Allelon - Lowe & Lowe 2010

[Mark Nichols]

I've just finished reading through Lowe & Lowe's (2010) "Allelon:
Reciprocal commands and Christian development", Christian Education
Journal 3(7, 2), 281-298. Great work! It points toward the importance
of reciprocal community as a means of spiritual formation, building on
their previous article "Spiritual formation in theological distance
education: An ecosystems model".

It is work like this that points toward the importance of theological
education taking place within authentic community, which I think is a
valid pointer toward part-time theological study and distance
theological education. Of course, much more can and should be done to
link theological education to church community - so I'm not suggesting
that distance theological education as we currently practice it is
indicative of what might be. I just think that a fresh approach to
distance theological education, one built on distance education's
potential rather than as an extension of on-campus education, might
achieve more than what we might have already experienced or imagined.

I'm curious - what have you seen in distance theological education
that works exceptionally well from a formational perspective?

Mark.