Grounded Theory: Application and Challenges in Investigating Emerging Christian Kinship Structures in African Urban Pentecostalism

Despite the Covid-19 global pandemic, the expectations on research outputs still hold foruniversities and research institutions. From July 2021, myself and a team of five members, weembarked on a qualitative and ethnographic research to explore and understand the ‘emergingChristian kinship structures in African Pentecostalism’. As a team we have been in the process ofcollecting non-numerical data such language, attitudes, feelings and human behaviours fromthree Christian communities (Christ is the Answer Ministries Valley Road, Jesus CelebrationCentre Parklands, and Kenyatta University Christian Union). The purpose of the research is tounderstand how an individual subjectively perceives and gives meaning to their Pentecostalurban reality. In other words, we are out to study ordinary theology listen to it and looking for itin the words and lives of ordinary believers. Kinship has long been recognized as a foundationalaspect of African religion and culture. Kinship forms the anchor of society upon which otherelements hang. As often stated in reference to African communality, “I am because we are andbecause we are, therefore, I am.” The maxim illustrates the centrality of social bonds inbuttressing the communality intrinsic in the philosophical presuppositions of African society.However, urban life has been described as a centre of alienation, individuality andcommercialization of human interactions. Thus, one wonders how communality as expressed inkinship has implications in the lived theology of urban African Pentecostalism. This researchunderscores the application and significance of grounded approach by bringing theology andsocial sciences together to investigate aspects of this communality within the lived theology ofAfrican urban Pentecostalism in the context of Covid-19 pandemic.Keywords: Kinship, Pentecostalism, Urban, Theology, Communality, Grounded Theory