If no one tells them: How will they know?

The words of Romans chapter ten came a knocking on my head in the early hours of this morning:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? 
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? 
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

This passage talks about the means by which the Gospel is preached but (as I keep pointing out) the Church is a communications business: We exist to communicate the Gospel of Christ in Word, deed and (leaving the most important to last) in prayer.

Communication of the Gospel is our raison d'être (which, apparently, as I've just found out) doesn't mean 'the raisin I just ate'): We exist to make Jesus, the Christ, known to all - inside and outside the Church.

Communicating the love of God demands the very best we can can be in terms of lifestyle, integrity and the word (written, spoken and, of course, Living). this means that we need to be using all of the means open to us to ensure that we are reaching those outside our doors and ministering effective to all both inside and out. 

We are called and then, having answered that call, we are sent to make the Christ known so that none are ignorant of who Jesus is or what He achieved for us on the cross and so, having heard, others might be reconciled to God through the Christ.

Communication in evangelism is essential.

BUT (you knew there was going to be a 'But' didn't you?)

Communication in Church (universal) is essential too. But how do you do yours?

Here are a few thoughts on the ways I know:

i. The notices - those service stopping, rhythm-breaking, lists of things you've forgotten before the end of the song that followed it.  I am not a fan of notices because I've noticed that few appear to be noticing them and fewer still make a note of the notices you wanted noted and noticed!!

ii. The news sheet - A piece of paper with everything you might ever want to know about the events, activities and news in and around the church community (and perhaps wider). The problem with this is that unless you make sure the people take them home they are pretty useless and merely destroy trees in the paper (and the paper banknotes) that they use us.

A colleague told me that they use a new sheet and mention the things on it before the service and again at the end (for those with short-term memory loss and those who come in late I suppose). Not only do they emphasise the stuff on the sheet twice but the 'welcomers' (a mythical group of people who live under church floors I think)  also check to see that people leaving have a copy of the sheet in their hands when they leave.

Impressed at the enthusiasm and endeavour I asked what difference their active marketing approach had made to attendance of events on the sheet. The response was, 'None at all, but at least we are trying!'

iii. The church magazine - where I am the magazine finds its way into homes,doctors surgeries and even onto the internet (click on the link and you'll see July's edition). This a great way of getting information into the hands of members and inhabitants of the place you serve BUT (keeps cropping up that word) the offering needs to possess some quality.

Only recently I came across a magazine that was using 'cut and paste' methods in its production. Before you wonder what is so special about that, after all we all cut text and paste in back into the document elsewhere at times, I have to point out that this was proper 'cut and paste'. The editor cut out images and text and then glued them onto a sheet of A4 to form the completed page - once all the pages were done the whole magazine was photocopied onto A5 (landscape) and the magazine was sorted.

I have to be honest and say that I don't miss the wonky text, blurred images and multiple fonts!

If you're going to have a magazine: Please make sure it's the best quality you can afford to have - the church magazine, like eyes, is the window into our very being!

iv. The church web site - Now this is an excellent way of communicating the events, news and message of the church BUT (there it is again) only to those who are switched on and able to browse (and there are a number for whom social media, the web and even texting is still out of reach. Don't assume that everyone is able to receive or review stuff using technical means (after all, I bet people thought Gutenberg and his printing press were cutting edge technology once).

I've covered the web site recently and so all that needs to be said is to remember the C's:

Content - Currency - Cwality

(and speling)

v. Newspapers - Where I am the local newspapers are happy to have copy regarding events and the like. Don't forget this great two-way street (they need news and you need your news to be aired): Develop a good relationship with your local press and you'll do the community and your church a great service. 

vi. Radio - one of the greatest aids to getting our news and message out is by means of the local radio. They are often happy to have someone who will put the God viewpoint on things and will often mention things that are happening in your church (but don't flood them - only send things that are attractive, newsworthy and perhaps a little out of the ordinary).

Again, development of a partnership is a valuable and useful two-way street as you're both looking to serve the communities where you are.

vi. Texting - this is surely one of the best means of informing church members especially about prayer needs and events. We've been using a bulk text message app on our iPhones to keep the prayer group appraised of needs as they emerge for a number of years and it has worked very well. (we use Mass Text Message).

This is a great way to be in people's pockets and it seems to me that people will read, and respond to, a text message where other means don't always do as well.

vii. eMail - you can't forget email as a means of communicating information but - and this applies to text too as I recently sent a message to tell someone I had arrived only to find they got it six hours later - don't assume that because you have emailed or texted something the intended recipient actually got it.

If it's important then telephone is the best belt and braces approach!

viii. Social media - Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Bebo, Linkedin, What's App, Pinterest and much much more besides. Herein lies the means of getting your information out into the world (local and global) BUT (there it is again) please make sure that you don't look needy or blitz the people around you with stuff that is neither helpful or good - well not unless you really want to affirm all those negatives about Christians that far too many people already have that is!
I'm sure I've missed something (but I'm sure someone will tell me).

Pax

When Technology just doesn't help

I have spend the first part of the day so far (150 minutes) telephoning people and having conversations and arranging stuff and it's been sublime (thus far). I've heard happy things, sad things and generally found out so much more than I would have done had I merely engaged in the usual run of the mill email exchanges that have become the norm' in the wonderful world of ministry.

In addition to this I found myself clearing some seventy emails - most of which required a 'Thank You' or 'noted' or 'in the diary' comment to render them 'dealt with'.

When in conversation with people, especially clergy and others whose life is full of engaging with people, the day-to-day reality is that we are finding ourselves shuffling more and more virtual paper and engaging less and less with people in real 'flesh and blood' settings - but this was not always the case.

Talking to a man who was ordained around the same time I was born I heard of the days when the clergy would get on their bike and be out there visiting the people in their patch. There were few telephone calls to be handled and what needed to be done was done with the people when and where the need was (and they had a good idea where and when the needs might arise because they knew their people!). He spoke lovingly of the days when every day was a 'drop-in' and a day to drop-in on those he served and paperwork was a small part of the job and never in the way of being the Vicar the people needed. Rose-tinted glasses? Perhaps - but a more idyllic picture than my mountain of emails, texts and voicemails :-)

The problem is that we appear to be living our lives remotely. People send me an email and assume because they've sent it the job is done and that's whatever it was about is sorted. I had email problems and found that much of what I sent vanished (or worse still, turned up some weeks later - which caused chaos) and so I began to contact people on the really important stuff and it has paid dividends in terms of relationships and local knowledge - and considering I'd rather have a meeting than a message I wonder how much truer this might be for some of my friends and colleagues?

So here's a challenge for me (and you can join in if you like):

1. I'm going to try and telephone five people every day to touch base and see how they are,

2. I'm going to engage with people on a face-to-face basis wherever the need is found, not by mail, message, text or other means that stop me being relational, wherever I can.

3. I'm going to try and cut down the 100+ work emails by better communications practices, and

4. I'm going to engage with people over diary items rather than just click the mail and assume that the link will create (and pass the thing on to all my devices) the event because there's a free slot.

I've had eleven calls out and five in thus far today and it's wonderful.

Tea drunk  and ten-minutes on soapbox away,

Happy Monday

Whatever happened to the 'It's good to talk' culture?

I had one of the most remarkable things that has happened to me for ages occur - someone rang me!

What made it perhaps more remarkable was the fact that they weren't:

i. Seeking to do something clever with PPI refunds, or

ii. Trying to sell me windows, mobile 'phones or any other product!

No, this was someone who was asking me about a communication and, rather than is now it appears the norm' email me, they actually dialled and spoke to me about it. Talk about shock, I nearly had a heart attack on hearing someone I knew call me and really want to engage on a matter of business!

Now I don't know about you but I, wearing the dogcollar, find myself engaged with so many opportunities to pour oil on troubled waters, the majority of which have been caused by people doing one of the following email communication related acts:

Sending an email in Anger
Boy oh boy does this open a rat's nest of angst crises? I'm sure many of us have done it - the flash of anger that results in a email 'putting them straight' only to find that they smouldering wick that lit your touch paper was in fact either mistaken, mischievous or malevolent.

As a policy, I try to contact the person 'voice to voice' for even when the words of an email are right the recipient can't see the raised eyebrow or smile that accompanies them and may be hearing them internally with a completely different tone and that more often than not causes even more trouble!

Another good stance is that of going and getting a brew before responding (verbally or email-wise) as I find that by the time I've come back with the nectar I've found myself diverted away onto more important things or the anger has subsided. But even then, I will go down the 'call them' route first because if you have to say sorry it's better for the other person to hear it and of course there's no written evidence you ever did it ;-)  which is another good reason for telephoning rather than calling:

www.dilbert.com

Assuming that Sending and receiving are one and the same thing
If I had a pound coin for every person who assumes that having sent me an email meant I'd either received, read or comprehended it then I'd have at least a pound today!

The number of people who have complained about double-booking, no shows, confused participants and turning up at the wrong time or in the wrong place wearing the wrong stuff leads me to believe that email is the work of the devil at times. True I can do fifty interesting things before most of the people I know are out of bed thanks to it but sending something is not the same as them receiving it.

Our son sent off an application to a new school (but that's a different story for another day!) and waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and then got a telephone call from a lovely teaching type who apologised that they'd only just got the email as they'd been on holiday and their computer was also down. Now how fair is that? Teachers work extremely hard for little thanks (are you reading Mr. Gove? Of course you're not, there's no pictures!!!) and when holidays come they are most rightly entitled to take them as fully as possible. We all have times when our computers (yes, even Apple products) fail to send or receive (although I'd blame BT for most of this ;-)  ) and so, despite your belief that I have the wretched communication, you're belief is misplaced and wrong.

If something is really important then it's best to belt and braces and make that call to ensure that the other person still has a pulse and that the same song sheet, and tune, are being used.

www.dilbert.com

Silence is ...
Well, it's silence, innit? And this is one of the curses of our email, electronic communications age.

When I started to remove the 3270 dumb terminals from the offices of workers in the finance world all those years back I did so in the belief that I was heralding in a new age of communications. No more would I need to rush to a fax to see something, I could send, and receive, a document without leaving my desk (so where, and why, are you going?).  I would no longer have to describe things, places, meetings and the like in detail - I can now merely grunt and assume you've red the fing wat I have emailled yew in perrfect englisch because I have a spellchecker (one of the apparent curses of predictive 'phone and wordprocessing devises is that we can no longer either spell or punctuate properly).

I have to admit that despite having been at the bleeding edge of technology for as long as it was electrical (with a bit of mechanical thrown in) I am beginning to wonder if we are not subjecting ourselves to a 'cube world' of our own making:

I remember when those around me were looked at with suspicion whenever they left their desks and how, when email became the norm, the plebian masses cheered as they were free to 'chat' electronically. Slowly the sound of voices grew less as they retreated into the heads of the conversants - and we thought this was progress then.

Now I'm sad to say I may have been an agent for change of the wrong kind in that I have help to kill conversation and accelerate the impact of repetitive strain injuries from keyboards and mice!

So here's a heartfelt plea from a cleric who is limited in brain and ability:

If you need to communicate - pick up your 'phone (send a mail with an image if you need to and one with words to confirm the call and the decisions) - talk to someone today, it could change your (or their) life ;-)

I write this having spoken to someone earlier who said I was their first call of the week - everything else had been done electronically.

Now how sad is that?

Pax