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Virtually Yours? Improving email communication in pastoral care

Virtually Yours? Improving email communication in pastoral care. Margaret Whipp margaret.whipp@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk. “Technology has become the architect of our intimacies” Sherry Turkle. Small scale research. Aims

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Virtually Yours? Improving email communication in pastoral care

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  1. Virtually Yours?Improving email communication in pastoral care Margaret Whipp margaret.whipp@ripon-cuddesdon.ac.uk

  2. “Technology has become the architect of our intimacies” Sherry Turkle

  3. Small scale research Aims • Improving email communication • Themes and virtues for reflective practice Methods • Literature search • Interviews • Focus groups • Email survey • Observing good practice

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. Critical threads • Seeking words of wisdom • Digital culture • Email composition • Pastoral challenges

  7. 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

  8. Critical threads: email composition • Length and brevity • Terms of address • Format and tone • Clarity • Informal language • Ending • Copying and forwarding

  9. Critical threads: pastoral challenges • Stewardship of time • Choice of medium • Email accounts • Digital divides • Managing conflict • Deliberation • Expectations of reply • Safe practice

  10. Digital virtues 1 Mayeroff, Milton. 1990. On Caring.

  11. Gracefully yours... • Humane conversation • Hospitable conversation • Holy conversation Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these emails.....

  12. Core bibliography Bazin, Jean-Nicolas, and JérômeCottin. 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.

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