Guidelines for Using E-Mail

E-mail is a wonderful tool for communicating with members of our churches, and the world at large. It provides great opportunities to stay in contact with each other. However, like any tool, it can be misused. Experience has shown that when e-mail is misused, it can cause a great deal of harm and pain.

Here are some guidelines for writing effective e-mail.

1. Be very careful when writing e-mail messages. It is very easy to misinterpret the tone of message, and take something seriously that was meant as a joke or an off-hand comment. Irony and sarcasmn should be avoided - they are often misunderstood. A lot of pain has been caused by such misreadings.. It probably best to only send "serious" items in a message, unless an item is clearly labelled as a joke.
   
   
2. Do not use e-mail to resolve contentious subjects. It is too easy to misstate a position, or misinterpret someone else's position, and generate hard feelings or solidify conflicting opinions. Face-to-face meetings are much more effective. (E-Mail can be good for resolving complex but non-contentious subjects, where people need time to understand and consider the various options.)
   
   
3. Do not forward jokes, chain letters, charity requests, or the like from outside sources. In particular, never forward anything that says something like "please forward this to as many people as possible." No matter how genuine they sound, these are almost always scams, frauds or nuisances. Most people receive many more of these things than they want, and will quickly ask to be removed from your mailing list (or wish they could).
   
   
4. Make sure you are using a good virus checker, on both incoming and outgoing mail.
   
   

There is more to using e-mail effectively than just the content. Here are some guidelines about the management of the tool:

1. Build a congregational mailing list, of people who are willing to receive e-mail messages from the church. Be sure to tell them exactly what the list will be used for, and allow them to choose to be on the list or not. Do not add people to the list without their permission, even if they have provided their address for some other purpose.
   
   
2. Establish policy about what types of messages are to be sent using the mailing lists. This could include, for example, regular bulletin announcements, announcements of special events, etc. Do not send messages that do not fit within the established policy, except after careful review by the appropriate people. As a general rule, "political" messages (however this is defined) should not be sent as official church correspondence, without specific approval of the Official Board, or other appropriate committee.
   
   
3. Several mailing lists, with different purposes, could be maintained - for example, a list of people interested in receiving outreach messages, or prayer lists, or the like. Each list must be kept separately, used only for its intended purpose, and provision made for people to add or remove their names easily.
   
   
4. When sending e-mail messages to a group, always use the "Bcc" ("Blind Carbon Copy" or "Blind Correspondence Copy") field to hold the list of addresses, instead of the "To" field. When this is done, people receive the message, but do not receive the addresses of the other people who also received the message. This in turn prevents your address list from being misused by others. People who give you their addresses expect them to be managed properly and securely.
   
   
5. Minutes of meetings, and other such reports, can be sent to committee members that are able to handle them. Before doing this, you must determine which file format is appropriate. Microsoft Word is often not suitable, because many people do not have this expensive software available on their home computer. More commonly available formats are PDF or HTML, but these may be somewhat harder to create. (Some solutions to this problem are presented here.) Minutes could also be posted on a web site, as an alternate, simpler form of distribution. However, this makes them generally available, not just to committee members. Confidential minutes, such as many of those of the M&P committee, should never be posted in this way, and probably should not be distributed electronically at all.
   
   

If you have any more suggestions that could be added to this list, or ideas for using technology creatively to communicate with your congregation, please send them to .