An ethnographic and theological study of places and boundary with specific reference to Methodist circuits in Bradford

The thesis tests the extent to which Christian ministry, understood as movement, is a meaningful form of engagement with the many boundary situations apparent in modern urban living. In the thesis opportunity is given for Methodists to revisit their own self-understanding, through looking at ministry in terms of its movement and as an everyday practice. The research also offers a more general investigation of ministry in terms of its spatial relationships and of the relationship of churches with place. The thesis is tested through an ethnographic and theological study carried out in the Metropolitan City of Bradford. The study is conducted ethnographically through exploration of Bradford as a place, and through a detailed study of some of the boundary spaces that help to give the city its character. The thesis also addresses a theological concern in giving consideration to a theology of place as it relates especially to these boundary spaces of movement. The main finding of the research is that the extent to which a notion of Christian ministry understood as movement offers a means of engagement with situations of the boundary is a measure of its connectedness, with movements at, across, and along the boundaries of place. The study also concludes that movement is a form of practised connectedness, and that ministry as explored in the thesis operates through everyday processes of moving and paying attention. A further key finding is that this ministry of movement contributes to the making of places through an itinerary set out as a gathering of fragments and a glimpsing of flows. Finally, it is argued that when theology is done itinerantly, it becomes a resource for producing theology that is relational, motional and transformational.