Is Online Community Transformative Community?

Abstract

Abstract This article acknowledges that, in spite of rapid growth in the use of technology in many sectors of education and training, and an increasing number of clergy using social media, many clergy training institutions have been slow to explore its potential beyond Virtual Learning Environments and online repositories designed to support face-to-face pedagogies. It identifies the potential value that could be added to the role of community in facilitating transformative learning by social networking and online communities. It then suggests cultural dissonance between how community is understood in online environments and in the mainstream culture of the Church of England as one reason underpinning the absence of widespread effective denominational appreciation of social networking as a tool for mission and ministry, despite extensive personal use by individuals. Finally, using Foucault's notion of the dangerous as a lens, it suggests that the next generation of clergy could usefully be trained to use social media in a missiologically centred, purposeful, way, so that they can influence other Christians to go and do likewise.