Concluding reflections

This case study was the first one where a participant, the Rector, named an insight as a ‘breakthrough’. At this stage, we didn’t pick up its importance to our emerging methodology, but on-going reflection on the development of theological action research processes helped us recognise this language of ‘breakthrough’ as key to the revelatory potential of our development of conversation as a theological research instrument. As our sensitivity to the significance of ‘epiphanies’, ‘light-bulb moments’ or ‘break-through moments’ began to contribute to an understanding of theological action research as ‘disclosive’, so too did our appreciation of feedback and intentional conversation between the ARCS team and practitioner teams become established. The energy generated by feeding back to the PCC was palpable - this was ‘where the action is’. This spurred us own to developing ways of better encouraging practitioner reflection and feedback on data, and the development of Joint Feedback meetings and documents more formally.

Notes

1 https://alpha.org.
2 So see for example: Mike Booker and Mark Ireland, Evangelism - Which Way Now? An Evaluation of Alpha, Emmaus, Cell Church and Other Contemporary Strategies for Evangelism (Church House Publishing, 2003); Chris Hand, Falling Short? The Alpha Course Examined (Day One Publications, 1998); Elizabeth McDonald, Alpha: The Unofficial Guide. Overview: A Whole New Study on the Alpha Course (Cambridge: St Matthew, 2001); Paul Tracey, Spreading the Word: The Microfoundations of Institutional Persuasion and Conversion (Informs Science; Organization Science, 2016).
3 Grace Davie, Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging (Black-well, 1994).

4 At this early stage in the ARCS project the practice of separate insider and outsider feedback, being brought together conversationally in a joint feedback document was yet to be routinely established.
5 Most influentially see Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank, For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions (SCM, 2010).