Faith Works 2-10-18

Faith Works 2-10-18

Jeff Gill

 

Wavelengths and bandwidth and transmissions of all sorts

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With our wintry snow days recently, it has been a struggle to keep up with school closings.

 

Along with ministry and preaching, I work across the county in a role that has me in and out of a variety of our many Licking County school districts on weekdays.

 

I've noticed, especially in recent years, that the various school districts each have their own "culture of communication" that's often unique to their area.

 

Some districts have preferred modes of communication that are not the same as how other districts like to do things. There are those that have found the auto-call, robo-phone systems to be their best delivery system for a morning message. They push for parents to sign up with it, and in some of those cases, do not have on their website or any social media platform much of a way to check . . . and in one case I can think of, their closing info is always late to the Newark Advocate system, and no I don't know why.

 

But other districts are first to reach out through media like the Columbus TV stations, the Advocate's closing page, and our local radio stations. Call it old school, but it still reaches quite a few quickly, though these days you have to be very patient to wait out the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

 

And a few, Newark City Schools foremost among them, use social media as a major element of their outreach. Their Twitter is first and fast, with district and school Facebook pages not far behind. Not that they don't get word up on the Advocate and TV and such, but their use of social media tells me they know a plurality of their parents and guardians are connected that way.

 

In church life, pastors often talk about a similar sort of problem, or let's say challenge, in microcosm. We have leaders in churches who like to be called. Period. Phone is best, and they're most likely if not talking to us in person to leave us a voicemail.

 

But others like email. Some use email, but rely on spouses or children to let them know they got one. A few want written notes, in their mailbox slot at the church or left in an envelope on the welcome center for the next time they come through the church building.

 

And quite a few, not just the younger folks, are using Facebook Messenger, whether on their browser from a laptop or on their phones. Many of those also text, and a chunk jump back and forth asking questions or passing along information for the newsletter or bulletin between standard phone text messages and Messenger.

 

Which brings up the situation of many clerics I know, and of which I'll share a circumstance from Wednesday morning's snow event: I sent a couple key people a quick general text, posted on Twitter, my Facebook, and the church Facebook . . . then typed up a more detailed summary of what was (not) going to happen today, clicked "send" for a mass email I'd just edited off that: then 30 seconds after I posted to the church Facebook the text of the email, got a phone texts from two people at the same time asking me about details of closings & postponements. That's not a complaint, it's an observation about the nature of church communications in 2018.

 

When I was first ordained, church communications was a monthly print newsletter you produced on mimeograph and sent for a couple of pennies a copy (print and postage costs altogether), the weekly bulletin calendar, and phone calls on land lines. Maybe a bulletin board you had to manage at the main entrance. That was it. Then phone message machines with little tape cassettes came along, and then . . . BOOM.

 

So be kind to your church staff. And your school administrators! We're now managing multiple lines of communication beyond the imagination even of most current seminary instructors, and the delivery systems and personal preferences, of both young AND old, keeps changing almost monthly. And then there's sermons . . .

 

Oh, and this week, for liturgically minded Christians, Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day are simultaneous. No, I will not be inscribing heart-shaped ash smudges on your foreheads. I'm sure there's a meditation on this confluence that someone else will have to write, but I'd love to see it!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you prefer to hear church news at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.