Neighborhood field guides
A field guide tells you who lives on your kind of street, what they're carrying, and what you can do about it this week.
Most churches know the streets around them the way you know a road you drive every day. You could describe it, but you've never stopped the car. Each guide is written for one of thirty kinds of American street, and every one is free.
A guide to one kind of street
What it isType an address and we match its Census block group to one of thirty neighborhood types. A block group is a small area of a few hundred homes, small enough that the people in it tend to live in similar ways. The guide for that type describes the people you're most likely to meet there, what their week looks like, and what tends to help.
It isn't a file on the family next door. It's a first read that you check against what you see. The guides say "often" and "tend to" on purpose, because the people on your street will surprise you, and they should.
In Canada, twenty more types cover the smallest areas Statistics Canada publishes, so an address there gets a guide written for Canadian streets.
What you'll find in a guide
InsideEvery guide runs in the same order, so a group can read the same one together and talk about the same pages.
Who lives here. The work, homes and family life on the street, drawn from Census data.
Behind the exterior. What people tend to say at the door, and what that answer often covers.
A day in the life. One ordinary day for a made-up neighbor, so you can picture it without guessing about real people.
What you can do. First actions, the conversations that tend to follow, and what tends to backfire.
The gospel on their terms. The good news told through what this street is carrying.
For you. A devotional for the reader, because this work changes the person doing it too.
What a guide sounds like
A sampleHere's a line from the Cost-Pressed Family Suburbs guide, written for older suburban streets where one adult is often raising the children alone. It names the most common mistake a kind neighbor makes there.
"If you say 'let me know if you need anything,' you've given her a job. She has to decide whether she's allowed to ask, and she'll decide she isn't. Offer a day and a task instead."
The same guide closes its weekly habit with this: "Nobody here needs you to rescue them. They need you to keep coming back." Every guide is written that way, for a reader who wants to do something this week rather than study a neighborhood from a distance.
How churches use them
For churchesMost churches start by asking a small group to read the guide for the streets around the building. Read it together and pray for the same street, then check in once a week about what each of you noticed.
Some teams split up by neighborhood and each take a different guide. Others hand the guide for their street to people who just joined the church, because a new member is also a new neighbor. You don't need a program to start.
When someone opens a guide, seven short letters follow over two weeks. Each one covers one part of the guide and gives the reader one thing to do. If your church wants its own neighbors to find their guide, the neighborhood reader puts the address box on your church's website.
Questions
From pastors and ministry leadersWhat is a neighborhood field guide?
It's a free guide to one kind of street. It describes who tends to live there, what their week is like, what they're carrying, and how a church or a neighbor can love them well. There are thirty for the United States and twenty for Canada.
How do you know which guide fits my street?
We match your address to its Census block group, a small area of a few hundred homes, and then to the neighborhood type that fits that block group best. Your street may be a mix, so treat the guide as a first read and check it against what you see.
Are the guides really free?
Yes. Every guide is free with your name, email and ZIP code, and it always will be. The Hood Shepherd is a nonprofit, and donors keep the library open to any church that wants it.
Is a field guide the same as a church outreach packet?
It does the same job. Some people call them outreach packets. A field guide is written for the people on one kind of street, though, rather than for a general campaign, so it tells you what to do on your street in particular.
Is it fair to describe neighbors by type?
Only if you hold it loosely. The types come from how households actually live, but no person is a type. Use the guide to ask better questions, and then let your real neighbors correct it.
Keep reading from the same library
Same frame, different door in.
These pages share the field guide frame: neighbor knowledge, incarnational ministry, evangelism training, and a practical outreach posture.
Still not sure what this is? The fastest answer is to read the guide for your own street.