Elements in Surveying a Neighborhood in Church Planting

I’m in the middle of a church planting class.  I thought I’d share my notes on how to survey a neighborhood, in other words, how to understand the context (either a neighborhood or a particular niche community) in which you plant to plant a church.  In what follows are my notes.  Yes, they are raw.  Hope that they mostly make sense 🙂

There are five basic components:

Observation

• This is often “underrated”
  • Provides essential foundations
• Observe…
  • Buildings, activities, communities, etc.
  • How does the neighborhood function?  How is it changing?  How is it changing?
  • What is important to the particular people being “targeted?”
  • WALK not drive.
    • Prayer walking… invaluable.
    • Camera to communicate the vision to others
  • Visit areas at different times and days to see the life rhythms of the neighborhood
  • Interpret spiritual messages of the culture and buildings, etc
    • Life giving? Oppressive?
  • Sit.  Don’t “do something” until later
    • Don’t just do something, sit there! (rather than: Don’t just sit there, do something!)
  • Don’t start formal programs for at least a year (Urban Expression policy for UK)
    • Observe and get integrated into the new location

Conversation

• Listen to stories
• Ask good questions
• Snowball conversations… ask people to referrals to other people (Who knows what’s happening in this neighborhood?)

Investigation

• Wealth of information is available
  • Planning department
  • Wikipedia
  • Voluntary agencies
  • Census data
  • Groups or subgroups with particular needs as well… beyond just the niche or popular culture being targeted

Interpretation

• Identify key questions and has my info given any good answers (these should actually be a guide and then only new questions need to be asked as they arise in the interpretation process)
• Look at how gospel affirms and challenges the culture and its norms
• Redemptive analogies in the community that illustrate the good news that we can draw upon?  Paul was good at this.

Application

• SO WHAT?
  • Has this info and interpretation led to a sense of vocation and has it shaped how we create our ethos?
    • This is often ignored by church planters who have preconceived notions of a structured plan.  In other words, “My church will look like ‘this’ so the data isn’t gonna change that!”