Methodology
In forming
a methodology for the research section of this project the strategy involves
identifying a research group from a pool of potential alternative missional
ecclesia in Portland. The focus is an engagement of contextualization with theological
praxis, a bridging of theory and practice in reality. The intent of the
methodology is to explore the phenomenon and ecclesial dynamics represented in
the contextualization and the positive deviance practices and strategies of the
research group according to each individual expression. The focus considers the
innovation of the practices and strategies for application in contemporary
culture through the experiences of the alternative missional churches.
Following this postmodern form, the participants of the study were assembled
from the innovators of ecclesia rather than the teaching experts represented in
popular church planting institutes.
Research Questions
The focus
of the research centered on the practices and strategies of contextualization
and theological praxis amid alternative missional ecclesia. Similarly, but
unlike Frost and Hirsch’s focus on the categories of mission and innovation.[1]
Does the reality of the practices and strategies result in contextualization of
the Gospel amid marginalized people? The research seeks to understand how and
why each practitioner fosters fresh practices and strategies in their own
context. The application of a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” is due to the
shifting paradigm of the emerging ecclesial cultures. The basic assumption of
the research is the investigation of how and what practices and strategies are
actually occurring and whether or not there exists an intentional or
unintentional praxis of the positive deviance approach. The hope is to initiate
a process that would reveal the intuitive character of the practitioners.
The
research questions sought to explore each group’s individual innovations and
cultural wisdom. The intended goal of the research is to discover the
successful practices and strategies formed from within the innovation and
behaviors of the native community, then to delineate the data for the purpose
of enabling others to engage in a similar praxis by developing a plan of action
to promote the adoption of the practices and strategies. The end goal would
result in contextualization empowered with theological praxis for the expansion
of the gospel amid the marginalized.
The basic
question for the research is grounded in the desire to understand; what can we
learn from the alternative missional ecclesia in Portland? What practices and
strategies are the ecclesia engaging? What similarities and differences occur
in understanding cultural context? How are the innovation of practices and
strategies encouraged? Is a culture of change intentionally encouraged? The
research was guided by these questions. The interest of the research was to
bring out their processes, seemingly insignificant phenomena, innovation and
intuitiveness that influence the practices and strategies of the group.
Research Group
Initially
the sample group for this research project began with twelve potential
representative churches. Each church was identified as a possible alternative
missional church engaged in ministry amid the marginalized. An avoidance of
self-identified emergent and missional churches became necessary due to
contemporary churches using the terms as a smoke screen in an attempt to
connect with postmodern culture. The twelve churches were representative of a
variety of forms, structures and approaches. Nonetheless, out of the initial
sample group six were not available or accessible. A later development reduced
the sample group to five. Four of the five subjects in the study group are
located within the Portland city proper and the fifth is located in Sherwood, a
suburb of the Portland metro area.
The sample
group consists of forms and manifestations of ecclesia seeking to be relevant
within the post-Christendom and postmodern context of Portland. The settings
offer a mixture of people, culture and approaches representing practices and
strategies that are relevant to their specific social domain, thus demanding
extremely different contextualization processes and formulation.
Data Collection
The research data for this study
was collected through a process of personal interviews and a firsthand
experience of observing the gathering of the ecclesia in their native context.
The interview questions were formulated as open-ended questions such as what,
how, why, when, why now and why not? The interview questions were meant to
facilitate or refocus discussions in order to bring out each subject’s
expression of their ecclesia’s contextualization process and their positive
deviance process regarding the groups’ practices and strategies. The experience
of the initial interview process did not yield decisive information revealing
the how and what of the practices and strategies. It was decided to reformulate
the interview process using a narrative format by asking fluid questions that
led to storytelling, as expressed by D. Jean Clandinin and F. Michael Connelly
in Narrative Inquiry.[2]
Each interview was recorded and as each practitioner was interviewed clarifying
questions were interjected whenever necessary. The narrative interview strategy
produced a much fuller interview revealing the intuitions and innovativeness of
the participants’ strategies and practices.
Additional data was collected,
wherever possible, through the observation of the practitioners engaged in the
activities of their practices and strategies. In some cases this involved
observing the gathering of the ecclesia. Other times it was observing
interaction in various social settings including streets, coffee house and
parks. As a researcher it was necessary to maintain a posture of “blending into
the landscape, adopting the natural contours of the social topography.”[3]
The benefit of being engaged as a practitioner of alternative missional
ecclesia allowed my presence and proximity as one of the tribe. The benefit of
being indigenous allowed the study group to reveal their actual practices,
especially the uncommon practices, even practices they were not conscious of
engaging (i.e. of the invisible not yet visible).[4]
Data Analysis
The data
analysis process uses a method based in grounded theory, in order to identify
the practices and strategies of the sample group. Grounded theory functions
from the perspective of “the collection of data is guided strategically by the
developing theory.”[5]
The practice of grounded theory as a research method operates in contradiction
with and to the scientific method. In summary, the scientific method begins
with a hypothesis while methodology of grounded theory performs a reverse
engineering of a hypothesis. The system does not begin with a hypothesis as its
basis, but the hypothesis is created through the collection of data by various
modes that extract information, forming the codes and categories that become
the basis for the creation of a theory. In collecting anthropological or
sociological data the traditional mode of research does not consider inductive
and deductive thinking, whereas grounded theory generates conceptual ideologies
requiring an intuitive process within the experiences of the sample group.[6]
The resulting analysis is processed through inductive and deductive thinking
which allows for the intuitive nature of the experiences of the sample group to
formulate the hypothesis.
The
narrative nature of the data is undoubtedly subjective due to the influence of
the perception of the participants own realities. The subjectivity of the human
experience reveals the common threads in human culture. This allowed the
practices and strategies to be conceptualized and codified as the core of the
research focused upon the positive deviance practitioners. The critical aspect
in the data analysis is the relevance of the practices and strategies in light
of the positive deviance process and approach amid the marginalized.
After the
collection and initial analysis of the data in an effort to check the
trustworthiness of the finding, it was attempted wherever possible to present
the analysis with the research participants and peers. Throughout the research
and analysis phase of this project other pastors and community participants
were involved in evaluating the findings and to query my analysis tentative to
final presentation of the findings. The next section of this project represents
the interpretation and analysis of the research and a conclusion of the
findings that empowering contextualization with theological praxis is indeed
not only possible, but is in many cases being unintentionally engaged through
the use of the positive deviance approach amid alternative missional ecclesia.
[1] Frost
and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, 3-16.
[2] D.
Jean Clandinin and F. Michael Connelly, Narrative Inquiry: Experience and
Story in Qualitative Research (Jossey-Bass, 2004), 121.
[3] Pascale
et al., The Power of Positive Deviance, 8.
[4] Ibid., 32.
[5] Martyn
Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice
(Taylor & Francis, 2007), 6.
[6] G.
Allan, “A critique of using grounded theory as a research method,” Electronic
Journal of Business Research Methods 2, no. 1 (2003): 1–10.
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