Questions?????

So I just finished Reading “A New Culture of Learning : Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change” by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. It was a very interesting book and there are a few things I would like to tackle. One is the idea of how we currently learn vs. ways in which we could learn differently. So typically in the world we have lived in and to a great extent the world we are still living in, learning in the main system of education is teacher to student. It is a one way relationship and it infers that there is an expert and a novice in the situation. A different way of thinking about learning in this book is through a collective. This concept makes perfect sense to me since to some degree it is how the DL program through Luther Seminary encourages us to learn. We have created cohorts that represent groups striving to learn to receive a degree. An example of how this is a collective is though we only sit in a class room four weeks out of the year, we continually converse in our online classes to learn and grow in the areas we study and also connect through social media. This social media is the area in which I feel we learn a different aspect of what it means to be a pastor and to deal with the issues and aspects that arise in the church. There have been questions on Facebook that span from how to preach on certain issues to doing a reading of a Psalm together for spiritual growth and reflection. This is the fascinating aspect of learning in this way. I have learned things that I never thought to ask because some one else thought to ask them and I am interested in the information.

So for me this comes down to questions. In the example given, we all have a question of how do we become leaders in the Church. It is through this question that we find out new ways to look at things. The trouble and challenge lies in not necessarily asking the question but dealing with where asking that question leads. When you ask a question, if you are truly invested in the answer you will learn a number of new things and as explained in the book there are a number of different ways in today’s culture that allow for you to connect and learn with others regarding that question. But most of the time that question will lead to more questions and as you continue to ask questions in all likelihood it will lead to action in one form or another (asking more questions or reacting to the answers.) And action typically leads to change.

This brings me to the second thing I want to address: living in a culture of change is not easy. I would agree that we need to live into that reality and we need to learn from it in various forms, yet we cannot do this at the loss of who we are and an aspect of having peace in the midst of this chaos. There are a number of questions I thought of as I read this book. Some have to deal with concepts and others are tangents regarding aspects of my own faith journey.

• Question 1: If we go to a model of learning by tacit and collective knowledge, will I have a need for the static knowledge way in which we have taught? The idea that at times I just want a straight-forward answer and the idea that there is never a straight- forward answer makes life even that more challenging.
• Question 2: What might this look like for education in the church? Especially confirmation? What if we had the youth determine what they want to learn and discuss in a constructive group? Would this change our outcome of students graduating from confirmation and not stepping in to a church again? Maybe that is not the right question to ask, but would the youth benefit from being able to be drawn into what they are interested in learning regarding religion?
• Question 3: Could this mentality change the way we preach the gospel and if so how would it change it?
• Question 4: How do we enact indwelling? Han you enact it is it even possible or does it rely solely on the person?

So many questions left unanswered, yet I am excited to explore what they may mean and to hear thoughts on what others think.