virtually yours? improving email communication in pastoral care margaret whipp...
TRANSCRIPT
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“Technology has become the architect of our intimacies”
Sherry Turkle
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Small scale research
Aims• Improving email communication• Themes and virtues for reflective practice
Methods• Literature search• Interviews• Focus groups• Email survey• Observing good practice
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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
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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
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Critical threads
• Seeking words of wisdom
• Digital culture
• Email composition
• Pastoral challenges
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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
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Critical threads: email composition
• Length and brevity• Terms of address• Format and tone• Clarity • Informal language• Ending• Copying and forwarding
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Critical threads: pastoral challenges
• Stewardship of time• Choice of medium• Email accounts• Digital divides• Managing conflict• Deliberation• Expectations of reply• Safe practice
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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.
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Gracefully yours...
• Humane conversation• Hospitable conversation• Holy conversation
Inasmuch as you didit to the least of theseemails.....
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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.