Faith Leaders Developing Digital Literacies: Demands and Resources across Career Stages According to Theological Educators

Despite popular framings about skills for 21st-century jobs, there are few studies of how new media literacies unfold in workplaces, nor of how professional education programs can build on adult learners’ previous experiences to foster effective digital communication practices. We argue that seminaries and divinity schools are a particularly rich context in which to explore these questions. Not only do theological education students represent an unusually wide spectrum of ages compared to graduate programs across professional education, but ministry leadership also lends itself to a sociocultural understanding of digital literacy in which past work-related interpersonal skills are likely to be relevant. This paper revisits data from an interview-based study of theological educators that identified seven Digital Literacies for Ministry. In this new analysis, we use a demands-resources model from workplace psychology to explore and interpret how adult students across career stages engage with these literacies, identifying and illustrating from instructor interview data, and from our own interactions with students, strengths and challenges for each age group. The paper concludes with implications for theological education and other areas of media literacy education in professional schools