By John Cole

To Sum Up

Anyone can collect lots of information: the hard job is interpreting it!

The Bardney map revealed a great deal. but it raised almost as many questions as it answered. You are probably learning a lot as you talk to people about how your locality has changed, but you are probably also discovering that the feelings people express are at least as important as the historical facts.

You may want to carry on collecting facts about life in your locality. You can get information in all sorts of ways: from the Planning Office, by looking at census data, simply by walking the streets and noticing things like derelict sites, 'house for sale' boards, evidence of vandalism etc.

You could, for example, find out from your newsagent how many copies of each of the main daily papers he sells - and compare that with a spot check on which newspapers are read by your fellow church members!

If you really wanted to do the job thoroughly, you could mount a questionnaire. But beware! Questionnaires are not easy and are not always a good idea - but see chapter three. A very modest questionnaire has been suggested under 'research' in this chapter. For anything bigger, it would be worth getting professional advice.

Even after all this research, it takes quite a bit of discernment to uncover the dynamics of how people live and interact - the multitude of informal expressions of 'localness' through which people derive enjoyment and meaning in life (and a sense of belonging) day by day.

What's it all for?

This first chapter has suggested some simple exercises which are part of the process known as 'Mission Audit'. Exercises of this sort are fashionable as well as being fun; but therein lies their danger: they are useless if they just lead to a collection of facts.

The real issue facing us is not collecting the facts but learning from them. As we have seen, it is too easy to conclude, for example, that because there is no such thing as 'the local community' there can be no such thing as 'a local church'. But how is it possible for any church to be representative of or fully identified with such a multi-faceted expression of community? What questions does this imply about the way the church itself is still divided?

Some would say there is no point in trying to be a local church. They take it for granted that churches will be tied to individual culture groups, gatherings of people who like each other's company or prefer a particular style of church life.

But surely church-going is not simply a matter of consumer choice like buying a washing machine or taking out an insurance policy. Opting for this kind of 'gathered' church is surely to run away from our vocation.

White for harvest

When Jesus told his disciples "Look around you", he was inviting them to look in a new way, to see new possibilities. to see what God was doing - "fields already white for harvest".

If we want to understand how to be a local church, we have got to pay attention to what God is doing and what jobs he wants us to do with him.

Facing up to what sort of church we need to be if we are to be incarnate where people are today - as the compost heap matures! - could be a very challenging and costly experience. But it might also be the means by which we too experience the life of Christ in fresh and invigorating ways.

There is a harvest. a ripe harvest. in British society today - of people looking for God at work in their lives. Some of the evidence has been presented in this first chapter.

But it is no use thinking we can rush off to cut the corn until we know we can do so without damaging the crop!