a selection of experts on the community - e.g., a school principal, city council representative, police officer, business leader, and neighborhood association representative - to a meeting at the church where each can give a brief presentation on the community and answer questions.
- Observation: Conduct visual surveys by foot ("walking surveys") and by car ("windshield surveys"). (See Tool #31 for questions to guide your observations.) Make an effort to seek out the hidden corners, the people living on the margins.
- Participation: Participant observation in a spirit of Christian servanthood-as distinct from voyeurish, gawking "slumming"-is especially important if your community of ministry is geographically, culturally or economically distant from your own. Suggested activities to help church members soak in community life and become more familiar with the area include:
- shopping, eating, and walking in the neighborhood;
- riding public transportation into and around the community rather than driving;
- spending a few hours in the waiting room of the local emergency room or welfare office;
- hanging out in public spaces like parks or libraries;
- volunteering at a homeless shelter or other local service agency;
- attending civic, cultural, sporting, or seasonal events (town meetings, concerts, Little League games, Easter parades);
- worshiping at church services in the neighborhood.
"Insiders": Use church members as a resource: members who live in the community of ministry; who came to your church as a result of your community outreach; or who work in the community, particularly in service positions such as health care providers and teachers.
In selecting your community assessment methods, seek a balance of qualitative and quantitative information, as the Handbook for Urban Church Ministries (p. 13) explains:
You are looking for both objective and intuitive information. Intuitive insight about the neighborhood, as you can gain from conversations with residents, for example, puts living human faces on social circumstances. Objective information, as found in sources like census data, broadens individual experiences to community trends. Based on intuition alone, you might end up creating an entire program to meet needs that only one or two families are experiencing. Working with data alone, you risk becoming simply another social service agency, missing the warmth of gospel love for God's people around you.
