Proof of concept of what a git approach to theology lesson development could look like.

Across the world, the diverse Christian Church passes on its teachings in a mind-boggling array of contexts. For those charged with teaching, this presents a simple challenge: creating and finding quality educational materials that present concepts with the nuances appropriate for specific theological streams as well as contextualized for the local gathering of learners in a specific time. To meet the challenge, two broad approaches have been:

1. The production of material by experts aimed at large sets of churches. And,
2. The local production of by material by individual churches and teachers.

Both present advantages and liabilities. In the church at large, the former approach produces better quality resources, the latter produces materials that address the specific needs of local learners. The former approach allows wide desemination of resources, but it locates power somewhat in well-financed theological streams while excluding others. The latter allows for a greater diversity of materials with increased theological nuancing, but these are less accessible to other communities. The technological movements of the information age present opportunities to increase the advantages and to mitigate the liabilities of each approach, while offering multiple hybrid models as well. Now there is an opportunity for a new model of development that may yield new advantages—and will inevitibally create new liabilities as well! This opportunity comes from the open source model that has blossomed through software industry over the last few years, and which continues to evolve with new concepts.

The Open Source Model of sofware development utilizes a number of technologies. Several are interesting for curriculum development. Consider not only how each of the following might be useful indepently, or as a part of other models, but also the potential synergy when developers use them all together.

Material released as open source can be used freely by a wide range of users. Coders then see the fruits of their software in new applications, benfiting more users. Curriculum writers would know the joy of seeing their material influence a broader circle of people.

Modern open source development also includes a concept of collaboration that both invites participation while allowing original creators the ability to retain editorial control over their work. Would-be collaborators download a copy (clone) of the "master", and edit the material as desired. When ready, they issue a request to the original creator, who may choose to pull those edits into the master. In some cases, the community engages the change with a discussion, or a user may suggest an issue that needs attention without proposing the fix themselves. Over time, this collaboration corrects mistakes in the orginal, or adds helpful features that extend the functionality of the code.

Imagine how a community of curriculum writers might use such a tool to create highly refined lesson plans and resources! But modern open source development takes this concept even further.

Some collaborators may see in the original work a seed of another project altogether which would accomplish a different set of purposes. The open source model allows for the creation of a new, but related, project—a branch, or fork.

This opens up immense possibilities for curriculum development. Perhaps a course just needs to go in another direction structurally, as with a course of study that might be differently conceived as a track of 10 lessons instead of 16. Or perhaps it could be translated into a different language to be used by a broader audience, or for a different life-stage group. Or, and this is important for theological studies, perhaps the collaborator needs to modifiy it because of the theological differences between their community. In that case, they could create a fork making the changes, and publish it. Users evaluating one project would typically be able to see both versions, weighing which would be better for thie own purposes.

In time, the original creation spawns new editions that are more suitable for other contexts, creating a healthy diversity of materials.

It's not difficult to see many possibilities for using these concepts in the church's life. While I've framed the above in consideration of lesson plans, many other kinds of content could benefit from the same concepts. One can easily imagine a prayerbook created in the same way, prayer exercises for communities, hymns, or perhaps even whole liturgies.

Perhaps eventually, an entire platform for such an endeavor might emerge. For now, I suggest that some of those who have created content for teaching in the church consider "open sourcing" some amount of that content here on github. Consider posting a collection of files, and inviting colleagues to collaborate with you. Perhaps such experimentation can help us move forward into a new creative moment for the church's thinking.