Writing for the Alban Institute, Carol Howard Merritt says it is time to stop lamenting the fact that clergy and parish leaders have to spend so much time online and acknowledge that electronic communication has become an important means of ministry:
I’ve heard pastors protest, “Are we going to be spending so much time handcuffed to our computers that it keeps us from real ministry?”
Even though it feels like an either/or proposition—as if we must choose to spend time with either our church community or the computer—it is not. When I consider the carefully crafted emails about deep pastoral issues that appear in my inbox in the middle of the night, I know we cannot ignore the radical changes of the last ten years, nor can we disregard the evolutions in the years to come. Time on the computer is real ministry.
Let me acknowledge that, yes, I do mourn the fact that I spend more days in ministry looking at a flat, lifeless computer screen than I do at the beautiful complexities of the faces in my community. I realize how much I am missing. Yet the need to minister in our current reality is more compelling than nostalgia. Moreover, I’ve often been thankful a parishioner had a keyboard and screen to “talk” to late at night. At times the web becomes a needed lifeline for depressed or anxious friends.
How has the digital revolution helped and hindered your work?