A new journal issue reflecting on a TARN project to research everyday faith.
TARN is excited to present the new issue of the Church Mission Society’s Anvil journal, which focusses on an important TARN project looking at the grass roots experience of learning in the Methodist Church. This edition, entitled “Learning Faith”, identifies the centrality of the conversational and the informal in the way people ‘learn faith’ and the ways they challenge narratives around discipleship, learning and the roles of church structures.
The project was carried out at the University of Roehampton, led by Clare Watkins, and the researcher was James Butler. The wider ‘reflector team’ included Sue Miller, Stan Brown and Graham Jones. It was a TARN research project and was funded by the Susanna Wesley Foundation. This theological action research project was based across eight sites within or connected to British Methodism. The aim has been to develop a grassroots account of learning faith and draw wider insights for how churches and groups approach the questions of discipleship, learning and growing in faith.
The issue of Anvil has three main articles written by the research team. Clare explores how the accounts of rural faith and rural churches challenge the narratives around mission, and proposes that the ‘small things’ of rural church offer important gifts and powerful learning for the mission where ever it is carried out. James looks at the way the findings of the project speak into the narrative of discipleship commonly engaged with in the contemporary church and how the work of the Holy Spirit and the experiences of everyday life need to be at the centre of our accounts of learning and discipleship. Sue, Graham and Stan look at some of the more specific learnings and implications for the Methodist Church focussing in on wisdom and holiness. Also included in the journal issue are an overview of theological action research and the project, an article from Delyth Davies about her experience of participating in the research and three interviews with participants reflecting on faith and learning.
The vital places of learning faith identified in the project were in the conversational and the informal. It was through life events, big and small, through informal conversations, in the chance encounters that took place, and through the long-term relationships of life lived together that faith was shaped and changed. The challenge that the research team wish to offer to churches and the academy is how the learning from the project might reshape and reimagine the ways learning faith is approached. This is not about adapting courses and programmes to takes these views on board, but to centre the informal and conversational and the primary site of ‘faith learning’.
There is more to be said about how the learning coming from the project offers a fresh theological vision for learning faith and calls for a radical reimagining of what has typically been called discipleship. Clare and James are in the process of writing a book on this very subject which we hope will appear around the end of 2024. This issue of Anvil does not attempt to tell the whole story, but offers snapshots and important learnings which we hope can contribute to a necessary and needed conversation reflecting on learning and faith, and particularly how people learn faith.
We hope you find it stimulating and we would be delighted to hear your reflections.
Theology and Action Research Network 