Digital @ Leadership Network

Can you do Pastoral Care online?

Pastor William Vanderbloemen shared an intriguing experience and question on his blog post titled, "Can you do pastoral care over Facebook?":

... I happened upon an interesting question: Can you do pastoral care over Facebook?

We have a family at Cypress Creek Christian Church that has had a terribly long week of cancer surgery and recovery at MD Anderson (affectionately known as “the best place you never want to visit”). I was there to visit and pray with them early on the morning of the surgery, and did a follow-up visit late that night.

The week has moved on, and I’m out of town working on a new (and very exciting) search for FaithSearch Partners.

While in the middle of working, I saw my parishioner was online, on Facebook, while sitting in ICU. We had a brief visit via chat, and a nice interaction.

I left the chat wondering: does this count as pastoral care?

Great question! There are already 23 comments at that blog post, at the time of this writing, including these 2:

1 commenter cautions, "... in a pastoral ministry, while it COULD be helpful/useful/engaging/great, if should NEVER be a full substitute for 1-on-1/face-to-face interaction. Just like MAAAAAAAAANY other things in life – IMing, FBing, Twittering, et al are TOOLS... but NOTHING can ever replace having someone look deep into your eyes... connect with you on a personal level... and hold your hand while they pray for you."

Another commenter adds why social media is preferred over a personal visit, "One thing that has not been mentioned but is extremely valid as a consideration when you are ministering to particularly a cancer patient is the germ factor. ... I really, really did NOT need the additional social pressure to spend time with anyone other than my child and a select few, hand-picked because of their personal ties..."

What I didn't notice (and that may be due to my skimming the comment thread) is how pastoral care is already happening effectively for hundreds exclusively online at churches with internet campuses. Doesn't it count to reach out and touch someone without physically touching?

// DJ CHUANG, Leadership Network

Presentation: Bible in the Digital Space

Mark Brown presented a paper titled The Bible in the Digital Space during the Christianity in the Digital Space Symposium at St. John’s College of Durham University, United Kingdom. Mark is CEO of Bible Society New Zealand and Priest Associate at the Wellington Anglican Cathedral of St Paul. The presentation opens with this:

"Recently appearing in a newspaper in New Zealand was an advert encouraging people to come to church to listen to a preaching series entitled: The Bible: God’s Facebook. Now without knowing what they shared, the title all the same intrigues me. How precisely is the Bible, the grand story of God’s salvation of His people, in anyway similar to a social network site?

... Studies in Australia and the US suggest three main reasons why people avoid church: 1. Its boring and unfulfilling; 2. They don’t have time and prefer to do other things; and 3. They believe that what is shared at church is plain weird.

Grace Davie argues that in Britain the data indicates that believing and belonging have become increasingly separated.While Christian “belonging” has clearly declined, Christian beliefs nonetheless persist."

You can download the presentation at The Bible in the Digital Space [PDF format, via Mark Brown's Brownblog].