I am a member of the Bd. of Elders at GS [that's my church. Don't worry, it took me a second, too] and want to encourage you to take advantage of the blessings to worship and commune at GS. Our records show that Linfalas last attended church on 4/5/15 and last communed on 9/14/14. Husband last attended GS on 5/31/15 and last communed on 5/10/15. There may be a mistake in our records but this is what they show.
Both of you know how important it is to stay close to your Savior. He has done great things for all of us and we are forever grateful. Attending church and communing regularly is clearly a way of demonstrating our love and thankfulness and is a fruit of our faith. This Sunday we will celebrate the Lord's Supper at all of our services. Please make an effort to attend Sunday or in the very near future.
May God bless you.
[NAME REDACTED]
Hi [NAME REDACTED],
I think there is a mistake in your records. Husband is a member of the praise team, so he's been very visibly at church at least once a month since May! ;)
Also, I'd like to encourage you to reconsider how you word these emails. I understand that you don't have any information beyond your numbers as to my reasons for not attending, but it is for that very reason that this email seems harsh. If the church is our family, imagine how you would confront a family member from whom you had not heard in some time. I would hope that the response would be, "Are you ok? What is going on with you? Do you need help?" I'm not seeing any of that here. I certainly don't disagree with the sentiments - the ability to worship and commune is both a great blessing and an important part of one's spiritual life. However, if there are personal, logistical, or spiritual reasons for someone to miss church regularly, I would hope that the church's goal would be to get to the bottom of these issues and help their brother or sister in Christ to live their faith life to the fullest, with the support and actual encouragement of their church family.
I have to say, after reading this note, I feel less cared about as an adult person than as a number in the ledger book or an inconsiderate child. It was all terribly perfunctory. "Please make the effort to attend" implies an assumption that a mere lack of real effort underlies my nonattendance, and and it also feels more like an email I would get from a boss who is irritated with me than from a friend who is worried about me. "Attending church and communing regularly is clearly a way of demonstrating our love and thankfulness and is a fruit of our faith," while true, carries a host of implications that I'm sure were unintended - mainly that I am ungrateful for Christ's love and sacrifice and that I don't have much faith. Phrased in this way, the email was not "encouragement" at all. It was a scolding.
As a member of the Board of Elders, I am sure you have many things on your plate other than tracking down wayward members, but in that case, perhaps a phone call from the pastor or even a nice old lady would have been more appropriate. At the very least, I hope you take this as constructive criticism to take a little more time to think these letters through before you send them - even a simple email can be a powerful influence on someone's attitudes toward church and the faith in general. If someone is really struggling for some reason, sometimes having someone reach out in concern can make all the difference.
Thank you,
Linfalas
(This image was NOT included in the email. I tried Really, Really hard to be sweetness and light, and to assume that he wasn't a pompous or insensitive ass. In short, I was trying not to be a dick.)
A few days, later, he called. It woke me up, because I'm back on mole-people hours (thank the Light), and I wasn't up for any real discussion. He basically apologized that I was offended, and that his letter could be misinterpreted so badly. The more I go over the whole thing, the more irritated I am. While I'm sure he didn't mean to be a dick, these are things that He Wrote, and I don't think that I'm misinterpreting them. Sometimes our underlying assumptions and prejudices come through in our communication without us realizing it. That's why I included the middle paragraph. I wasn't going to originally, but I thought some concrete constructive criticism would be more helpful than more generalized offense. He just didn't seem to get it. I guess it was too much to hope he would.
ReplyDeleteHe also mentioned, rather uncomfortably, that he was probably not the person to take any such issues up with. In which case, HE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE ONE SENDING THE EMAIL. He had information that he could have passed on to the pastor or someone who Could have discussed those things with me, but he chose to send a condescending email instead.
I didn't say any of these things. I murmured, "It's fine, thanks for the apology, ok," and went back to sleep. Ah well. Lost cause anyway, probs.