sustain:if:able kiwi

Building community and increasing participation online: international

I taught in Western Australia on Tuesday without leaving my home in Ōtepoti (Dunedin), New Zealand. What would be a 12 hour trip – one way – took about 1 second. Such is the power of online technology.

A few weeks ago, as part of my role with the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, I offered online a short evening course – Building community and increasing participation online. Given the way that COVID was forcing so much of life online – with churches unable to meet and work from home being enforced – I sort to resource church leaders.

I’ve been working in the online space in a whole variety of ways for decades – building my own website back last century, blogging since 2002, having a social media presence (twitter since 2008), encouraging theological colleagues online while Principal at Uniting College, making short educative video since 2011, developing the learning management system while Principal at KCML. So a short course on Building community and increasing participation online, as part of the recent KCML Bubble courses, made sense.

The Building community and increasing participation online short course began with theology. What type of images of God might help us understand being online? I then offered some recent research into use of social media. Who are humans in online spaces? I then offered some practical resources to enhance wellbeing and engagement. This included case studies, reflection on experience and examples of different uses of technology platforms.

The course was focused on Presbyterians in New Zealand and gained excellent feedback. However, because it was online, it also gained international participation. One was a Presbytery minister from Western Australia. Who afterward mentioned the value of Building community and increasing participation online to their team.

Why not do it again for them? Online, this is possible internationally even with lockdown.

So on Tuesday, I taught 15 church leaders in Western Australia without leaving my home! Again, I worked alongside co-host Tash McGill. This is an intentional part of the design, an essential way of building community online. As part of the short course, Tash explained the role of co-host and talked about the range of ways to educate online. This began a practical exercise, as the church leaders were invited to design their own “short course” to suit their online context. Practical and participatory.

If it can be done once, in New Zealand and twice, in Australia, it can be done anywhere. So, if you want 2 hours of theology, research and practical resourcing, that is interactive, timely and engaging, drop me a line – steve at emergentkiwi dot org dot nz