virtually yours? improving email communication in pastoral care margaret whipp...
TRANSCRIPT
“Technology has become the architect of our intimacies”
Sherry Turkle
Small scale research
Aims• Improving email communication• Themes and virtues for reflective practice
Methods• Literature search• Interviews• Focus groups• Email survey• Observing good practice
Virtual Pastors
• Emerging patterns of missional communication are widely promoted and researched
• Email is widely used in pastoral contexts, but under-researched
• Available guidelines are defensive, relating to safe practice
• Wider lessons may be drawn from similar professional groups
Connectivity and its discontents
Email is a powerful and seductive tool
It is too easy to succumb to the fascination of
technology, to deify it; humanity too easily
finds itself in the service of new gods.
J-N Bazin and J Cottin
Critical threads
• Seeking words of wisdom
• Digital culture
• Email composition
• Pastoral challenges
Critical threads: digital culture
• Accessibility• Screen and body languages• Asynchronicity• Privacy• Permanent record
Any medium has the power of imposing its own assumptions on
the unwary.
Marshall McLuhan
Critical threads: email composition
• Length and brevity• Terms of address• Format and tone• Clarity • Informal language• Ending• Copying and forwarding
Critical threads: pastoral challenges
• Stewardship of time• Choice of medium• Email accounts• Digital divides• Managing conflict• Deliberation• Expectations of reply• Safe practice
Digital virtuesClassic virtues Ingredients of care 1 Digital virtues
Prudence Knowing Media sense
Temperance Alternating rhythms Sustained attention
Fortitude Courage Respect for boundaries
Justice Honesty Congruence in role
Faith Trust; patience Prayerful focus
Hope Hope Creative depth
Charity Humility Consistent courtesy
1 Mayeroff, Milton. 1990. On Caring.
Gracefully yours...
• Humane conversation• Hospitable conversation• Holy conversation
Inasmuch as you didit to the least of theseemails.....
Core bibliography
Bazin, Jean-Nicolas, and Jérôme Cottin. 2004. Virtual Christianity: Potential and challenge for the churches. Geneva: World Council of Churches.
Howe, Mark. 2007. Online Church? First steps towards virtual incarnation. Cambridge: Grove Books.
Mayeroff, Milton. 1990. On Caring. New York: HarperCollins. Original edition, 1971.
Pickell, Travis. 2010. 'Thou Hast Given Me a Body': Theological anthropology and the virtual church. Princeton Theological Review (Fall 2010):67-79.
Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.