After the Field Survey
Once you go to the work of an every-house survey, how do you keep it current so you won't have to do it all again in three years?
LeRoy A. Peterson, while pastor of the Baptist church in Ashport, Tennessee, made sure his data stayed reliable by asking each deacon to watch over a zone and bring a monthly update. "We mapped out what we considered to be our church field—about 50 square miles of rural area there along the Mississippi River," says Peterson, who now teaches at a Baptist school in Kentucky. "We marked every dwelling on the map, about 200 in all. I did the initial survey myself, stopping at each house to find out names, ages, and church affiliation, if any. That way I got to meet a lot of people, and they got to know me.
"From that point on, the deacons took responsibility for noting who was moving out and moving in. I furnished each one with a map of his territory and the necessary survey cards. Each month he would bring in any changes or new information to the church office. We always stayed up-to-date this way."
A side benefit of the plan, of course, was that the deacons got involved in home visitation and kept in touch with needs in the community.
"We never had to worry about our information being obsolete," says Peterson. "We were always informed about each family in this farming community."
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