Developing Basic Data^[23]

Prior to the Pre-consultation attempt to find the following data.
1. Name of city and state
2. Population
3. No. of Churches in city - Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Mainline, Pentecostals, etc.
4 .Christian Population (census), Christians attending churches, Church / population ratio
5.  % attending churches ,  % Christian in city compared with national percentage
6. Growth and decline in overall church attendance over a 20 year period
7. A general description on the nature of the churches of the city, particularly those that have grown, and some indications as to why this might be.
8.  Languages in city?   Worship in which languages?
9.  Is there a prayer movement?
10. Who are the recognized leaders? (spiritually).

Mapping Exercise

As part of or in preparation for the pre-consultation or City Strategy Congress this exercise will help to break down the city into reachable communities:

1. Trace onto the cardboard the map of your city (or the map could be done on an overhead and in black and white xeroxable format.  For cities under 100,000 it could be done by hand.  For larger cities consider a computer program such as Supermap or some other mapping program )
2. Place name of city and state at top right. Write down the city and metro-city populations
4. Draw in the main arteries, railway lines, highways, rivers
5. Draw an overlay of geographic boundaries, possibly political (usually the easiest in terms of available data) or their may be more natural breaks
6. Draw in areas where the rich live (use a legend in lower right corner)
7. Draw in areas where the poor live.  Who are they?
8. Put % of the population that are slums or the number of bustees on right corner.
9. Put down the main religions and their percentages in the right.
10. Put down the main languages and their % at the top right hand corner.  Draw an overlay with location of the language groupings in the city.   Which of them have a church?
11. Plot in the churches in the city (Use a different color for Roman Catholic,, Mainline and Pentecostal, sum the total number of churches on the right by the legends.
12. Plot in areas where main religious groups live (on the map or as an  overlay).
13. An overlay based on city planning projections as to where new communities will be developed (People are most reachable when first migrating.  If the church gets there first  with a building or with an identifiable home, people will tend to form their social  relationships around  the church).