An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

services more than I wanted to be a researcher. As a researcher who is not a churchmember that person could be „drawn into the fold‟ as Barr (1993) observes. In additionto this, as a born again Christian and a church member, this methodology posed manychallenges.An awareness of the inequity (Taylor 2002) and power relationship between the researcherand the researched as well as my desire to make the relationship as equitable as possiblemade me acutely aware of privacy of the healing relationship between the healer and thehealed. It felt like I was intruding on a very private communication between the minister,the person seeking healing and God. People were willing to talk (mention) spiritualhealing, but not really to take the time to be interviewed. It was very time consuming tospend time „hanging around‟ and listening to people before you can let them know exactlywhy you are seeking their attention. For example; one Sunday I went to church to make anappointment with the minister, who did not phone me during the week as he promised. Hedid remember when he saw me and gave me a date immediately. I was in the service fortwo hours. The service was due to finish at 2.30 pm. It finished at 4:00pm. The time wasused as an opportunity to observe the service on a superficial level and record myobservations.It is difficult to be in the service and not to participate, unless I go to the service with theintention to observe and not to participate. When I do this there is a sense of loss, I feelrobbed of an opportunity to worship. The difficulties arise when I am part of a churchservice and I want to be engrossed in the activities. The frustration from not being able tobecome wholly engrossed (participate) in the activities (Church service) and observe at thesame time was overwhelming. Some of the details of the service were missed and this is77