I recently read the book, "Tweet if You Heart Jesus," by Elizabeth Drescher, as an assignment for a class entitled "The Gospel and Global Media." This class was by far my favorite, most useful, and informative class in the DMin program at McCormick Theological Seminary (and I only took it "by accident!" I had to sign up for it because I dropped an earlier class due to many pastoral needs in my congregation).
In Tweet if You Heart Jesus," I was challenged by the way that the author suggests that we pastors can offer pastoral care and biblical/theological/spiritual teaching and faith formation through digital media. Up until this point, I had seen the digital media (namely e-mail and facebook) as public relations tools. I have (and still do) update the church facebook to alert the congregation to special programs and activities coming in the future, and I have created a list in my e-mail account through which I can e-mail every member with an e-mail address. But the messages on the page and the e-mail had been 90% program-based, coming from my role as a "program director." But, the challenge in "Click to Save," is that the messages can (and should be) spiritually based. The author compared a tweet to the "word" that was sought when a person of faith came to visit the desert mothers and fathers in the Fourth Century CE. When a faithful seeker would come to receive wisdom from an Abba or Amma of the desert, the wise would convey a short sentence, not a long diatribe. Within that sentence would contain the fodder for hours upon hours of prayer and discernment. The challenge of the author is for the pastor to offer a "word" through a tweet or a facebook status, or even an e-mail written to parishioners. This section has challenged me to begin the day with a scriptural or theological message on the church facebook, offer a line or two of an upcoming sermon (asking for responses), or to share a faith-challenge through e-mail, facebook, and twitter. Faith formation does not only happen in the pulpit or in the classroom; the world of digital media has become the place where we are growing in so many ways, why not in our faith?
And beyond the "word" offered, Drescher suggests that pastoral care happens in the "world" of digital media. The pastor becomes privy to the teenager who has recently broken up with his girlfriend, a member who has lost her mother, and a friend of the congregation who is frustrated and in despair through a failed job search. While the pastor may encounter the information in a blog, a facebook status, or a tweet, she has the opportunity to follow-up with this information when next they meet in church or in another setting. The Pastor may also choose to make a phone call, text, or e-mail to offer words of encouragement. This broadens and makes for more creative and connective ways to do pastoral care.
In response to my reading this section of "Tweet if You Heart Jesus," I have become more aware of my parishioners' statuses in facebook, and I have been more prone to respond in a comment or personal message in response. I have heard myself begin a conversation, saying, "I noticed on facebook that you were struggling with...," or "I was so excited to see on facebook that...," or "I was wondering if you were OK when I saw on facebook that..."
I am convinced that digital media is not merely a public relations tool, and in my ministry, I will begin to use it in a more wholistic way.
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