The goals of the Critical Application Method (CAM) are two fold:
First, connect practitioners with practical summaries of scholarship that is applicable to ministry.
AND
Second, an iterative evaluation tool to help practitioners become curators of environments through which the Holy Spirit transforms.
In practice, CAM would be used by pastors and their teams in a cyclical rhythm that is driven by the local context.
CAM is a tool of evaluation that is dynamic, adaptive, done in real-time.
CAM has been developed within the discipline of developmental evaluation because the work of worship cultivation requires a tool that can take into account the complex, adaptive, dynamic, and non-linear nature of worship.
Developmental evaluation allows organizations to “work in uncertain territory, developing and testing their strategies as they proceed;” in essence, developmental evaluation allows evaluation and innovation to occur where “there are no blueprints.”[1]
CAM is a process of evaluation, adaptation, and implementation:
Evaluation thru a process of analyses and synthesis.
Adaptation thru the process of conceptualization, creation, and the formation of experimental interventions.
Implementation thru active experimentation and observation.
These three phases happen in real-time and in a cyclical, iterative process with no end-point to allow for continual intentionality in the cultivation of worship.
[1] Elizabeth Dozoiss, Marc Langloiss, and Natasha Blanchet-Cohen, “DE 201: A Pracitioner’s Guide to Developmental Evaluation” (The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, 2010), 6, https://www.betterevaluation.org/sites/default/files/DE%2520201%2520EN.pdf.