Comments on: da big guys

By: ireneQ • unravelled

ireneQ • unravelled — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:16:27 +0000

Writing into silence

Bene Diction once posted about large organisations’ response to email inquiries. Or rather, non-response. In that post, I commented about sending an email to my church through a contact form on their website. I’d just recently decided to start attendin…

By: ireneQ • unravelled

ireneQ • unravelled — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:16:27 +0000

Writing into silence

By: irene

irene — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:17:48 +0000

I was cleaning up my email “sent” folder when I came across an email I’d sent to another church way back in Sept last year. I wrote saying that I had been surfing their website coz I wanted to drop by for Sunday service, and noticed that the sermons had not been updated since Oct 2002. I recommended using blog software to upload sermons, as it would be easy to use and would automatically archive sermons by date as well as topic (category), making it easy for people who wanted to search the database for information. I provided a short list of blogs by pastors so that they could see what this blogging thing was all about, and I told them how I believed posting sermons online could be a valuable resource not only for Christians, but also non-believers who may be exploring the faith or led all unknowingly to the church’s webpage through a search engine.

I never heard back from the church. Since then, only one new sermon has been added to the archive… dated Jan 4 this year.

Someone remind me what’s the purpose of having a church website, again?

By: Swan

Swan — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 16:54:00 +0000

It probably depends on the case. In irene’s case, where she also has direct contact to the church, it’s more likely that change will happen.

You were also asking earlier whether it’s cultural. Yes, it is. It’s common not to answer email, phone messages, mail, when you have a negative answer in the US. (I hate that when doing a job search…). This is one of the cases where we Christians should not go with the culture we live in.

By: Bene Diction

Bene Diction — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 10:00:52 +0000

I am sorry.
I expected there would be experiences like the one you just told in the comments here Michelle.
I don’t know whether I’m angry, frustrated, irritated or sad. All.
Disgusted too.
We do expect it, but I’m not sure we have to accept it. There isn’t much we can do to help these organizations and individuals understand, is there?

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 09:28:06 +0000

My dad (a pastor) has experienced this. He contacted the local head offices of the denomination to find out if he could bring an overseas group out here to hold worship seminars across the country, at their own expense. He wanted to share what he’s learnt and experienced elsewhere, and help the churches here to grow and change positively.

He got absolutely no response.

When he phoned directly after a few months of trying, there was no apology, just a “no”. This from former colleagues who should have had the decency to at least say something in reply!

Unfortunately this kind of reaction is so widespread globally, that we almost expect it.

By: Bene Diction

Bene Diction — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 07:14:08 +0000

I wonder if Protestant - Catholic does figure into the equation somehow? I mean in terms of being established and funding.
We tend to forget the pro-active and notice the silence. Maybe it’s cultural, I honestly don’t know.

By: alicia

alicia — Mon, 31 May 2004 23:40:37 +0000

my experiences in sending email to big christian sites have been the opposite of those cited here. I have emailed EWTN, the center for Catholic bioethics in Boston MA, Envoy magazine (which has a blog, BTW), Priests for Life, One More Soul - and have gotten replies from all of these folks within 2 working days. I have not tried to contact any Protestant sites nor any local parishes or dioceses, though.

By: irene

irene — Mon, 31 May 2004 21:27:17 +0000

Last month I decided to settle down in a particular church. Later, in the course of surfing the church’s website, I found they have a Young Adults Pastor but the website has no mention of any Young Adults Fellowship or any other activities involving young adults.

So I emailed the church, using the feedback form on their website, asking specifically for more information about the young adults ministry. I stated that I’m twenty-six years old and new to the church.

I also enquired about receiving counselling, although I didn’t say for what.

And I left both my email address as well as my mobile phone number so that they would be able to get in touch with me easily.

Guess what? It’s been two weeks and I’ve yet to receive a reply to my email…

By: Mark Vincent

Mark Vincent — Mon, 31 May 2004 18:41:53 +0000

What Bene relates about my experiences with major Christian organizations is absolutely true. I have yet to hear from them… you’d think they’d have had time in 2 weeks to get through their email. Here’s my take:

1) They might have read my email and thought “this guy and/or his project is worthless, and doesn’t deserve mention on our site.” That’s fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and frankly I assumed that the Big Guys wouldn’t have space for even a brief mention… they must get a lot of such requests from lots of readers. In fact, my email asked “if you can’t help out, is there any chance you could recommend a more appropriate method of reaching Christians on the web?”

But couldn’t they have sent a 1-2 sentence reply… something like “We got your email, but we’re sorry we can’t help out. Good luck!” I would have been happy with that. It is disheartening to not get any sort of reply at all.

2) As Bene suggests toward the end of the post, I too suspect that perhaps they have simply not invested enough time/personnel to the issue of corresponding with those who contact them. That is an interesting problem…

Would most pastors be concerned if lots of passersby were stopping and knocking on their church’s door, only to find no answer? I’d think so! If people take the time/effort to physically find their way to a church, we (all Christians) should be receptive and make some effort to receive them. What does it mean to support mission efforts if we don’t at least receive those who come to US?

Isn’t email to a Christian site analogous? I’m not so concerned about myself– I wasnt’ there looking for Christ, just help with a survey — but I *am* concerned about folks who might see those folks at professional Christian websites as a source of spiritual comfort or as a place to find out more information about this Jesus Christ that they’ve read about. What if they feel emboldened on one occasion to reach out and ask about Christ via email, when they ordinarily would be too timid to approach a church or pastor in person?

If that happens only one time, that is too many. I would think that an army of volunteers could ensure that every question at least got a response.

In the WORST case, they could at least set up an automated system that sends out a cheery boilerplate email reply.

The silence is indeed deafening.

Maybe there’s fodder here for a follow up study… perhaps one should systematically document the delay and/or nonresponse rate to such inquiries. That’ll have to wait for another day, I have my plate full with data at present.

Mark