21st Century Britain as a context for eLearning

I'm preparing to lead a deanery weekend on “Computers, the Internet … and parish life?” and this gives opportunity to catch up on reading about context. First, last year's LICC study of agnostic focus groups: Beyond Belief?

This yielded many (often astonishing) quotations, and some crisp summary work:  “It is important to communicate to Christians that they are significantly better thought of than the institution to which they belong.”  Encouraging; might lead to mission opportunities, except that

“the dominant inhibitor to lay evangelism is fear and … the fear of being asked questions to which we do not have basic answers is certainly … snapping away at Christian confidence in the gospel. … [For example,] how many could provide a response to the perennial … questions that people pose around the issue of suffering … ?”

To complicate matters,

“The places where most Christians meet ‘beyond the fringe’ agnostics are places where, according to other research, Christians feel least equipped to be fully Christian. … The challenge … is not just one of having answers but of seeing ways to live that are more than moral and polite but point to a different source.”

Hear the cry for education, training, equipping, formation - but how?

“Disciples are first and foremost learner-practitioners and the interactive, dialogical mode of learning and teaching which marks Jesus’ ministry and the ministry that he called his disciples to is often missing from our churches.  How many pastors were told not to make friends with people in their congregations?  How many have been trained to debrief their ‘disciples’ after their sorties in the world, as Jesus did with his own?  How many are in groups of believers with the express intent of equipping and re-equipping them for their encounters in the world?  This interactive, ongoing, responsive model of learning / teaching is almost absent.”

Cut to the just-published C of E report Mission-shaped Church:

“The Western world … is best described as a 'network society'.  This is a fundamental change: ‘the emergence of a new social structure’.  In a network society the importance of place is secondary to the importance of ‘flows’.  It is the flows of information, images and capital that increasingly shape society. …

“Networks have not replaced neighbourhoods, but they change them.  Community and a sense of community are often disconnected from locality and geography. …

“The Internet is both an example of network society and a metaphor for understanding it. … Everywhere is linked to everywhere else.  Each person chooses his or her own route ….  Networks of relationships are formed … around mutual interests.  Friendships are maintained electronically. …”

To exclaim “Ergo, use the Internet for networked, interactive teaching and learning” would abuse the research that has gone into these reports.  But I see nothing that undermines the case for eLearning.   And on a specific note, the discussion forum associated with the allbelievers eReflection has been made much easier to access.  Hopefully the eReflection becomes more of an “interactive, ongoing, responsive model of learning / teaching” for those who can participate fully.

Yours in Christ,

Peter Nicholls