Supervised Theological Field Education (STFE) as intercultural conversation: learning from peer reflection in Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT

The processes of Supervised Theological Field Education in the Australian context were developed in a largely Western educative model, and yet the changing cultural landscape of Melbourne, including the shape of the local church itself, has brought challenge to the way the supervisory processes are managed. Pastoral supervision prioritises experience as the starting point for theological reflection, and experience always occurs in a context. Understanding the context creates potential for insight upon experience and transformation of the individual. Within supervisory relationships, both individual and peer group, serious engagement with culture and intercultural communication needs to take place. The dynamics of reflective communication are complex, so a process of reflection upon the cultural nuances, the nature of power, and perceptions and illusions around cultural dynamics was put in place between the writers of this paper as peer group facilitators. Peer group supervision became a collaborative inter-cultural conversation that prompts theological reflection.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• intercultural
• theological reflection
• peer reflection

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anne Mallaby (BA, Grad.Dip.Ed., BD, M.Min, D.Min.Studs.) is Lecturer in Pastoral Care & Minister Studies at Whitley College in Melbourne, Australia. Whitley is a college of the University of Divinity. Anne has been a minister in Baptist Churches in Victoria, and worked in community development projects within an intercultural context in Indonesia for 7 years.

Jun Tan (M.Theol.Studs) is a Baptist pastor and adjunct lecturer at Whitley College. Jun has been in Australia from China for over 20 years, leading a Chinese congregation within a traditional church. He partnered in the development of an intercultural faith community in that Church and continues in advisory positions that seek to engage the conversation between the Asian and western churches in Victoria.

Notes

1 The italicised quotes are from the separate journal entries made by the facilitators over a 12-month period. These were shared between the facilitators weekly to discern resonances, dissonances, insights, and emerging themes. They arose out of the experience of the group generally and do not refer to specific student interactions.