Know Your Flock
Conducting ethnographic study does not only happen in any non-government or government organization specializing in investigating social structure of a certain place but also to any institution that wishes to study a certain place. Inter-Congregational Theological Center (ICTC) is one of it. With what we have done in the area, the school has put a certain degree of pastoral flavor on the study. It is pastoral because for me, the study does not end only in conclusions or recommendations written at the end-part of the paper, rather, the study has just begun through opening up experiences from both the people and the one studying it. It does not end on what we can do as researcher but on how we open up talk and dialogue. For I believe, it is the church’s responsibilities to have the community known and understood.
The study becomes a medium of both experiences of the researcher and the people learning from each other. There is relationship building up where the concerns, plights and dreams of the people are seen in the light of how we, aspiring to be pastor, would learn to own it as ours. The people and the one studying are both pastors to each other. It is important, for example in a parish, to study the whole structural components of it in order to know what are the possible concerns and how are the pastor will be able to deal in relations to the ministries he have. Here, a concrete manifestation of how you give importance to your parishioners by knowing them and understanding them as community.
As a pastor, he can never be separated from the lives of the people, not only in the spiritual aspect a community has but also on the economic, cultural and even in the political dimension of a society. Thus, in trying to be more equip with the knowledge and to have a deeper understanding where the pastor play in terms of his responsibilities, ethnographic study is a must.
As for my self, I’ve learn to go beyond academics. I went into a level of going through the lives of the people whom I met during the study. It is here also that the collaboration of the different minds from my group and the experienced-based wisdom of the people have come to terms in coming up a substantial paper for the community. Learning is never an ending story. And you can never claim that you know already. In our study in the area, there are still things to discover. It was just a pinch of a salt if I was to compare it to the vastness and richness of Barangay Capalong. This experience has done enough for me to see the praxis and to concretize this praxis in the form of building up relationship not far from the realities that people are into. I’m very glad that in someway, I’ve contributed in identifying the uniqueness of Barangay Capalong that can be seen in their history, demographic profile, economic, political, socio-cultural and spiritual aspect of the community that in a way, reflects in the lives of these people living in the area.
The study becomes a medium of both experiences of the researcher and the people learning from each other. There is relationship building up where the concerns, plights and dreams of the people are seen in the light of how we, aspiring to be pastor, would learn to own it as ours. The people and the one studying are both pastors to each other. It is important, for example in a parish, to study the whole structural components of it in order to know what are the possible concerns and how are the pastor will be able to deal in relations to the ministries he have. Here, a concrete manifestation of how you give importance to your parishioners by knowing them and understanding them as community.
As a pastor, he can never be separated from the lives of the people, not only in the spiritual aspect a community has but also on the economic, cultural and even in the political dimension of a society. Thus, in trying to be more equip with the knowledge and to have a deeper understanding where the pastor play in terms of his responsibilities, ethnographic study is a must.
As for my self, I’ve learn to go beyond academics. I went into a level of going through the lives of the people whom I met during the study. It is here also that the collaboration of the different minds from my group and the experienced-based wisdom of the people have come to terms in coming up a substantial paper for the community. Learning is never an ending story. And you can never claim that you know already. In our study in the area, there are still things to discover. It was just a pinch of a salt if I was to compare it to the vastness and richness of Barangay Capalong. This experience has done enough for me to see the praxis and to concretize this praxis in the form of building up relationship not far from the realities that people are into. I’m very glad that in someway, I’ve contributed in identifying the uniqueness of Barangay Capalong that can be seen in their history, demographic profile, economic, political, socio-cultural and spiritual aspect of the community that in a way, reflects in the lives of these people living in the area.
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