On This Rock - A Church Planting Sampler

C HURCH P LANTING M ODELS AND S TRATEGIES • 97

Researching Your Community Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis, expanded, amended, and adapted from You and Your Community, National Council of Churches

Source: Planting Churches among the City’s Poor, Volume 1, pp. 405-417

The following questions were designed in order of a parish or community based church or Christian service/mission organization to study carefully and learn more of the precise nature of the needs and potentials its community possesses. These questions are comprehensive but not exhaustive, and are meant to provoke your mind to explore the various situations, experiences, needs, and critical concerns that are intrinsic to the community where you live, work, and witness. Each broad question area could easily be delegated to a researcher or task force that would investigate this area and present information regarding the community’s overall condition. I. What Area of the City or County Do You Regard as Your Target Community? 1. What does your community call itself? 2. What is the extent and what are the boundaries of your natural geographical parish? 3. What are your community’s chief characteristics? 4. What are its traditions, histories, legacies; how did this community come to be, who founded it, when and how? 5. What is the predominant character of it – industrial, commercial, agricultural, educational, recreational, or residential? 6. What are the “natural” boundaries which outline your community, i.e., major streets or highways, railroad lines, parks, industrial or business districts, rivers or bodies of waters, etc.? 7. What is its relationship to its neighboring communities, town/ city at large? 8. What is the general accepted opinion or attitude towards the community and its residents? What is it known/famous for? 9. What is the unit you regard as your community (precinct, ward, village, town, city, county)? What is its total area and population? 10. What is the nature of its adjoining communities? What nearby cities influence the life of your community? (Is it rural, village, urban, suburban)? 11. Describe the various physical characteristics and general well- being or status of your community?