There are a lot of resources out there for church planters to be able to determine the needs of their community. In the early stages, it makes sense to do some ethnographic research. Basically, ethnographic research is qualitative, rather than quantitative, research. Most ethnographic research in any field includes interviews and observations from someone who has immersed himself in a particular culture.
This kind of research isn’t meant to be completely objective, but should be participatory. In other words, when a church planter engages in ethnographic research, he is trying to understand his neighbors and enter into their world (yet without sin).
This month I am spending most of my days engaging in two activities that fall under the category of ethnographic research: prayer walking, and community needs surveys. Both activities, I hope will bring about a better understanding of the needs of my community and will give me a deeper burden for my neighbors.
Prayer Walking
The first and most important step in determining the needs of the community is to prayer walk. I can’t believe how often my eyes have been opened as I walked, drove, or rode my bike through my neighborhood and interceded for my neighbors. My wife and I really benefited from a resource on this from Randy Sprinkle called Follow Me: Becoming A Lifestyle Prayerwalker.
The goal of this time is to allow God’s Spirit to open our eyes to the needs in the community. I’m including a few observations of how to make prayer walking a normal and fruitful part of your ministry.
1. Go together – Prayer walking alone is natural and should be happening even if you are walking to the store and back. However, prayer walking with someone else provides accountability and intentionality. It’s exciting to see the insights God gives to someone else, or to see Him confirm something He is speaking to your heart when your partner prays the same thing.
2. Limit conversation and increase intercession – It’s easy to gravitate more towards conversation with a prayer walking partner because it’s more comfortable. Just realize that God is there with you and turn more of your attention to Him than to your partner.
3. Record Your Observations – Take a small notebook and keep track of any major insights or observations that God reveals to you about your community.
4. Share the Stories – If several teams are prayer walking at the same time, come together at a specified time and share what God has shown you.
What ideas do you have to make prayer walking a regular and fruitful part of your ministry? How have you seen it help in developing an ethnographic profile of your community?
Community Needs Survey
Next to prayerful observation, the best way to determine the needs of people in your community is simply to ask them.
I’ve heard of a lot of church planters who develop a short survey (maybe 4 or 5 questions) to determine the needs of their community. When I started a church in Boston, this was one of the first things we did and it is something we will be doing this month. My personal goal is to knock on 1,000 doors and prayerfully receive at least 250 completed surveys.
Of course, there are a lot of ways to do these surveys. We had a lot of success the last time simply standing in a high traffic area and asking people for a couple of minutes of their time. There are a couple of spots that we could potentially do this in our current town but we want to try the door to door thing and see how it goes.
Also, there are a lot of different goals in conducting surveys and certain types of information that people want. Ours is going to be a basic community needs assessment. We want our community to know that we care about them and want to present a positive first impression rather than getting into doctrinal issues.
Here are some of the questions we will be asking:
- What do you think are the greatest needs that this community faces right now?
- Describe the kind of church that you think would meet the needs of this community.
- What advice do you have for me as I start a new church in this area?
I also developed my own series of questions based on the following pictures:
What questions would you ask to determine needs in your community? Would you go door to door or stand on a busy street corner? Other ideas?