| Pilgrimage of Faith |
Research Method
In
assessing whether the ‘Pilgrimage of Faith’ has
achieved anything, it was
important that first hand research was gathered, as there is nothing
else available to realistically
assess this by.
The
first questionnaire I prepared was distributed amongst a
circuit[1]
within Methodism. This
gathered some very new data. Methodism has always asked for
responses at
Conference level, unfortunately only people who are interested in the
subject, or those who keep informed about connexional and Conference
issues
respond. I decided
to engage in
asking a circuit as this in effect gets everyone’s opinions -
and especially those at the grassroots in Methodism,
not just those who hold a certain viewpoint or have an interest
– or are aware
of Conference issues.
I
made a definite decision to avoid differentiating between practising
and/or orientation.
It is often assumed that people think like this, however I
am not so
sure. I believe
that if this matters to
people they will make the differentiation when answering.
My
second questionnaire was sent
through the lesbian and gay society of Methodism (Outcome).
There
was a definite reason again to using
open qualitative data in my research – with this very broad
issue I did not want
to put words into people’s mouths, but wanted to get what
they actually thought.
[1]