Faith in DerbyshireFaith in Derbyshire
Faith in Derbyshire now has a small group study guide
Working towards a better Derbyshire
faith based contribution
The Faith in Derbyshire report describes faith communities’ contribution to life in Derby and Derbyshire, in particular for those who are most disadvantaged. This report is revealing and a challenge and inspiration for churches to express the practical love of God in their communities.
The demographic make up of the area, especially of the county outside the city of Derby, means that the majority of the data and case studies relate to Christian organisations and communities. It does however include data from minority faith communities in Derby including a significa nt case study. This does raise the question of whether further work is needed in the minority faith communities.
The research which underpins the report explores both the qualitative value of faith communities’ contributions in narrative case studies and starts a statistical analysis of the data in order to provide useful quantitative results. It is the nature of this sort of research that it can only ever be indicative and cannot hope to uncover the full depth of faith communities’ contributions to the well being of society as a whole.
The report and the research on which it is based was funded by a government grant from the Change Up programme and undertaken by Joy Bates and Stella Collishaw of the Derby Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility. The research was carried out in 2005 and the report published in April 2006 by the Derby Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility.
Down load Faith in Derbyshire (2.3Mb) here
Study Guide
A Study Guide has been written to help church groups to explore the implications of the research.
Each of the six sessions reflects on issues around one of the recommendations at the end of the report. You will be encouraged to read some of the case studies and reflect on them in the light of passages from scripture. These are offered as suggestions, other passages of scripture, or indeed other books, may seem more appropriate; if so please do what seems most appropriate in your situation.
Download the study guide (as a booklet) and the 11 case studies as a zipped package Study guide (3Mb) here
Download the study guide for printing as a booklet Study Guide - booklet (2Mb) here
Download the study guide as consecutive pages Study Guide - consecutive pages (2Mb) here
Download the individual case studies, reproduced from Faith in Derbyshire here (ranging in size from 80 to 120kb)