Understanding Your Community Version 2
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Understanding Your Community Version 2 by Monte Sahlin Center for Metropolitan Ministry Columbia Union College Takoma Park, Maryland Center for Creative Ministry Lincoln, Nebraska Acknowledgments My friend and colleague Carl Sobremisana, who serves as associate director of the Center for Metropolitan Ministry on top of his demanding duties as an urban planner at the United States Department of Transportation, has had a key role in the conceptualization of this volume, as well as gathering and analyzing key elements of the data. The staff of the Center for Creative Ministry assisted in developing the book and the accompanying CD-ROM. (C) 2004, Center for Creative Ministry, Center for Metropolitan Ministry and North American Church Resources Consortium. This volume in both its print and electronic editions is fully copyrighted and nothing may be copied from it without permission with the limited exception of the tools included which may be copied for use by churches and local ministries. Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................... Page i Chapter 1 - Do They Know You Exist? ................................. Page 1 Chapter 2 - Positioning the Church for Mission .......................... Page 13 Chapter 3 - What Kind of Community Are You In? ....................... Page 21 Chapter 4 - What Demographics Mean for Ministry ...................... Page 35 Chapter 5 - Segmentation: Targeting People Groups ...................... Page 61 Chapter 6 - The Religious Profile ..................................... Page 81 Chapter 7 - Community Power Structures, Attitudes & Influence ............ Page 95 Chapter 8 - Conducting a Needs Assessment ........................... Page 125 Chapter 9 - Community Systems .................................... Page 149 Appendix A - Resources ........................................... Page 169 Appendix B - Index to CD ......................................... Page 171 Introduction “I have accepted a call to a new pastorate. I want to get the demographics for the area and find information about the community.” “How can we plan outreach activities that will get attendance from the community? We used to do a Five-day Plan every year, but attendance got down so low that we canceled it a few years ago. We tried a parenting class one year, and a stress seminar another year, but almost everyone who came is a member or someone who already comes to church.” “I’ve been asked to conduct an evangelistic series in _____, and I need some idea of the best locations to look for an auditorium. Also, do you have demographics we can use in deciding where to mail handbills?” “Our conference wants to plant a new church in one of our major metropolitan areas. Can you map the communities throughout the area and tell us which are most likely to respond to regular evangelism and which are more likely to respond to other approaches?” “I don’t think my church really understands the needs in the community where our building is located. Most of us drive in and live in other neighborhoods. We have talked about a new building, but we might not be able to raise that kind of money and there are a number who feel that we really should do something to minister right here in this community. How do we decide what might work here?” “A former member, who moved out of state years ago, left in her will money for our church to build a Community Service Center. Some feel that we should build it on the back of our parking lot, but others say that we don’t have enough parking now and it should be built near where there are homeless people and the poor. I don’t really think we should spend this kind of money and then just have a Dorcas Society meet once a week to sort used clothing. How can we find out some needs in the community so we can plan something more up-to- date?” These are just a few of the telephone messages, letters and E-mail notes that have come into my office over recent years. Similar questions often come up in “vision to action” sessions with congregations and ministries, as well as from consultants working with local churches from conference staffs and resource centers. It does not surprise me that twice in recent years the North American Division Church Resources Needs Assessment rated among the top five concerns of local leaders, “We need help in understanding our communities. We need to do better at identifying and addressing the felt needs of our communities.”1 This book and the accompanying CD-ROM have been developed specifically to meet that expressed need. This is a set of tools designed to help you understand your community, its culture and needs, its dynamics and values, so that you and your team can do a better job of ministering in Christ’s name. Like any kit of tools, the real art is in knowing when to reach for a particular tool and how to use it to get the desired product. This book will walk you through the issues, introduce each of the tools and provide some examples and specific instructions on how to use each tool. Some of the tools are designed for “fact-finding” to gather information in your community and some are “frameworks” or conceptual maps that are needed to make sense out of i the mass of information you can easily collect. Both sorts of tools are absolutely necessary in order for you to gain enough understanding of your community to be effective in ministry. The Community as Mission Field It has become clear to the church that “mission” is not just something across the ocean which is done by “missionaries” paid for by our Sabbath School offerings. The local community, right where you live and go to church each Sabbath, is on the front line of mission. Your community is just as much a mission field as are jungle villages along the Congo and squatter towns in Sao Paulo. Neighborhoods across the metropolitan area near your are just as in need of missionaries as is New Delhi or Manila. This means that we must approach each community, including your community, as if it were a mission field, seeking to understand the local culture, the needs of the people, their values and religion, and developing a strategy contextualized to the local situation. A one-size-fits-all approach will no longer work effectively. A faithful Christian congregation will want to understand the surrounding community because it is made up of people for whom Christ died. He took the world seriously enough to spend 30 years growing up in it, learning the language and customs, earning a living, observing the marketplace, dialoging with leaders, before He began to present His teachings, heal the sick and call disciples. Despite this profound, spiritual reality portrayed in the example of our Lord, many people come to church each week “for inspiration” or “to hear the Bible preached” and disinterested in the surrounding community and its needs. The problem of introversion in the church and self-centered religion is very great today. As you begin to talk about begin to talk about understanding the community and meeting needs in the community, you will very likely encounter active resistance as well as passive disinterest. Unfortunately, you can expect some to take the position that “we don’t need to study the community” because “we have the truth.” Others will argue that understanding the community is “a waste of time.” Still others will feel that meeting community needs “is not our business; we have a different mission.” Despite these arguments the mission of the church is clear, and it is a mission to the world, not unto itself. On the night before His crucifixion, Christ prayed specifically for His disciples and “those who will believe in me through their message,” future generations of believers, “not that you take them out of the world” because “I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:20, 15, 18, NIV) In other words, Jesus sends the church into the world. It exists to minister to the world in His name. In the first sermon that Christ preached on Earth, He declared His purpose or mission. He “found the place” and read from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord ... has ordained me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to announce the day of the Lord’s justice.” (Luke 4:17-19) This is clearly a mission focused on the needs of people and communities. In the longest passage among Christ’s teachings, Matthew, chapters 24 and 25, He responds to questions from the disciples which are often repeated by Adventists today. “When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) If you follow Christ’s presentation in these two chapters carefully, you discover that He does not want those who are waiting for His second coming to sit back and watch the signs unfold. Instead, He portrays the man in one parable who buries his treasure to keep it safe for the Lord’s return as a “wicked, lazy servant” thrown at the Lord’s command “into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:26, 30) In the same parable, Christ commends the servants who are active in the public marketplace, and in the next parable—the “bottom line” story in this entire passage—He specifically contrasts those whom He will usher into His eternal Kingdom when He comes and those whom He will consign to the consuming lake of fire. The faithful Adventists are those who actively met the needs of the hungry, the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the alien in the community, while the unfaithful Adventists are those who say, “But, Lord, when did we see you among the poor, the hungry, the ill or the oppressed?” The Mission of the Church Clearly the mission of Christ is focused on the needs of people.