Junk Mail

I get junk mail, often as many as 40 junk mails per day. Some of them are incredibly disgusting just from the little that unavoidable turns up on my screen. I don't open them, I delete them as soon I can, but they just keep coming. I get offer for computer programs, weight loss products and who know what else. Oh yeah we have filters and spam blockers and we have virus controls and who knows what. But junk mail is tenacious and creative. We speak to our IT guy and he assures us that we have everything we need and more so. But they just keep coming.

I wonder if we do the same thing at church only without the innate creativity? Here is a question - how many times a day or week does your congregation need to hear from you? Once a day? Three times per week? There are days, and I am mildly embarrassed to admit this, but we send out as many as 7 - 10 emails a day! Not to specific individuals, but general emails, not just about announcements but prayer requests or special notifications or suddenly this message has to get out or that message has to get out. Pretty soon it becomes evident that we just send junk. Maybe a good rule of thumb is to send no more that two per day. Just two, one for information and one for any prayer concerns that come in. One in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Communication takes planning and forethought. It ought to be creative and engaging. Simple, clear and memorable. It also ought to be current. How far in advance do you give information on an event? If you send something out weekly then probably no more thant 4 weeks ahead - my opinion. too far out and they forget it or ignore it. It just becomes a part of the noise.

Communicating is taking an increasing amount of our attention these days. So I am curious about what you do in terms keeping your church abreast of information, especially emails. How many is too many and often often do you crosss the line?