PC3 context-based training
Some ordinands opt for the context-based training pathway. This is open to all ordinands, whatever academic course they are taking.
While all ordinands train in a way that makes connections between their practical experience of mission and ministry, context-based training – or what is known as ‘PC3’ (Participation, Classroom, Context, Community) – allows for deeper immersion in a context and more time dedicated to making the connections between this experience and the learning that takes place in the classroom.
Deepening the connections between experience and learning
All formation takes place in a number of contexts: the contexts of the college community, the parishes where you worship, the place where you live and the context of your own life experience. In addition, training for public ministry involves being exposed to church and social contexts by means of discrete placements.
By making connections between your experience and observations in these placements and your classroom-based learning in college, you are encouraged to develop the dispositions, knowledge and skills that you will need for public ministry.
PC3 Context-based training seeks to deepen these connections through an approach to education for discipleship and ministry that has four key elements:
- Active Participation in ministry and mission
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Active Participation in ministry and mission
You will have regular opportunities in your context attachment to assist in leading worship, preaching and to be involved in other parish activities as agreed between you and the supervisor and college tutor.
- Classroom learning
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Classroom learning
You will be part of a small cohort of context ordinands in your Hub with whom you will learn and reflect together as you meet week by week, share experiences and work together in mission and ministry tasks. You will work alongside and be supervised by the parish incumbent, with guidance from your Context-based tutor.
- Immersion in a Context
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Immersion in a Context
Due to the way the PC3 timetable is organised, PC3 students are able to spend more time gaining ministerial experience in their church attachment context than non-PC3 students, leading to a more immersive experience.
This additional time combined with regular theological reflection with peers means that the experiential learning is constantly attended to embedded, complementing the more formal learning that takes place in other parts of their training.
PC3 students will have up to a day and half plus Sunday mornings engaging in a wide range of ministerial and missional practices, with regular feedback from and reflection with their attachment supervisor (usually the vicar).
- Learning in Community
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Learning in Community
As well as learning with your Hub cohort, you will also belong to the wider cohort of ordinands doing PC3 training, all of whom will be assigned for the whole academic year to a context Hub. Once a week everyone in this wider group meets together with the pathway tutors and sometimes one or more of the pathway supervisors, to worship, to share a meal and to reflect together.
What might emerge from PC3?
As PC3 Context-based learners immerse themselves in the reality of the world and the Church, engage with one another in community, and reflect together on what it means to inhabit the kingdom of God, our prayer is that they become ever more effective catalysts for the transforming power of God in the Church and the world.
Introducing the PC3 Approach: the book
You can buy an introduction to context-based training written by Eeva John, Michael Volland and Robin Barden. It is available online as a paperback or ebook from Grove Books.
Find out more
If you are interested and would like to find out more about the context-based training pathway, we can take time to discuss it with you when you attend an open day, to help you decide if it might be right for you.
Alternatively, please contact our Tutor for Context-based Training, the Revd Andrew Dunlop.
