Community Analysis

What five words would you use to describe the town or city where your church is located?   Who lives in your community?   And who lives where?  What is the social makeup of the people within a 2-5 km radius of your church?

We have been discussing what strategic planning or setting direction looks like in the church.  How do you bridge the gap between the church you are today and what God wants your church to become?¹  You might think that strategic planning in the church is something you do on your knees.   Through prayer, Bible study, and reflection you begin to understand what God would have your church be and do.   While prayer and Bible study need to permeate all strategic planning in the church, God would also have us use our discerning minds to understand the community where he has placed us.  The Bible tells us about the people of Issachar, "who understood the times and knew what Israel should do." (1 Chronicles 12:32; see also Esther 1:13)   For us to know what we should do as churches, we need to understand the times, the context where we are doing ministry.

This is what missionaries do when they begin work in another country.   Suppose your mission is to plant a church among the Fulani people in Nigeria.   Yes you will pray.   And study God's Word.   But you will also study the people among whom God has called you to serve.  In the 1980s, when I planted a church near Toronto in Canada, the first months were simply spent getting to know the community.   Day after day I would walk the streets, meet our neighbours, get to know our community, and ask a lot of questions of the people who lived there.  If we were going to plant a new church in that city we needed to know the people of that city.

To do effective strategic planning in your church you need to do a community analysis.   Gather demographic data from a number of sources and evaluate it carefully.  Ask questions such as, how many people live in the area where your church is located?  Are the people you are trying to reach predominantly one ethnic group, or do you find a mixture of cultures in the area where your congregation exists? Do you find a lot of two-parent families in your area, or is there a high concentration of singles, or single-parent families?  What is the educational level of the area in which your congregation is located? What is the income level of the households in your area? What are the social ills in your community? What religions are there? What social agencies are active?  Or other charities and service industries? 

You could search for all this information yourself.  Check out the government census data for your area.  Go to the city or council planning boards in your area.  They can give you current statistics and also projections into the future.  Visit the local library.  Talk to local businesses, real estate companies, and the local Chamber of Commerce.  While you could do all the research yourself, here in Australia my suggestion is to contact NCLS Research.  For a nomimal fee they will provide you with a 28-page social profile of the people in your area based on current census data.  Using easy to understand visual graphics, key indicators of what has changed and what is distinctive about your community are highlighted in the summary overview.  Then more in-depth information about the people in your local area, their household and family life, cultural background, work, education, religious affiliation and more, is explored in the detailed review.  More information about the Community Social Profile is found here.

As you analyse your community, begin to think in terms of the “needs” your community has.   The Bible describes how Jesus went through all the towns and villages in Israel, and as "saw the crowds, he had compassion on them."  Why?  He saw that they were "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:35-36)  As Jesus mingled with people he began to understand their needs.  And then he began to strategize how to meet these needs.  He sent out workers to the towns and villages to reach these lost sheep. (see Matthew 9:37; 10:1ff)  In the same way, when through your community analysis you begin to discover the needs of the people around your church, begin to assess the resources your congregation has to meet those needs.  What opportunities are there for your church to reach people in word and deed with the love of God? How might the information from your community analysis affect your programs, activities, and mission?

As a denomination we say we are all about reaching the lost for Christ.  This is our mission.  But we will never accomplish that mission until we know the people we are trying to reach.   Hence the importance of doing a community analysis.

 ¹ Check out previous articles:  Setting Direction, The Starting Point, and Your Flavour