Purpose of OC Field Research

It is essential that both practicing field researchers and their teams fully comprehend not only the purpose statement for OC research, but also the manner in which it is interwoven and foundational for team ministry on the fields. It should be recognized that OC research has both internal and external dimensions. Further, there are subdivisions within these two categories. These are the elements peculiar to OC which differentiate it from the research practices of other missions and organizations.

1. General Purpose

• Research Is A Normal Function. Everyone uses information. Organized research is needed to improve on the normal information gathering process. OC wants to be effective in using information to the best advantage.
• To Inform. Research is accomplished not for its own sake, but with the specific intent of providing a basis for knowledge of the church and its culture. Roger E. Hedlund in India Church Growth Quarterly has said it well, “Missiological research is not to accumulate interesting information but to correctly inform the people of God so as to bring vital information to bear on the task of world evangelization.”
• To Provide Better Understanding. Research prepares the heart and mind with information which makes them more sensitive to the mind of God. Research is not the answer to the problem, rather the means to better understand the problem and the answer.

2. Corporate Purpose

• Research is a basic element of the OC four-part corporate strategy. Field research is an active expression in the resident context of that strategy which provides grounds for the other three parts, motivating, training, and mobilizing. It answers the questions that these other parts must address in order to be most effective.

3. Internal Functional Purpose

• To Provide Ways to Understand the Context of Ministry. Research provides a framework for interpreting the context of the culture in which the OC team’s efforts must take place. Without this framework any ministry effort may be irrelevant to the people for whom it is intended.
• To Form Knowledgeable Ministry Goals and Objectives. Field research is conducted systematically and intentionally to determine critical needs for ministry. This provides a knowledgeable basis for establishing team ministry goals and objectives.
• To Stimulate More Effective Team Ministry. Knowledge obtained from field research is to be used to guide the process of concentrating the efforts of individual team members into a unified field ministry to carry out the corporate purpose of the mission. It also provides a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of that ministry.
  Proper use of research will help each OC field team determine which needs are most critical to church multiplication, both culturally and cross-culturally. It can then deploy the current resources to best help meet these needs.
• Research also furnishes the rationale for further recruitment of international and national missionary personnel and resources for those critical needs that the team is not currently equipped to handle.

4. External Purposes – “Assist the Church”

• To See Potential. Research examines the context and the existing church institutional efforts to see what potential exists for the church to disciple its nation. It is this potential that provides vision and encouragement to the church. It will enable the church to see that the task of discipling their nation is a reality that can be accomplishing and not merely a philosophical wish.
• To See Needs. When the potential is determined, it should become apparent that certain needs will have to be met in order for that potential to be achieved. Research efforts shared with the church will help to determine its needs for ministry and the areas where OC can be of help.
• To Meet Selected Needs. OC has neither the resources nor the inclination to meet all the ministry needs of the church. To do so not only would rob the church of the opportunity, blessing and obligation to see the Lord work through its own members, but would deny it the self sufficiency it must have to achieve its mandates. The role of OC is catalytic in motivating, training and mobilizing the church through selected ministry chosen to be most effective.
• To Identify Change Agents. Research discovers the national change agents with whom OC can work to maintain effective change in areas selected by the OC team for ministry.

5. Research discovers ways to motivate and help the change agents to make necessary changes that will lead to growth of the church and to discipling the nation.

• To Identify Models. By examining the church institutions and their effect on the culture, one can find the most effective models where change is happening, or find the models that are not producing change, both of which can serve to motivate the church either to progressive or corrective action as appropriate.
• To Discover the Right Timing. Mobilization is primarily a matter of timing if the proper motivation and training are taking place. Research discovers the timing best suited to full and effective mobilization.

6. Conclusion

• Research is a tool. The objective in research is not focused on the tool itself, but rather on the effect which the tool makes in producing the desired objectives of evangelization and church multiplication. The tool is merely a means to that end.
• Thus, research fulfills its intended purpose when it is used to help the team and the church toward a more effective ministry.