Technology Equals Apology
Communication.
There are good days and bad.
Like Sunday. Bad Day.
I needed to fill the Durango up b4 I got to church in the morning.
I leave the house around 5:30 am. Well I woke up at 5:30 am. Which meant the Durango was a beast in the way of timeliness.
I had to make a decision.
Show up late or have Heather drive the Durango.
I chose the latter. So I yanked the car seats out of her car and threw them on the garage floor. I stole her car and raced to church.
I began calling her around 7 am.
7 phone calls and 12 text messages later I thought I had given her sufficient warning that she would need to place the car seats in the Durango and fill it up with gas in order to make it to church.
There were plenty of apologies and promises of pedicures involved with the phone messages. I thought I was covered.
No. She got up. Got the kids dressed. Had barely enough time to make it to church when she stepped outside and saw the chaos that I had left behind.
Her phone was dead.
Needless to say she did not make it to church.
All I had to do was run inside and wake up an angry wife to let her know of the situation. But I chose to use technology. And Technology turned into a whole lot of Apology.
Hence my point.
We can try to use all the technology in the world to convey an idea, but unless someone wants to be touched with it, it is null.
Face to Face communication is the NUMBER ONE and only way of effectively communicating a message to someone. ESPECIALLY if they did not know you were trying to convey something to them in the first place.
So. What do we do in churches? Announcements. Games. Graphics. All effective to a degree. But we have to change with our people. Communicate to them loudly.
And if you are only doing that ONE way then you are way behind and not going to catch up.
Here at Buckhead and NPMI we do it in layers. I would say most of the communication happens by word of mouth.
Then you can use VOICE contact. Not a voicemail. But CONTACT.
Then we use web.
And last but not least we use the service environment.
And I think that Brad and his team do the best job at communicating to a multi campus church I have ever seen. Or a single campus church for that matter.
“Church Workers” think people will never get to church early. I thought that. Not anymore.
May I introduce you to Kelly Lintz and the 10b4. (embedded flash below RSS readers…)
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Me likey!!
We meet in a movie theater down in Valdosta, GA, so this concept seems really intriguing for our environment.
Pass along the kudos! Great work….
-Russ
Really dig the 10 Before idea. Hope you don’t mind if I rip it off.
Sweet – great thoughts on the communication stuff!
Great work on the video by those guys. Nice!
sweet. thanks for sharing a cool idea.
The 10b4 thing is genius!
Los, I’ve been there many many times.
10b4 is awesome, we’re totally going to have to do something like that eventually.
That video is awesome. So well done. I’m loving it.
Oh, and great points above. I know I need to remember…
I AM SOOOO FREAKING ON BOARD WITH THIS!!!!!!!! now if we can just get the legacy people to let loose of their 50 year grip on programming, we’ll be in business.
Been a Helps leader, Pastor, and Associate Pastor for lots of years. Excellent thoughts on face-to-face communication. It’s easy to get stuck behind the pulpit or the email and not look people in the eye. Communication is best when it is seen and heard.