Sacred & Small | Ep. 14 | The LASTS Method of Participant Observation

The Jasons introduce the LASTS Method - Language, Actors/Actions, Space, Time, and Symbols - of participant observation and critically reflect on each other's church cultures.

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In this two-part podcast series, the Jasons tackle the LASTS method of participant observation. What is participant observation? It is an immersive ethnographic methodology where you observe a community of people as an active participant with the community. Doing this allows you to get a more hands-on understanding of the culture of a community, like a church, and help you better reflect on it’s embedded theologies and embodied liturgies.

Over the next two episodes, the Jasons will watch a selected church worship service from the other’s church, take field notes on what we experience while watching using the LASTS parameters of language, actors/actions, space, time, and symbols, and then reflecting on our experience to try to describe the culture of the church.

This is something that any pastor can do in their own context to better understand the values that you express as a church.