Learning Zone
Why is learning so important to After Sunday?
After Sunday aims to help each of us to make sense of our encounter with God in daily work and life. We want to affirm that our experience of life is of value and is the place where our faith is being worked out.
Sometimes it seems there is so much to learn as a Christian: About theology,the Bible, prayer and spirituality and so on. The field of learning in the Church is vast. For most people faith is a simple thing, although mysterious. We can so easily feel overwhelmed with how much we don't know.
In the Church we need to learn in ways that help each of to grow in confidence so we can talk about our faith in daily work and life and help the world to recognise the presence of God in its midst.
If the church is to be relevant to the world, it needs to listen to the world and engage with it. We want the world to learn more about life in all its abundance. We need to model a way of relating to the world that starts with the world's experience and works out from there.
As Christian disciples, we are all responsible for helping others to learn about God and sharing our faith. How we do that in ways that don't feel coercive or disrespectful is vital. We all need to know how best to help others to learn.
The world is always in a state of change. The truths of God and the Good News of the gospel never change. Every generation of Christians have to learn how to adapt the message to a new context and to respond to new challenges that were unimagined by previous generations. We can only do that by listening to and engaging in dialogue with the world and the issues it throws up and discovering the truth that lies between us.
We hope that After Sunday can be a place of learning and encouragment as we lexplore what is means to learn more about our faith with each other.
This section offers a general introduction to the After Sunday style of learning based on the work of Professor Sylvia Downs. It lists learning resources from a variety of sources and provides some general information about After Sunday's own courses.
There is a catalogue of resources for each section. We are also interested in your ideas of resources you have come across, and also your feedback on the resources advertised here if you have used them.
"...the relationship between teaching and learning must undergo a change. Teaching must now enable learning but not control it. The teacher is the minister to the learner. In the Christian kingdom things are reversed. Just as the one who will be first and most powerful must become the servant and slave of all, so the one who would be teacher must become the learner from all."
John Hull - in 'What prevents Christian Adults from Learning?"