Open publication

Starting the journey…

It was back in the Autumn of 2009 that I met up with Oliver Westmancott to ask if he would help to devise a survey that would go beyond asking people’s opinions on Church activities and actually go deeper to find out what helps or hinders people’s spiritual health and growth. If part of the responsibility of The Forge leadership is to ensure that we are ‘making disciples’ (Matt 28:19-20), how do we evaluate whether this is really taking place?

After studying some of the findings from the ‘Reveal’ research (headed up by Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago), Oliver was able to devise a series of questions that would help us understand:

• where people are on the Spiritual continuum (from explorers and new Christians through to growing and mature Christians)
• what helps spiritual growth to take place
• what causes people to stall in their faith
• what barriers need to be overcome for us to be a more confident faith-sharing community
• a benchmark from which future surveys can be assessed

Going live

The online survey went live for three weeks in April/May 2010 and the results reflect the answers given by the 180+ people who chose to take part. The survey was primarily geared towards those in the adult congregation, although a few younger people did complete it, too

Giving feedback

Oliver wanted to bring artistry and creativity to the feedback and so he, along with Jo Potts, produced a series of images and word clouds to reveal the information.

(To interpret the word clouds, think….. the bigger the word, the more frequently that word was used in the answers)

I love the work they have put in to bring life and colour to the survey results. I hope you enjoy looking through and considering the observations and questions that this feedback raises.