There are amazing resources available to people who want to understand — and support —congregational life. Here are a few that are worth checking out. See how these sources intersect with our Frames for Study and how they help you imagine what tools from our Toolkit you might use. Surveying the Landscape If you are…
Figuring out whether or not a program works poses an interesting challenge. It’s something that leaders often want to do, but the impact of our work is often in the everyday lives of people, and it would be impractical to follow people around all day. In one recent program evaluation, we tackled that challenge using…
A variation of the walking tour is a great way to explore a congregation’s context: walking with cameras. These days most people have access to photographic equipment in the form of a mobile phone, digital camera, or disposable camera. Whatever technology one employs, one should think of cameras as tools for collecting information and photographs as a…
Photovoice (PV) is a technique that enables researchers to identify needs and stimulate social change by giving voice to groups and/or issues that may otherwise be voiceless. The acrostic V.O.I.C.E. is sometimes used to describe this research strategy: Voicing Our Individual and Collective Experiences. Frequently, a photovoice project takes place over several weeks with a…
This post is the last in a series by the Congregational Studies Visual Methods Fellow, Roman R. Williams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Calvin College. He is an expert in visual research methodology, and his current research looks at ways in which local congregations can use visual research…