Virtually Yours?

Improving email communication in pastoral care

Margaret Whippmargaret.whipp@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk

“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.