Texting and Its Use in Pastoral Counseling

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine texting as an appropriate and useful tool when counseling an individual. Texting has been a growing trend in communication, especially among teens. Teens prefer to text over any other form of communication. Almost 90% of teens who have phones text. One study reports that the average number of texts sent per day among teens who own phones is 167 while the median for all users is 60. That is an average of over 5000 texts per month and the median of 1800. There are many situations in which teens prefer texting compared to other modes of communication, especially when addressing an uncomfortable subject. If teens revert to texting for uncomfortable conversations with their own friends, imagine the difficulty when communicating with their pastor. Texting can be used to communicate in a way that the counselee is comfortable. Teens feel comfortable texting and will continue to text throughout their lives so a pastor should be ready to text people of all ages. This thesis will also share some practical advice about how to go about texting in a pastoral counseling situation.