Unbounding learning communities: Ako-empowered research in life-long ministerial formation

ABSTRACT

While formation is an essential practice of local church communities, the formation of ministers for ordination, along with continued professional education, is generally located in the context of higher education. ‘Ako’, describing a teaching and learning relationship grounded in reciprocity, and employed as an approach to researching life-long learning needs among ordained ministers in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, challenged this separation. Research among 285 lay and ordained leaders challenged the location of postgraduate provision, not in the context of higher education but in communities of practices for living differently, with a focus on educating educators in relationally embodied ways. Educational experiments clarified ways of unbounding learning for local communities. The life of Jesus and Irenaeus’ theological anthropology of recapitulation clarified these praxis-derived discoveries. Hence theology informs an understanding of ako as reciprocity and invites a reimagining of theological colleges as facilitators of unbounded local learning communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Ako
• communities of practice
• formation
• Irenaeus
• life-long learning
• theological education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Dr Rosemary Dewerse is an Academic Programme Manager at Unitec/New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.

Dr Steve Taylor is Principal at Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership and Senior Lecturer, Department of Theology, Flinders University.

Notes

1 Reflection from teaching in 2019 in a Doctor of Ministry intensive in the United Kingdom.

2 Out of respect for te reo Māori as one of three official languages in Aotearoa New Zealand, we do not use italics, which would suggest that what is indigenous is foreign.

3 ‘The role of the ministry in the Church is to serve Christ alone.’ Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (2006), Appendix D-4 (Adopted by the General Assembly).

4 Using the translation of Against Heresies in Grant (1997).

5 The Prayer of Humble Access appears in the Book of Common Prayer (1549) of the Church of England, the Scottish Book of Common Prayer (1637) and was adopted by the Catholic Church in Divine Worship: The Missal (2015).

6 Against heresies could be amended as follows (our additions underlined): 3.21.9 – “He recapitulated in himself the work originally fashioned, and as a boy and a man in ministry, fashioned in stature and in wisdom (Lk 2.52; Mt 5.43–46; 15.28).” This would clarify the ways that Jesus, during his adulthood, continued to learn in community with people who challenged him to live differently.

7 For a more detailed explanation, see Taylor and Dewerse (Forthcoming).