HDR Candidate: Green, Aziza


Title of Project Approaching digital wisdom: How do Christian ministry leaders understand and apply digital literacies to participate and lead in digital contexts?
Course of Study Doctor of Philosophy
Language of Instruction English
Abstract

In Australian contemporary society, churches and ministry leaders must grapple with rapidly changing technology and its influences. Within the fields of Digital Religion and Digital Theology, academics are exploring questions of how digital technology impacts religious practices and theology, as well as how religion and theology can impact digital practices. We all must navigate the opportunities and challenges of constant connectivity, networked individualism, information overload, misinformation, disinformation, and the emergence of Artificial Generative Intelligence (AGI). The objective of the proposed research project is to understand how Australian Christian ministry leaders understand and apply digital literacies to participate and lead in digital contexts. The study will use a mixed methods research approach, comprised of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. The project will investigate how Christian ministry leaders consume digital media, contribute to digital culture and cultivate spiritual formation in digital contexts. Through triangulation, this interdenominational study will compare and contrast how Christian ministry leaders perceive their own engagement in digital contexts with how laypeople and professional supervisors of ministry leaders perceive the engagement of ministry leaders. The results of this research will provide insights into what gaps may exist in ministry leaders’ knowledge, and what wisdom may be drawn from them. Finally, the study also aims to better understand the correlation/s (if any) between the digital habits and spiritual practices of ministry leaders.