To help me create a scholarly and relevant product that will be useful to people who might want to use the material, I’ve created two personas. One is a retiree using her free time to explore her interests. The second is a faith formation teacher looking for engaging class material.
Name: Maggie Jones
She occasionally volunteers for with her church (retirees volunteer an average of 30min a day- Brandon, “How Retirees Spend Their Time,” U.S. News and World Report.com, 8 July, 2013), like decorating for Christmas. Most of her involvement is going to Sunday services. She considers religion very important (43% of Boomers consider themselves strong members of the faith communities- Cohn and Taylor, “Baby Boomers Approach 65-Glumly,” Pew, 2010) in her life.
Now that she’s retired, she’s taken up learning about things she’s always wanted to, but never had the time for. She’s always wanted to visit the Holy Land, and has been reading up on Church History. One of her Facebook groups posted a link to “Contextualizing Baptism” and she started exploring the website. She enjoys exploring the ancient house church and imagines herself visiting one. She feels connect to other Christians of her community by reading their Baptism experiences (Religious Web Users use the internet to connect with their community- Rainie, CyberFaith, Pew, 2001)
Lauren often surfs the web looking for engaging material for her Bible study group (62% of spiritual leaders use the internet to find educational material- Larson, “Wired Churches, Wired Temples,” Pew, 20 Dec, 2000). The parish provides some materials (44% of churches post online youth material- Larson, “Wired Churches, Wired Temples,” Pew, 20 Dec, 2000), but Lauren wants to bring in more interactive elements to her meetings. She wants something interactive and informative.
Lauren mostly uses her congregation’s page on “Contextualizing Baptism” to discuss Baptism with her study group. They also love the interactive house church and the ruins capture their imagination.