Experiencing Religious Information Literacy †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Experiencing Religious Information Literacy. Answer: Introduction The chosen community for the report is Church Community. The community interests me as a you get to meet a lot of people when you are visiting a church. Here people come in with different backgrounds, different cultural history, different taste in music, politics and society. It is a place where a lot of discreet conversations take place which appeal to me. Professionally too there are a lot of ways in which the community can help. The varied topics of discussion often help to get the confidence up when one is working in the office. Often if you know a certain topic you can ideally take part in a discussion in the office too if the topic crops up. Also you get to meet the very cream of society when you are in a church community who can come to help when need be (Warburton 2013). The church community is also important because of the fact that it believes god wants to be with all the people to help them, since it not possible for Him to be with us in angelic form he has sent in friends , a brother or a sister through these communities when one needs help. The modern church community is critical as because it fills a gap only a church can. To fix a car one needs to go to the mechanic, to seek treatment, one visits the hospital. The church provides spiritual fix for people. Now, this is a huge problem in the American church today. To look at it more simply people in the church might offer lip service to the importance of the holy book the Bible, but many do not read it at all. Surveys in America have found out that 82 percent of the people think that God helps those who help themselves is from the Bible, which is incorrect. 12 percent also think that Noah was Joan of Arcs husband, which is quite embarrassing. Now this phenomenon has risen in recent years because of the fast life that people are reading. They do not have time or to do not want to spend the time they get reading the Bible, as they have other pastimes nowadays. In the early 1900s technology was not what it is now. Books were there but often they were very pricy. People therefore read the Bible thoroughly and hand every information on their fingertip (Gunton, Bruce and Stoodley 2012). However, a century forward and life has changed and how. There is accessibility to everything on the intern et when someone is even sitting at home. These are social changes which have impacted people and the reading of the Bible. To minimize such challenges the church community needs to have a few Bible reading sessions whenever possible and invite people over for the reading (Barton and Hamilton 2012). This can be done on Sundays usually when people visit the church with family. Such reading will help in cultivating these values Everything nowadays is hurried and fast paced and we have developed an antsy culture. We can hardly remember what the last show was that we saw on TV or which restaurant we went to dine in last year on my birthday. People nowadays have short attention spans and tend to get bored very easily. This is a huge challenge for the church (Dawson and Cowan 2013). The values relating to tradition, routine, stability which usually defines the church are becoming quite distasteful thanks to the fidgety age. This has happened due to the change in times, earlier people could lend more time and effort on the work that they were committed to doing, such is not the case now. Also with boredom comes the temptation to reinvent the wheel. The boredom challenge often paves the path to rethink about the church every couple of years. These can be addressed if the church community starts off sessions relating to these problems (Frazee 2013). Meditation can be a useful solution in these type of cases as it helps to concentrate more and focus on the things at hand. The Need for Racial Reconciliation The church can be no haven for racism but then also there have been a lot of times when the church communities have let racial wounds fester and prejudice go unnoticed. The church communities in this century should not be neglecting these issues and should work towards justice, reconciliation and healing (McIntosh and McMahan 2012). Communities that embrace, celebrate and embody these realities will obviously thrive, but the ones that do not will eventually falter some day or the other. Racism is a leech that has been passed on from one generation to another. Though a lot of steps are being practiced nowadays to curb it, it has not be totally eradicated (Smith 2012). The only way to deal with it in communities is to make people aware of such the negatives of such a practice and how it can harm society. Desirable Outcomes and goal settings Firstly this goal is about promoting a church which is welcoming, visible and accessible. In the broader sense the community should be such which should warmly welcome people interested in joining them and make them at ease. They should be made to feel connected and should be allowed to converse with other people from the society who is a part of the church community. If it is not done the Biblical illiteracy will be on the rise again. There are people who still think that Joan of Arc was Noahs wife. These should be looked into carefully with a lot of effort. Unless the church is welcoming no new members will visit the community and hence the biblical literacy will suffer. Then the next goal will be to have children and the youth coming to the churches. It is a place where children should be encouraged and brought in so that they get to learn the values of life and keep them in mind when they get into the hustle bustle of everyday life when they grow older. With each passing day people are becoming for mechanical and are not paying attention to little details in life. Like for example if a child is not attending the church he or she will be never know the essence or inculcate the values that have been passed down from generations (Bass 2012). Also the goal should be to encourage adults too to join the community because if the adults join in they will bring their kids also. To increase the number of people from different ethnic background so that there is no point for racism. Racism is one of the biggest challenges the church faces today but that should be curbed whenever there is an opportunity to do so. Racism is harmful and affects the society at large. Needs Assessment Based on the challenges and the communitys goals there are a few community needs which need to be looked into. Firstly one needs to address issues like Biblical illiteracy. It is not good that the modern day generation have forgotten the values and learnings from the holybook, the Bible. The need of the hour is to have sessions in the church community where people can come in and listen to the Bible being read out. If some one wants to read out he or she can definitely be called up and can be asked to do so (Nisbet 2014). This will in turn help people in relating to the Bible and make sure they know what is in it. Or the community members can give away copies of the bibles to kids, who in turn take it home. When adults see that children are bringing the bible home they too will take a keen interest in it (Westerhoff 2012). Secondly, there is a need of making sure that kids and children attend the church community. Actually children start developing values and ideals from that very age (Edgar-Smith, Gill and Palmer 2013). Visiting the church will help them inculcate the values. This can be done by speaking to the parent about the necessity of getting their kids to the church. Thirdly, the fight against racism will only stand when the church community embraces every one from different society and people are not segregated on the basis of skin colour. A community dinner can address the issue where people of different races can join in. Prioritising community needs Firstly, children should be brought in to churches. It should start off at the very outset. Then it will be Biblical literacy teaching people the values of life. Lastly it will be about fighting discrimination and racism in a church community (Parrett and Kang 2013). For the goals to turn into success one should be vocal about the necessary steps that are needed to be taken. People need to be convinced as to why they would follow the goals and told how to achieve them. Conclusion In a church community there is always the need for Biblical literacy, Children and youngsters being encouraged to attend the church and Racism should be eradicated. Hence to achieve those the above mentioned steps need to be taken. References Barton, D. and Hamilton, M., 2012. Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community. Routledge. Bass, D.B., 2012. Christianity After Religion. San Francisco. Dawson, L.L. and Cowan, D.E. eds., 2013. Religion online: Finding faith on the Internet. Routledge. Edgar-Smith, S., Gill, J. and Palmer, R.B., 2013. Bringing youth with special needs into the church community: A practical guide. Journal of Youth Ministry, 11(2), pp.57-72. Frazee, R., 2013. The Connecting Church 2.0: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community. Zondervan. Gunton, L., Bruce, C. and Stoodley, I., 2012. Experiencing religious information literacy: Informed learning in church communities. The Australian Library Journal, 61(2), pp.119-132. McIntosh, G. and McMahan, A., 2012. Being the church in a multi-ethnic community: Why it matters and how it works. Wesleyan Publishing House. Nisbet, R., 2014. The quest for community. Open Road Media. Parrett, G.A. and Kang, S.S., 2013. Teaching the faith, forming the faithful: A biblical vision for education in the church. InterVarsity Press. Smith, E., 2012. The post-black and post-white church: Becoming the beloved community in a multi-ethnic world (Vol. 59). John Wiley Sons. Warburton, D., 2013. Community and sustainable development: participation in the future. Routledge. Westerhoff, J.H., 2012. Will our children have faith?. Church Publishing, Inc.