Testing the Social Media Limits of Pastoral Care
William Vanderbloemen recently posted on his blog about the issue of pastoral care and social networking:
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?
On the one hand, nothing replaces face-to-face interaction…On the other hand, I’m currently six states away, they are in ICU round the clock, where cell phones are prohibited, and Facebook gave me a great way to supplement my care for them given our realities.
He goes on to ask: is using social media in pastoral care acceptable? Is it even valid to call it pastoral care?
I think few would argue that tweets or wall posts should fully replace face-to-face interaction. But few would argue for an outright ban on pastoral social networking. As one of the commenters on William’s post points out, “Can you do pastoral care by telephone? By letter? By email?” The issue is more the intent of the users than the medium they employ.
In some ways, connecting to parishioners through social networking is the next logical step for our increasingly digital lives. It’s not uncommon for a pastor to live in an entirely different neighborhood or community than the people in their church. So, if there’s little opportunity for face-to-face interaction throughout the week, it’s only natural for pastors to find ways to immerse themselves in the virtual communities that their congregation is spending so much time in.
What about you? Do you think that true pastoral care can happen digitally? Should we call it something different entirely?
Pastoral care is about, communication that Jesus care to him
Good communication with people, contact them, keep a relationship with them is so important in pastoral care, I think not only by facebook but by phone, or letter there is pastoral care. I think in some way there are some advantages in this digital era because, you go in at the same time, some houses, every day, various times in the same day, just into the work or houses of your parishioner. This bring to you bigger responsibility
Sergio, thanks for your thoughts!
Thanks for the mention! I’m glad to be included in your postings; – they are respected work.
William Vanderbloemen
Thanks for the intriguing article!
This is such an interesting question. Every aspect of church is being experimented with in digital format. All these force us to consider what are the requirements for the definitions.
For example, does live streaming, interactive worship services on an iPhone with hundreds of others doing the same around the world at same time the same thing as corporate worship in a brick and mortar church building?
What are the fundamental requirements for something to be considered corporate worship?
I agree that almost everyone will agree with the “supplemental” view, but the big question is “replacement”.
Thanks for the food for thought!