It has been a couple years since this happened, so I think I can write about this topic from a clear perspective. Let me paint the picture:
I had been in charge of my church’s website for quite a while, and received a request to post some teaching from discipleship classes to the website. Approval from leadership was not an issue. It was fine with them that these videos be posted, so that our members and potential visitors would be able to view the videos.
My initial response via email was to ask where and how the videos planned to be used. Before I even received this input, I suggested that YouTube could be an alternative from a hosting perspective, and we could embed the videos on specific pages that I would be building.
I instantly got some pretty hurtful emails…
I received a pretty hateful email back that contained lots of all caps and exclamation points. I was told something to the affect of:
95%+ of all the stuff on that UTube (NSFW) is at best worthless from a spiritual perspective. It is primarily a “community” of unbelievers, not believers. A great place for evangelism, maybe – but not for indepth teaching.
Almost immediately, I was being copied on emails with our staff and other members that, even though he realized he’d spelled the domain name wrong, he still found no value in using Youube for these videos. In fact, he was shocked to see some videos from our church that were on YouTube.
To make a long story short, I asked that he stop emailing this big group of people and suggested that we meet to discuss.
A conversation that should have happened in person or via phone was what was needed. Email was only escalating the situation and involving people who had no need to be involved. We got together and discussed and moved on.
So, what did I learn from this? 4 things:
- Communication does not always need to happen via email. In this case, I should have set up a meeting or a phone call to discuss the needs of the situation. Tone and intent can not be read in written word.
- I need to stop ‘programming on the fly.’ Even though this conversation happened via email, I was already trying to resolve the original need before I understood the strategy behind the request. In fact, I really didn’t even know the web knowledge of the person making the request. He didn’t understand and frankly didn’t care about bandwidth issues and streaming capabilities like I was worried. He just wanted them up. However, I should have taken my time to understand the request and be available to answer questions in real-time.
- This may seem like an odd takeaway, but I thought about how the situation could have been better if my fellow brother came to me first with his worry. This situation taught me that I need to be more conscientious of how I react in similar situations. That’s Biblical by the way.
- Last, I realized that I am younger than a lot of the members. I understand what twitter, facebook, foursquare, and youtube are. Others don’t. Education is important. Assumptions are bad for business.
I am sure that I am not the only person who has had something like this happen to them.
Has anything like this happened to you? How was it handled?
In my experience people aren’t usually really against [insert any new web/social media/non-traditional platform here] they are simply scared of it, don’t understand it fully, or sadly…they are just against anything new.
Agreed. I’ve gotten used to this in my day to day job. A lot of what I do is educate. Totally forgot my customer on this one. Lesson learned.
Fortunately, my Dad is the pastor, and he trusts me. He knows I understand all that stuff. BUT! We have gotten a bunch of flack from other preachers about this same situation(YouTube being associated with “heathens”) of which I disagree with their attitude, and their ideas.
I think, no need to tip toe around, and limit ourselves from using a good, reliable service because of association. Plus, I think having a lot of junk on a site like YouTube is more of a reason to post good things, such as ministry related content.
During the whole ordeal, I was offered godtube as an alternative.
haha – yeah – i’ve had similar problems with youtube – teaching on lust and (this was before you could disable related links) – it was bad. – awful memories.
I can only imagine.
Perhaps you’ll help prevent this in my life, I had no idea there were people with this perception. Certainly there is some crap on Youtube, but the lionshare of it is just ridiculously useless, not particularly *bad*.
I can see how people would feel like it’s entering a nightclub in the 1960′s: “ya darned heathens” seems to be the sentence starter
The perception is there. As mentioned, I think I could have avoided the flurry of emails if I had planned a meeting. I was just trying to get the task done instead of preparing for the possible need to educate.
Man that is frustrating. Mainly because you are trying to provide a solution that is cheap and easy to use that gets the job done.
I like the lessons you gleaned from this experience though.
I have had this happen to me several times. Nothing worse then working on something or being excited about a potential project only to have someone find an absolutely ridiculous and obscure problem with it. I like your patience and attitude though that you displayed. Definitely something I can learn from.
Well, I was definitely upset at first. It actually happened on a day where I had a lot of meetings for my ‘real’ job. I wasn’t able to step out and contact anyone which is why the flurry happened.
My experience was with facebook. It was the fear of being associated with persons of I’ll repute. It has taken some time and education but the wall of fear is slowly getting holes in it. I’ve got to remember that the weight the church leadership carries for protecting the church is great and I should be grateful that they take it seriously and err on the side of caution sometimes instead of making rush decisions that can greatly hurt the flock of God. At the same time it is hard not to get frustrated when you see a clear opportunity pass by the church doors. Thanks doe sharing these helpful lessons you learned along the way.
Facebook and Twitter are a whole other beast, aren’t they.
Thanks for the encouragement, Ben.