Four Levels of Ministry Research

Research activity can be categorized according to its scope and purpose. There are at least four categories or levels.

The first the accumulating factual data only. This includes demographic information regarding both the context and the institutional church. Such information is published or maintained for access and use by others as they desire. The World Christian Data Base and The World Christian Encyclopedia produced by David Barrett falls in this category. Depending on the continuity of the endeavor, this information will provide either a single snapshot in time or through the accumulation of subsequent data makes available information for further analysis. This is quantitative research.

The second category is made up of those who do analysis to show trends and to define potential places of ministry which are in need of pioneering effort. Examples of this type of analysis would be calculating Growth Rates and church to population ratio, identifying unengaged people groups and locations without churches,

The third category consists of those who not only do trend analysis, but seek to discover to a limited degree some of the factors which cause these trends. This type of research is more qualitative than quantitative and often involves interviewing those on the ground to discover why things are as they are.

A fourth category carries the analysis of the factors to greater depth with the primary purpose being to understand both the institutional church and its context with regard to both its past and present ministry effectiveness and its potential for meeting identified needs in the future. The primary output of such research, as far as OC is concerned, is a basis for decision making related to its own ministries in serving the church and for carrying out the other three categories of its basic strategy: motivation, training, and mobilization.

Perhaps these four levels of ministry research can be viewed as a four level pyramid: the foundation of the pyramid represents establishing the facts; the next level represents the determination of needs and trends; the third level involves factor analysis; finally, decision are made based on a thorough understanding of the ministry context.