One of the elements of tentmaking is wielding technology without being enslaved to it. On the one hand, you have some people who claim, “Thumbs rule!” and they would prefer to tweet their term papers in 140-character bites if they could. Other people claim, “If email was good enough for Jesus to write the Gospels, it’s good enough for me.”
I’m not in the Thumbs-Rule camp and I know that Jesus didn’t write the Gospels, so let me give you a helpful rule of thumb: Information by email; Emotion by voice; Chatter by all the rest.
First, email is a great tool. It allows us to communicate a lot of of important information almost instantaneously. Even so, it’s not perfect and sometimes email is delayed or messages are lost, but it’s better than the Pony Express.
Email is unfit, disqualified, inappropriate, unnecessary and terrible for communicating emotions. I’ve learned this through painful trial and error. If you are upset with someone or you think they might be upset with you, pick up the phone and call, or, better yet, video conference. You might even consider (“Curse the thought!”) meeting in person. Tentmakers live at a distance and they are acutely susceptible to needless harm by explaining “what I really meant” by email. Emotion by email is a recipe for disaster and your relationships are too important.
Along with that, don’t communicate good news by email either. Give people the joy of hearing your voice when you have something good to say. Stacks of emojis at the end of sentences just don’t cut it.
Lastly, Twitter tweets are called tweets for a reason. They’re really just chatter. Even thoughtful, punchy quotations are still just chatter. Whether you use Whatsapp, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, SMS, Instagram, IRC, Signal, Hangouts, Skype Messaging or Twitter, it’s still just chatter. Be gracious if you don’t get an instant response. After all, you chose digital chatter over talking with a real, live human being.
