At the Oates Institute (www.oates.org) we are completing our fifth year of offering online seminars using an approach that we call "connected learning." The approach is an online reflective peer group approach designed to connect learners, teachers, facilitators, and resource materials in a dialogue that enables everyone to learn from everyone .

With five years of offering these seminars behind us, I continue to be amazed at the quality of the learning community that has developed. We offer seminars during seven sessions per year -- typically our seminars go for three weeks -- and we generally offer 6-7 seminars per session. What fascinates me is the quality of the interaction that occurs as six to seven small groups come together in dialogue to explore personal and meaningful issues in a place that exists primarily in imagination and metaphor. As I observe the relationships forming in these conversations and listen to people describe the affect that their learning in these seminars has on their ministry, I am amazed at the dynamics of the learning community.

I recently read Joseph Myers book, Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007) and came across a comment that intrigued me in connection with nurturing learning communities. In writing about congregational communities he comments:

Shaping an environment where people naturally connect is more like creating art than manufacturing a product. It marks a major shift: from programming community (i.e., following a master plan) to using principles of organic order to develop an environment where community can emerge.

Organic community had the human complexities that promote artistry over mechanics. In our worship of “how-to” pragmatism, we have in some cases treated the church as an object and programmed the life out of it. It would do us well to remember that our job is to help people with their lives rather than build infrastructures that help institutions stay alive. Sometimes we focus so much on building a “healthy church” that we forget to tend to the health of people.

Healthy environments are vital – alive. They are not inanimate – dead. When places encourage community to emerge spontaneously, they have motion, emotion, and a living spirit. The goal is not to manufacture community, nor is the goal to build programs. The hope is to watch living community emerge naturally and to collaborate with its environment in helpful, healthy ways. (p. 26-28)

What does this then mean for us in terms of developing and nurturing enviroments that enable learning communities related to lifelong learning for ministry to form and thrive? Especially since we have long associated theological learning communities as the campus residential environment (particularly for basic professional training) and lifelong learning for continued professional development more as "add on" programming.

As a result of my experience at the Oates Institute I have observed a couple of key elements for community formation. One is the recognition that the members of the Oates Institute learning community frequently connect with one another in different seminars throughout the year, even though they are located around the world (which is a common factor for lifelong learning for ministry). This is an opportunity that grows out of working in the online environment since the members do not have to travel to a different location to participate.

Another key factor is the sense of "safe environment" that is perceived by the members enabling them to openly share their perspectives and identify their biases and learning needs. One of the tensions for lifelong learning for ministry that William Lord's and John Bryan's 1999 study on The Spiritual Development Needs of Mid-Career Clergy revealed is the reluctance to take the risks of learning in contexts that are perceived by the participants to be unsafe from either a personal or professional perspective. What we have experienced is the development of a sense of safe environment through the reflective diaogue that honors each person's perspective and experience as valid where the group of participants come from various locations and denominations.