Multi-national companies devote much time and many resources to analyzing potential market areas. This is especially true if they plan to open a subsidiary in another country. They may give several years to determining the precise nation and city in which to build. Once the city is determined, they often contract such specialists as sociologists, anthropologists and economists, to research in depth its climate, people, institutions, political and financial stability, the potential market for their product or service, the availability of possible employees, health conditions and other factors of vital importance to their success in that location.

As a general rule, technical preparation for approaching and strategizing great cities is almost nil, often devoid of specific understanding of how cities function and how one should analyze them. Urban workers, therefore, face the dilemma of planning strategies for a challenge that they only partially visualize. As a result, they develop a strategy without the input necessary to make it precisely fit that particular city.

An Essential Tool for Evangelism

Urban research can create an understanding of the city in general, and in the specifics of its structure, problems, opportunities, social classes and ethnic groups.

Comprehensive urban research can point the researcher to the gaps that exist in evangelistic outreach in the city. Furnished with this data, with measurements of receptivity and church-planting methods, the evangelist or team can strategize means for filling these gaps. Research can help develop good strategies for the entire city, rather than for piecemeal portions of it. Urban research is not an end in itself, but rather a tool to sharpen both understanding and evangelistic focus.

Sociological vs. Anthropological Approaches. One fundamental issue in urban research is the tension that exists between sociological and anthropological approaches to urban research. Hiebert (981.1) lists the differences between them as follows:

     Sociology stresses                     Anthropology stresses
     - group and society                    - culture and society
     - social behaviorism                   - behavior and cognition
     - macro approaches                     - micro approaches
     - western societies                    - nonwestern societies
     - quantitative approaches              - qualitative approaches
     - use of questionnaires                - participant observation
     - use of lab settings,                 - real-life settings in context
         as well as real life
     - detached observation                 - participant observation

Church growth methodology stresses

- Observing a city with "church growth eyes".
- Seeking out receptive elements in the human mosaic of a city.
- Expanding the base of seekers.
- Presenting a sound Biblical message.
- Contextualizing the message.
- Determining evangelistic methods to be used.
- Deciding upon meeting place and type of church to be initiated.

Preliminary Data

1. Read about the history and present situation of the city.
2. Study a complete map of the city, preferably one showing also its suburban and/or satellite communities.
3. Make tours of the city, to absorb more completely the information obtained from the map.
4. Consult the introductory pages of local telephone books, which give an insight into the history, features, special events, services and variety of businesses available.
5. Obtain from hotels, city halls, chambers of commerce, travel agencies and airlines information dealing with the city.
6. Visit public offices, educational facilities, hospitals, museums, wealthy districts, slums, industrial areas and other locations that contribute to the flavor of the city.
7. Consult newspaper offices, as well as libraries and city archives, for clippings, books and microfilms on the past, present and future of the city.
8. Visit the local census bureau. This office has proved, at least in Brazilian cities, to be a gold mine of information.
9. Solicit the assistance of officials and businessmen who may be interested in sharing the story of their city.
10. Collect photographs, albums and books on the city.

Sociological Research

Gathering and Interpreting Statistics

1. The city as a demographic unit and an ecological community.
2. The city as a form of social organization.
3. The city as a collection of characteristic values, attitudes and perceptions.

One of the primary reasons that we have been successful here is that we have learned to ask the right questions...If you do not ask right questions, you cannot get right answers (in Chaney 1985:17).

All cities have an abundance of materials for the researcher, but they must be interpreted properly. One area that always needs interpretation is that of population. Do the figures at hand include only the mother city or do they include the satellite towns and communities around the central city, the greater or metropolitan region? How old are these statistics? What is the margin of error in them? Based on urban experience in Brazil, it can be assumed that the margin of error for population figures is about ten percent, generally on the low side. Many inhabitants, especially in slum areas, are missed in census-taking.

Anthropological Research

Holistic vs. Ethnographic Approaches. Within anthropology a major point of tension is over holistic vs. ethnographic approaches to the study of a city (Basham 1978:299ff). In other words, should the research attempt to look at the city as a whole (a formidable task) or limit research to a small segment of the city, interacting with it (as did Lewis 1963 and Liebow 1967)? The community study approach is a broad investigation of the inhabitants of a particular section of a city. The interaction method is that of researching an individual, family or small group in its dealings with others.

Both of these approaches to urban research have their strengths and weaknesses. Community or city-wide investigation places the observer in the role of participant in a broad cultural setting. It appears to be a sound way in which to study an entire city, because it is supposedly a total immersion into the society being studied, in order to understand every detail of that city and its relationship to the culture. However, world-class cities are hard to thoroughly analyze because of their size and growth rate, as well as the complexity of their institutions and social groupings. Basham rightly states that the "very scale of a city, with its diverse peoples and life-ways, almost precludes total comprehension..." (1978:28).

It is the writer's opinion that the missionary researcher must look first at the city in its totality and then certain smaller elements of it in detail. As in the case of the famous blind men of Hindustan, each examining one feature of an elephant, the researcher may get a distorted view of the city from investigating only a segment of it. The broad view is necessary for perspective, in order to avoid spending years in some portion of the city and losing sight of the metropolis as a whole. This is what occurs, time and time again in large metropolitan centers. In concentrating on one community (or one level of the society), one can overlook the nature of the "elephant as a whole".

Cross-cultural Research. If the city is to be properly researched, the investigator must take into account the complex ethnic mix within it. His or her aim should be to study all of this richness of cultural diversity. No matter how long the researcher lives in a host city as a participant-observer, he or she will miss many of the subtleties of what is really happening in a cross-cultural communication situation. Information may be given that is misleading, not properly understood or colored by the researcher's own cultural and language bias.

Community and Ethnographic Studies. Community studies can be valuable for the religious worker because it provides a close look at the workings of a limited area that could be served by a single church; at the interrelationships in that area, its needs, goals and mentality in general. Ethnographic studies are even more limited in scope than community studies, for they focus on a specific individual, family or small group within a community. With verifiable biographical material in hand, furnished by reliable informants, the researcher can have a fair certainty as to the thought processes and behavior of the larger society represented by the ethnographic study.

Church Growth Research

CONCLUSION

All of these and other related urban research tools will enable urban evangelists and church planters to strategize the entire city for eventual spiritual conquest. These tools will enable Christian workers to better reach great, exploding megacities for Christ. This is why Christians are there--to "see the good of the city" (Jer. 29:7).

1986 World-Class Cities and World Evangelization. Birmingham, AL: New Hope.

1978 Urban Anthropology: The Cross-Cultural Study of Complex Societies. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.

1985 Church-Planting at the End of the Twentieth Century. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

1977 Anthropology of the City. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

1977 Urban Anthropology: Cities in Their Cultural Settings. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

1980 Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press.

1976 Cultural Anthropology. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippencott.

1985 Anthropological Insights for Missionaries. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

1963 The Children of Sanchez. New York: Vintage Books.

1967 Talley's Corner. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.

1984 Cities of Change. Coral Gables, FL: Latin American Mission.

1979 An Urban Strategy for Africa. Pasadena, CA: William Carey.

1981 The Urban World. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

1986 Research As A Tool for Urban Evangelism in Developing Countries. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International.